Thischange was intimately tied to the precarious state ofexistence of the romantic poets and men of letters.

take full measure of relevant historical andsociocultural developments and their impact on con-temporary conceptions regarding the nature of creativeindividuals and the creative process as they pertain todifferent areas of artistic and intellectual endeavors.Whatever the connection regarding heredity, creativeendeavor, and mental stability, social definitions in theform of role models must become an integral part ofthe debate

redefinitions ofthe nature of genius. In the way that contemporary scien-tists, accountants, and engineers are expected to displayattributes of objectivity, reason, and emotional stability,for poets, writers, and artists the expectations involvemanifestations of intuitiveness, a fanciful imagination,sensitivity, temperament, and emotional expressive-ness, in short, a manifestation of a kind of madness. It isnot at all unreasonable to assume that to the extent thatthese expectations continue to be part of a professionalideology of what it means to be truly creative, even con-temporary writers and artists, far from disavowing thelabel of madness, may actually invite it.

played an integralpart in the past in the determination of the genius as clini-cally afflicted. This tendency to take the gifted at theirword regarding their own condition also applies to con-temporary examinations of the iss

essentially reliable descriptions of mental ill-ness is that it tends to overlook one critical fact: Thesepronouncements on the part of the creative individualsmay involve self-serving descriptions and projectionsof images that were made in the context of cultural as-sumptions often quite different from those of contem-porary society. In

whose people might otherwise fail to understand what the opera wassatirizing

Wilde was not a fraud: he was fascinated by beauty from classicism toKeats, he correlated reform in dress and house decoration with beauty and respect inhuman relations, and he saw philistinism as tyranny in taste and politics.

hear, "I love you and I want to always have you back. That's why I need to know why you're illing like this because it hurts me. And it's impossible for me truly to have you back when you're hurting

The seemingly impenetrable wall of sexism and machismo in rap music is really the mask worn both to hide and to express the pain. Hip hop is the only forum in which young black men, no matter how surreptitiously, are allowed to express their pain at all

Shakur and speculated that the pair most likely celebratedtheir birthdays together.

love Shakespeare. He wrote some ofthe rawest stories, man. I mean look atRomeoand Juliet. That’s some serious ghetto shit.

Makaveli” fromRenaissanceItalian philosopher and strategistNiccolòMachiavelli, whose writings inspired Shakur in prison,but who also preached that a leader could eliminate hisenemies by all means necessary.

It wascertified5× Platinum after just 2 months in April 1996 and 9×platinum in 1998

His motherAfeni Shakur(born Alice Faye Williams inNorth Carolina) and his father Billy Garland were ac-tive members of theBlack Panther Partyin New Yorkin the late 1960s and early 1970s

Shakur’s political and social views

Dorian Gray was passing through the same experience.27 He had merely shot an arrow into the air.28 Had it hit the mark? How fascinating the lad was

The thing was still loathsome

Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood,—his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it.148 He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption, and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him

I can’t bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest the most serious tragedie

Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew seemed to have an extraordinary likeness to Basil Hallward

Hallward moved in his chair as if he was going to rise. He rushed at him, and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man’s head down on the table, and stabbing again and agai

I don’t wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don’t interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.

he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not been tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already suspected it.

es, there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new hedonism that was to re-create life, and to save it from that harsh, uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival

The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them

89 with Lord Henry for having sent him the account. And it was certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew more than enough English for that. Perhaps he had read it, and had begun to suspect something. And, yet, what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane’s death? There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her.

You know what I mean,—middle-class virtue, and all that kind of thing.

Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who used to come down to my studio, day after day, to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don’t know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry’s influence. I see that

Yes, life had decided that for him,—life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins,—he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all

She would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her

You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all awa

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life

The sky above was like a faded rose. He thought of Dorian Gray’s young fiery-colored life, and wondered how it was all going to end

My dear boy, no woman is a genius: women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. They represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as we men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the sou

we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it,—much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me

predatory power, controlling the entire meeting

fantasy

By writing the letter, she is able to play the part of the mysterious, all-controlling 'Echo', and in a sense become the Byronic hero in her 'relationship' with Byron

there is still a strong element of fancifulness in her letter

fantasy relationship

desire

Echo

hed he in his native land to dwell, 35 Which seemed to him more lone than Eremite’s sad cell.

hom he loved, but sa

d to many though he loved but one,52 And that loved one, alas! could n’er be his. 40 Ah, happy she! to ’scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign

bisexuality

Byron arrived in Pisa in November 1821, having followed Teresa and the Counts Gamba there after the latter had beenexpelled from Ravenna for taking part in an abortive uprising. He left his daughter Allegra, who had been sent to him by hermother, to be educated in a convent near Ravenna,