Authors Posters & Prints, “Ho...-Hop...-”
for the literature, language arts and social studies classrooms, home schoolers, and scholars.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann
b. 1-24-1776; Prussia
d. 6-25-1822, Berlin

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, one of the most influential authors of the Romantic movement (second half of the 18th century) is best known by his pen name, E. T. A. Hoffmann.

Composers inspired by Hoffmann include Tchaikovsky: the ballet The Nutcracker -“The Nutcracker and Mouse King”; Jacques Offenbach: opera The Tales of Hoffmann; and the ballet Coppelia with music by Léo Delibes.

Carl Gustav Jung read Hoffman's The Devil's Elixirs and found its problems “palpably real”, influencing his theory of archetypes. (Jung in Context, ed. by Paul Bishop, 1999)

E.T.A. Hoffmann quotes ~
• “Boys should not play with weapons more dangerous than they understand.”
• “It is nearly always the most improbable things that really come to pass.”
• “Think of the wonderful circles in which our whole being moves and from which we cannot escape no matter how we try. The circler circles in these circles.”
• “Once you are dancing with the devil, the prettiest capers won't help you.”
• “It is useless to contend with the irresistible power of Time, which goes on continually creating by a process of constant destruction.”
• “How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky.”
• “Not a single man on earth knows from his own experience the how and where of his birth, only from tradition, which is often very uncertain.”
• “Is it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully?”

• The Best Tales of Hoffmann

Heinrich Hoffmann
b. 6-13-1809; Frankfurt on Main, Germany
d. 9-20-1894

Physician, anatomy teacher, and psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann wrote and illustrated a story book, Der Struwwelpeter, about mischievous children, as a Christmas gift for his son.

• Struwwelpeter in English Translation

“When the children have been good/ This, be it understood/ Good at meal-times, good at play/ Good all night and good all day–/ They shall have the pretty things/ Merry Christmas always brings.

Naughty, romping girls and boys/ Tear their clothes and make a noise,/ Spoil their pinafores and frocks, / And deserve no Christmas-book/ Such as these shall never look/ At this pretty Picture-book.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal
b. 2-1-1874; Vienna
d. 7-15-1929; stroke

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, novelist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist, also was a librettist for the composer Richard Strauss' Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and others.

FYI - Hofmannsthal's daughter Christiane was the wife of Indologist (academic study of the languages and literature, history and cultures of the Indian subcontinent) Heinrich Zimmer, who was very influential on Joseph Campbell.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
b. 8-29-1809; Cambridge, MA
d. 10-7-1894; Boston

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a physician and Professor of Anatomy & Physiology. He achieved his first fame as a writer and poet with his poem “Old Ironsides” which saved the 18th century wooden Navy frigate USS Constitution from being scraped in the 1830s. She is now the oldest commissioned ship afloat in the world.

In 1843 Holmes Sr. published The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever which described how the deadly puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever, was carried from patient to patient by physicians and nurses.

Homer
fl. ca. 8th century BC ??

Ancient Greek poet Homer is traditionally said to be the author of the epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Current scholarship no longer views “Homer” as a historic individual but rather as a personfication that evolved over generations to hold the oral traditions and the collective works of many poets.

Matthew Arnold describes the four qualities of Homer - he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and finally, that he is eminently noble.

Homer quotes ~
• “A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly.”
• “The belly is the commanding part of the body.”
• “Light is the task where many share the toil.”
• “Even where sleep is concerned, too much is a bad thing.”

• The Iliad and Odyssey [BOX SET]
• Ulysses poster
• Greece posters

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks (no commercially available poster)

bell hooks
née Gloria Jean Watkins
b. 9-25-1952; Hopkinsville, KY

bell hooks, the pen name of Gloria Jan Watkins, is a feminist and social activist whose writng focuses on the interconnectivity of race, class and gender. She is a professor of English and has published numerous books of poetry and nonfiction.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
b. 7-28-1844; England
d. 6-8-1889; (typhoid)

Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who converted to Catholism and became a Jesuit priest, was recognized posthumously for his striking use of language.

Gerard Manley Hopkins quotes ~
• “Glory be to God for dappled things for skies of couple-color as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim.”
• “Nothing is so beautiful as spring – when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.”
• “I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon.”