ENJOYING PEOPLE'S HISTORY MUSEUM & HAWKSMOOR

Today, The Stones have visited the People's History Museum in Manchester.

José Stone was very interested in this visit because he is a great supporter of trade unions. The family has discovered the history of Manchester focused in the labour successes of its citizens.

The People's History Museum, the National Museum of Labour History until 2001, in Manchester, England, is the UK's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people in the UK.

It is located in a grade II-listed, former hydraulic pumping station on the corner of the Bridge Street and Water Street designed by Manchester Corporation City Architect, Henry Price.

The museum tells the story of the history of in Great Britain and about people's lives at home, work and leisure over the last 200 years. The collection contains printed material, physical objects and photographs of people at work, rest and play.

Some of the topics covered include popular radicalism, the Peterloo Massacre, 19th century trade unionism, the women's suffrage movement, dockers, the cooperative movement, the 1945 general election, and football. It also includes material relating to friendly societies, the welfare movement and advances in the lives of working people.

The Trade Union, Labour and Co-operative History Society operated a collection at Limehouse Town Hall between 1975 and 1986. The museum moved to Manchester and re-opened in 1990 at the Grade II* listed former Mechanics' Institute at 103 Princess Street.

In 1994, the museum opened the Pump House People's History Museum containing a public gallery at the present site on Bridge Street. The two sites were renamed the People's History Museum (PHM) in 2001.

More information: People's History Museum Manchester

The Bridge Street site closed for a £12.5m redevelopment in October 2007. The redevelopment included the refurbishment of the existing Pump House and the construction of a four-storey extension alongside it. A glass walk way was constructed to link the two buildings. The museum reopened on 13 February 2010.

The People's History Museum holds one of the largest collections of political material in Britain, beginning with the early 19th century.

It focuses on the history of democracy with objects relating to the right to vote making up a large part of the objects on display. The collection includes 2,000 posters focused on elections and political campaigns, 300 political cartoons, 7,000 trade union badges and tokens, as well as 95,000 photographs. With over 400 trade union and political banners, People's History Museum holds the largest banner collection in the world and visitors to the museum can see banners being conserved in Main Gallery Two in the Textile Conservation studio.

The museum actively collects contemporary material. Through projects such as Play Your Part, the museum makes the historic collections relevant to present day issues.

PHM also houses the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, an important archive of material relating to the history of working people in Britain. Its collections include the archives of the Labour Party, the former Communist Party of Great Britain, the co-operative movement and the Department for Work and Pensions. It also contains documents relating to Chartism, general elections, the First World War, women's suffrage and the 1984–1985 miners' strike.

More information: Visit Manchester

There's people coming in who've never done any politics at all, who've never been in a trade union, they've never been in a political party, they've never done anything, but they do feel a kind of urgency.

Susan George

 

After visiting the Museum, the family has dinner in one of the most prestigious and expensive restaurants of the city, Hawksmoor. Ivan Stone has chosen this restaurant because of its great fame, especially its steaks and its bakery.

More information: Hawksmoor Manchester

 I'm a leader at the restaurant. If I do this, the people at the restaurant will try to do better. I believe in that, and that's the way it is.

Salt Bae

CITY OF MANCHESTER STADIUM, YOLANDA STONE & PEP

THIS MORNING, The Stones have been invited by Pep Guardiola to visit the City of Manchester Stadium.

Yolanda is his greatest fan and follower and Pep has has a wonderful present for her and her family, being the guide during their visit into the Stadium, introducing them the Manchester City players and inviting the family to assist to the training season and to the next match, next Monday versus the Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club in the Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.

Yolanda is astonished and she has written some words in her personal diary. Here we have...

The Stones family prepares a great trip, with The Grandma, full of adventures across Manchester-Hawaii and Buenos Aires this September.

Yesterday, we landed at Manchester Airport. It is a great airport sited in Ringway, 13 km from the centre of the city of Manchester.

Firstly, Manchester is a city usually known by football, and that's why we will visit the Manchester City's Stadium and we will watch the match between Manchester CIty and Wolves. We start! Let's go!

