Authors, Poets & Novelists Posters & Prints: “Ce...-Cha...-”
for literature & language arts classrooms, homeschoolers, and scholars.

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra
b. 9-29-1547; Alcalá de Henares, Castile, Spain
d. 4-23-1616; Madrid

Spanish novelist, poet and playwright Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, a classic of Western literature and one of the best novels ever written. The musical The Man of La Mancha is based on Don Quijote, as is a ballet.

Cervantes quotes ~
• “He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.”
• “I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.”
• “Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.”
• “Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.”

• FYI - the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada is considered to be a possible inspiration for Don Quixote.

Did you know that John Steinbeck named the camper he used in a trip around America Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse?

• Don Quixote by Picasso poster

Raymond Chandler
b. 7-23-1888; Chicago, IL
d. 3-26-1959; La Jolla, CA

Raymond Chandler's most notable character is the private detective Philip Marlowe (played by Humphrey Bogart in the movies).

Chandler also had a long struggle with alcohol and clinical depression.

Raymond Chandler quotes ~
• “Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”
• “Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.”
• “If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.”

Alain Chartier
b. c. 1392; Bayeux, France
d. c. 1430

Alain Chartier, poet and political writer, 1422 Quadrilogue-invectif is allegorical prose using a fictional dialogue between the Three Estates (“Le Peuple,” “Le Chevalier,” and “Le Clerge”) and the personfication of France as a woman, to expose the suffering and oppression of the lower classes.

John Keats wrote his ballad 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' (“The Beautiful Lady without Pity”) using the title of Alain Chartier's 15th century work.

Alain Chartier quote ~
• “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you only have one.”

• Medieval Literature posters

Francois-Rene Vicomte de Chateaubriand
b. 9-4-1768; Saint-Malo, France
d. 7-4-1848; Paris

Chateaubriand, writer, politician and diplomat, is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature, and influencing writers such as Hugo, Lord Byron, and Andre Malraux.

His visit to North America during the French Revolution resulted in descriptions of nature that were innovative for the time; he was also accomplished at describing emotions.

Late in his life he became a recluse only visiting his friend Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier.

Chateaubriand quotes ~
• “The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.”
• “You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.”
• “One does not learn how to die by killing others.”

Geoffrey Chaucer
b. c.1343; London
d. 10-25-1400

Geoffrey was a Medieval author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat best remembered for his unfinished narrative The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is sometimes called the father of English literature as the first author to use the vernacular English for an artistic work.

Despite having endured six centuries of literary scrutiny Chaucer's bawdy stories were removed from a high school advanced literature course in 1995 after parents deemed some of the tales ‘inappropriate’.

Chaucer is also the first to associate the day commemorating two early martyrs of the Christian faith - Valentine - with courtly, romantic love. BTW - did you know the name Chaucer is French and means ‘shoe’? An amusing detail for a man who wrote about pilgrimages.

Geoffrey Chaucer quotes ~
• “We little know the things for which we pray.”
• “The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.”
• “Love is blind.”

• Geoffrey Chaucer in Great British Authors series
• City of Canterbury

Sydney Aaron “Paddy” Chayefsky
b. 1-29-1923; Bronx, NY
d. 8-1-1981

Paddy Chayefsky, writer of novels and scripts, was awarded the 1955 Oscar for the screenplay of his play “Marty” and for the film Network (1976).

Chayefsky quotes ~
• “I'm a man without a corporation.”
• “Television is democracy at its ugliest.”
• “You don't send a man to his death because you want a hero.”

• Mad As Hell: The Life and Work of Paddy Chayefsky