Once there, the hostesses have offered us a welcome cocktail in the VIP zone named 'Aspire Longe', while we were waiting a limousine to go to have lunch in the Catalan food restaurant 'Tast'. The cook is Paco Pérez. He has five Michelin stars and food is very good.

We were eating when Pep Guardiola has appeared. He is the owner of this restaurant and he has said to us: 'You should go to watch the next match between Manchester City and Wolves in Wolverhampton next Mondat at 20:15. I invite you. You are going to be my special guests'.

Yolanda is very happy with this invitation and the rest of the family is going to change their plans to adapt them to this new visit. They know it is a special moment for her and they want to make her happy.

More information: Manchester City FC

 I am grateful to be here, and I will always be grateful for the opportunity Manchester City gave me.

Pep Guardiola

 

THIS EVENING, the family has been to the Manchester Museum. It has been a private visit and they have been alone only accompanied by the Museum guides. David Stone, who is a great sculptor, was very interested in this visit and he has contemplated some of the most beautiful and spectacular creations sited in this amazing museum.

Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England.

Sited on Oxford Road (A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about 4.5 million items from every continent. It is the UK's largest university museum and serves both as a major visitor attraction and as a resource for academic research and teaching. It has around 430,000 visitors each year.

The museum's first collections were assembled by the Manchester Society of Natural History formed in 1821 with the purchase of the collection of John Leigh Philips.

The society established a museum in Peter Street, Manchester, on a site later occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association, in 1835.

In 1850 the collections of the Manchester Geological Society (founded 1838) were added. By the 1860s both societies encountered financial difficulties and, on the advice of the evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley, Owens College (now the University of Manchester) accepted responsibility for the collections in 1867. The museum in Peter Street was sold in 1875 after Owens College moved to new buildings in Oxford Street.

The college commissioned Alfred Waterhouse, architect of London's Natural History Museum, to design a museum to house the collections for the benefit of students and the public on a site in Oxford Road (then Oxford Street).

The Manchester Museum was opened to the public in 1888. At the time, the scientific departments of the college were immediately adjacent, and students entered the galleries from their teaching rooms in the Beyer Building.

Two subsequent extensions mirror the development of its collections. The 1912 pavilion was largely funded by Jesse Haworth, a textile merchant, to house the archaeological and Egyptological collections acquired through excavations he had supported. The 1927 extension was built to house the ethnographic collections. 

The Gothic Revival street frontage which continues to the Whitworth Hall has been ingeniously integrated by three generations of the Waterhouse family. When the adjacent University Dental Hospital of Manchester moved to a new site, its old building was used for teaching and subsequently occupied by the museum.

The museum is one of the University of Manchester's cultural assets, along with the Whitworth Art Gallery, John Rylands Library, Jodrell Bank visitor centre and others.

More information: Manchester Museum

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

Steven Wright

ART GALLERIES, LIBRARIES & STEAK AND KIDNEY PIES

Today, The Stones and The Grandma have started to visit Manchester. They have decided to visit some specific places and they have talked about which of them and when.

IN THE MORNING, the family has visited the John Rylands Library.

Daniel Stone was very interested in this place because he loves old music books and ancient scores. This visit has been a great opportunity to contemplate some of them. The library is an amazing and wonderful place.

The John Rylands Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England.

The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands.

The John Rylands Library and the library of the University of Manchester merged in July 1972 into the John Rylands University Library of Manchester; today it is part of The University of Manchester Library.

Special collections built up by both libraries were progressively concentrated in the Deansgate building. The special collections, believed to be among the largest in the United Kingdom, include medieval illuminated manuscripts and examples of early European printing, including a Gutenberg Bible, the second largest collection of printing by William Caxton, and the most extensive collection of the editions of the Aldine Press of Venice.

The Rylands Library Papyrus P52 has a claim to be the earliest extant New Testament text. The library holds personal papers and letters of notable figures, among them Elizabeth Gaskell and John Dalton.

The architectural style is primarily neo-Gothic with elements of Arts and Crafts Movement in the ornate and imposing gatehouse facing Deansgate which dominates the surrounding streetscape. The library, granted Grade I listed status in 1994, is maintained by the University of Manchester and open for library readers and visitors.

Enriqueta Rylands purchased a site on Deansgate for her memorial library in 1889 and commissioned a design from architect Basil Champneys. Rylands commissioned the Manchester academic Alice Cooke to index the vast library of the 2nd Earl Spencer which she had purchased and another collection of autographs.

Mrs Rylands intended the library to be principally theological, and the building, which is a fine example of Victorian Gothic, has the appearance of a church, although the concept was of an Oxford college library on a larger scale. Champneys presented plans to Mrs Rylands within a week of gaining the commission. Thereafter frequent disagreements arose and Mrs Rylands selected decorative elements, window glass and statues against his wishes.

By the nineteenth century Manchester was a prosperous industrial town and the demands of cotton manufacturing stimulated the growth of engineering and chemical industries.

More information: John Rylands Library

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

IN THE AFTERNOON, The Stones have lunched in one of the most popular places of the city, Mr Thomas's Chop House, a wonderful place to eat and drink the best specialities of the city.

Juan Stone has insisted in tasting good expensive wine and steak and kidney pie, a typical local dish. Juan is a synesthesic person and he transforms everything in art using the wonderful world of senses.

Mr Thomas's Chop House is a grade II listed building which first opened as a public house in 1870.

It's cast iron frame building and terracotta block displaying Art Nouveau motifs is a local institution in Manchester and one of the jewels in Manchester's crown. The managers and staff are committed to keeping Mr Thomas's at the forefront of Manchester life with fine food, fine wines, good beer and great company.

Steak and kidney pie is a representative dish of British cuisine. Steak and kidney pie is a savoury pie that is filled principally with a mixture of diced beef, diced kidney (often of beef, lamb, or pork), fried onion, and brown gravy.

The gravy typically consists of salted beef broth flavoured with Worcestershire sauce and black pepper, and thickened with refined flour, beurre manié, or corn starch. The gravy may also contain ale or stout. Hot water crust pastry, puff pastry, and shortcrust pastry are among the pastry crusts prepared for steak and kidney pie.

Among the various vernacular rhyming slang names for steak and kidney pie are Kate and Sidney pie, snake and kiddy pie, and snake and pygmy pie.

More information: BBC

Oh, don’t poo poo a nickle, Lisa. A nickle will buy you a steak and kidney pie,a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake, and a newsreel,with enough change left over to ride the trolleyfrom Battery Park to the Polo Grounds.

C.M. Burns

IN THE EVENING, the family has visited the Whitworth Art Gallery, a beautiful cultural place that belongs to the University of Manchester.

Mireia Stone, who is a fan of modern art, has been very happy with this visit and has become the best guide for the rest of the family. She has been very interested in the last Lego art pieces.

The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing about 55,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester.

In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transformed by a £15 million capital redevelopment that doubled its exhibition spaces, restored period features and opened itself up to its surrounding park. The gallery received more than 440,000 visitors in its first year and was awarded the Art Fund's Museum of the Year prize in 2015.

The gallery was founded in 1889 by Robert Dukinfield Darbishire with a donation from Sir Joseph Whitworth, as The Whitworth Institute and Park. The first building was completed in 1908. In 1958 the gallery became part of the University of Manchester.

In October 1995 the mezzanine court in the centre of the building was opened. The new gallery, designed chiefly for the display of sculpture, won a RIBA regional award.

In 2010 the art gallery received 172,000 visitors, making it one of Greater Manchester's ten most-visited tourist attractions.

In February 2015, the Whitworth reopened after a £15 million capital redevelopment and received over 440,000 visitors in its first reopening year. It was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize and won the Art Fund's Museum of the Year in 2015.

The Whitworth has notable collections of watercolours, sculptures, wallpapers and textiles.

The gallery focuses on modern artists, and the art collections include works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ford Madox Brown, Eduardo Paolozzi, Francis Bacon, William Blake, David Hockney, L. S. Lowry, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, and a fine collection of works by J. M. W. Turner. One of its most famous works is the marble sculpture Genesis (1929–31) by Sir Jacob Epstein. It also houses the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection.

More information: Whitworth Art Gallery

Art is inspiring. Walking into a gallery, or when the lights go up on a stage; that thrill of getting something that has nothing to do with acquisition.

 Sadie Jones

MANCHESTER, COTTON PROCESSING & MANUFACTURING

MANCHESTER is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England.

It has a population of 547,627 as of 2018. It lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.5 million and third-most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 3.3 million.

It is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority for the city is Manchester City Council.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. Although historically and traditionally a part of Lancashire, areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century.

The city is notable for its architecture, culture, musical exports, media links, scientific and engineering output, social impact, sports clubs and transport connections.

Manchester is a city of notable firsts. Manchester Liverpool Road railway station was the world's first inter-city passenger railway station and the oldest remaining railway station.

The city has also excelled in scientific and engineering advancement, as it was at The University of Manchester, in 1917, that scientist Ernest Rutherford first split the atom. The university's further achievements include Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill who developed and built the world's first stored-program computer in 1948; and, in 2004, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov successfully isolated and characterised the first graphene.

More information: Manchester City Council

The name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunio and the citizens are still referred to as Mancunians. These names are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name.

Manchester's history is concerned with textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.

The great majority of cotton spinning took place in the towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing.

Manchester became known as the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods and was dubbed Cottonopolis and Warehouse City during the Victorian era.

In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term manchester is still used for household linen: sheets, pillow cases or towels. The industrial revolution brought about huge change in Manchester and was key to the increase in Manchester's population.

Manchester began expanding at an astonishing rate around the turn of the 19th century as people flocked to the city for work from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other areas of England as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution. It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world.

Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance.

More information: The University of Manchester

The Stones have started their long trip flying from Barcelona to Manchester, the first stop. They have left the El Prat Barcelona Airport this afternoon and they have just arrived to Manchester.

The Grandma has rented an enormous mansion to spend these days. She is afraid with the current COVID situation and she trusts more in a private residence than in a hotel.

The family has arrived to the mansion with enough time to leave their baggage and go out to have dinner in one of the most popular places of the city. They have been preparing this trip carefully and they want to enjoy this amazing city, MANCHESTER.

 More information: Visit Manchester

What Manchester does today, the world does tomorrow.

Roy Walters

'THE CANTERVILLE GHOST', A CRITICISM OF A WAY OF LIFE

Old memories of Sant Boi

Today, The Stones and The Grandma have continued with their English classes.

Firstly, they have learnt how to create question tags using Present Simple and where and how to use the Adverbs of Frequency. They have also reviewed modal verbs with Should and Shouldn't.

Next, they have started to read The Canterville Ghost, an amazing short story written by Oscar Wilde that represents a great criticism of the American way of life during the last decades of the 19th C. Ghost stories are anything but a contemporary phenomenon. They have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries, either orally or through the written word.

Later, The Grandma has been talking about the importance of trade and commerce in Sant Boi along the history and its connections with Occitan merchants, especially when Sant Boi was opened to the sea and the Llobregat River was navigable. Nowadays, the influence of these cultural ties is seen in the names of the streets (Alou, Raurich...) in the architecture and with the recognition of great figures in the history of the city. Names like the Santboian Baldiri Aleu, the founder of U.E. Santboiana, the local rugby team, or Frederic Mistral, the Occitan poet and a great admirer of the city, are two good examples.

Finally, with the arrival of the last of the members of the family, they have returned to their normal life, then travelling, enjoying and learning more English. They have decided to prepare a new travel, a long travel with different stops: Manchester-Hawaii-Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego to start.

Prepare your baggage Stones. We are going to enjoy together of this new experience. Next stop: Manchester.

More info: Adverbs of Frequency, Question Tags & Should/Shouldn't

More information: Writeexpress

A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them.

The ghost may appear of its own accord or be summoned by magic. Linked to the ghost is the idea of hauntings, where a supernatural entity is tied to a place, object or person. Ghost stories are commonly examples of ghostlore.

Colloquially, the term ghost story can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has been developed as a short story format, within genre fiction. It is a form of supernatural fiction and specifically of weird fiction, and is often a horror story.

While ghost stories are often explicitly meant to be scary, they have been written to serve all sorts of purposes, from comedy to morality tales. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or prophets of things to come. Belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form.

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

What we understand as a ghost today has its roots in the myths and beliefs of ancient cultures.

Ghosts were and sometimes still are believed to be the spirit of a person that exists after the body has died.

It is because of these beliefs that funeral rituals initially took place and were practised as a passage of rights to the next world, a way to say goodbye, and to prevent the spirit from remaining on Earth and haunting the living.

Further to this, the existence of ghosts is believed because of the human experience of feeling haunted or being in the presence of a spirit. This can range from hearing, seeing or other unexplainable spooky happenings.

More information: Arapahoe Libraries

The Canterville Ghost is a humorous short story by Oscar Wilde. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in two parts in The Court and Society Review, 23 February and 2 March 1887.

The story is about an American family who move to a castle haunted by the ghost of a dead English nobleman, who killed his wife and was then walled in and starved to death by his wife's brothers. It has been adapted for the stage and screen several times.

The home of the Canterville Ghost was the ancient Canterville Chase, which has all the accoutrements of a traditional haunted house. Descriptions of the wainscoting, the library panelled in black oak, and the armour in the hallway characterise the setting.

Wilde mixes the macabre with comedy, juxtaposing devices from traditional English ghost stories such as creaking floorboards, clanking chains, and ancient prophecies.

More information: BBC & The New York Times

We have really everything in common with America nowadays,
except, of course, language.

Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

OSCAR FINGAL O'FLAHERTIE WILLS WILDE, THE IDENTITY

Oscar Wilde

Today, The Grandma and The Stones have continued studying English Grammar. It is their first week together after the confinement and they must start step by step to not collapse.

They have been talking about the Present Simple and the Prepositions of Time and they have practised how to write compositions using connectors and paying attention about how many information they want to express.

Finally, The Grandma has talked about the importance of agriculture for European communities along our history with three little stories about Malta and Comino Islands, Sant Boi de Llobregat sites and the Irish Potato Famine. These stories have been a good introduction to talk about Oscar Wilde, one of her favourite writers and, in her opinion, one of the most incredible writers of Universal Literature.

More information: Present Simple & Prepositions of Time

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854-30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright.

After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, the early 1890s saw him become one of the most popular playwrights in London. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts, imprisonment, and early death at age 46.

Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.

As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new English Renaissance in Art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day.

At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).

The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote Salome (1891) in French while in Paris but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Unperturbed, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.

More information: The Paris Review

At the height of his fame and success, while The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with men. 

After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897.

During his last year in prison, he wrote De Profundis, published posthumously in 1905, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure.

On his release, he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900. Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred and transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, inside the city. His tomb there was designed by Sir Jacob Epstein. It was commissioned by Robert Ross, who asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes, which were duly transferred in 1950.

In 2017, Wilde was among an estimated 50,000 men who were pardoned for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offences under the Policing and Crime Act 2017, homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967. The 2017 Act implements what is known informally as the Alan Turing law.

Download The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

 

No great artist ever sees things as they really are.

If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Oscar Wilde

'AS WE WERE SAYING YESTERDAY...", THE STONES RETURN

Fray Luis de León

Today, The Grandma has meet The Stones again in Sant Boi. It has been a wonderful reencounter after six months of being separated. The family stayed in Hogwarts when The Grandma travelled to Barcelona to continue her work with The Watsons.

First, MJ has been talking about the new health rules about COVID19 and later, The Grandma has been talking about how to create and construct little compositions.

The family want to restart the classes again as soon as possible to continue studying English and working in the possibility of do a Cambridge Exam. It is difficult and nowadays we do not know anything about it but they are going to work with this objective on the horizon because they are The Stones and they do not give up.

Finally, The Grandma has explained two stories, one about the Capuchins in Sant Boi de Llobregat and another about Fray Luis de León, one of the most incredible Castilian writers of the 16C.

More information: Writing

Luis de León (Belmonte, Cuenca, 1527-Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Castile, 23 August 1591), was a Castillan lyric poet, Augustinian friar, theologian and academic, active during the Spanish Golden Age.

Luis de León was born in Belmonte, in the Province of Cuenca, in 1527 or 1528. His parents were Lope de León and Inés de Varela, and they had five children. His father practiced law, and it was due to his profession that the family moved to Madrid in 1534, and later to Valladolid.

Luis obtained a very thorough and extensive education, and was devoted to the interpretation and translation of religious texts and ideas. He was proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.

He entered the University of Salamanca at the age of fourteen, in 1541, to study Canon Law under the care of his uncle Francisco. At some point between 1541 and 1543, Thompson states that it was about 5-6 months after beginning his studies, while other authors often claim it was 1543, Luis abandoned his studies and instead entered the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine.

Fray Luis de León's Writings

After a novitiate of uncertain duration he joined the Priory of San Pedro on 29 January 1544. The first record of León as a student of theology is in the matriculation book at the University of Salamanca for 1546-7.

In 1552, Fray Luis graduated with a bachelor's degree in theology from the University of Toledo and continued his education as a student of Hebrew and Biblical interpretation at the University of Alcalá de Henares.

In 1561, he began translating the Song of Songs (Cantar de los Cantares) into Spanish for his cousin, Isabel Osorio, a nun in Salamanca who could not read the Latin text, and wrote an accompanying commentary. This was León's first major translation of a biblical text, and was probably inspired by a commentary his contemporary Arias Montano had lent to him when he passed through Salamanca in 1561.

Translation of biblical texts into Spanish had been banned by the Council of Trent, so there was a certain risk in this undertaking. The manuscript, however, was popular amongst his friends, who copied it and circulated it privately. However, the translations formed part of the accusations levelled against León when he was denounced to the Inquisition in 1572.

Because of the controversial nature of the text, it was not published until 1798.

Having returned to Salamanca the previous year, in 1560 he graduated from the University of Salamanca as a licentiate (7 May) and Master of Theology (30 June), and in the following year he won the election to the Chair of St Thomas, a chair in Theology, at the same university, Salamanca was unusual in that all Chairs were subject to an election for the position. This was a minor Chair, with a limited four-year tenure.

More information: Multimedia English I & II

In 1565, he won the Chair of St Durandus, to which he was re-elected in 1569, he lost it in 1573 because he was in prison while the elections took place. In 1566 he was named administrator of the Augustinian College of San Guillermo in Salamanca, and in 1567 he took on the position of vice rector of the University. In 1571 he attained the Chair of Sacred Letters as well.

While at the university, he translated classical and biblical literature and wrote on religious themes. He was widely known for his works.

In 1571 Dominican professors Bartolomé de Medina and Castro put forth seventeen propositions to the Inquisition documenting Fray Luis' allegedly heretical opinions. His translation into Spanish and commentary of the Song of Solomon (Canto de Salomón) was the biggest evidence presented for their case against him. Another charge touched on his criticizing the text of the Vulgate.

As a result, he was imprisoned at Valladolid from 27 March 1572 until December 1576, fell ill and remained in bad health throughout his imprisonment. Though he suffered greatly from his isolation and less than desirable conditions, Fray Luis continued to actively write and study during his confinement.

At the end of 1576, the tables turned, and on 11 December Fray Luis was cleared of all charges and released from prison with an admonishment to be more careful and reserved in his publications and speech. He returned to Salamanca on 30 December in triumph.

Tradition has it that he began his university lecture on 29 January 1577, his first after returning from four years' imprisonment, with the words Dicebamus hesterna die (As we were saying yesterday...).

He died at the age of 64 on 23 August 1591, in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, and is buried in Salamanca in the Priory of San Agustín. Ten days before his death he was elected Vicar General of the Augustinian Order.

More information: The Order of Friar Minor Capuchin in Sant Ramon

There is a lack of words in the language

for the feelings of the soul.

Fray Luis de León