Authors, Poets & Novelists Posters & Prints, “Ph...-Pi...-”
for literature, language arts and social studies classrooms and home schoolers.

Katherine “Orinda” Philips
b. 1-1-1631; London, England
d. 6-22-1664; of smallpox

Poetess Katherine Philips was “regarded as the apostle of female friendship, and inspired great respect as . . . an exemplar of the ideal woman writer: virtuous, proper, and chaste”. Her home was the center of a a ‘society of friendship’ where the members were known to one another by pastoral names: Philips was “Orinda”.

To My Antenor
My dear Antenor now give o're,
For my sake talk of Graves no more;
Death is not in our power to gain,
And is both wish'd and fear'd in vain
Let's be as angry as wee will,
Grief sooner may distract then kill,
And the unhappy often prove
Death is as coy a thing as Love.
Those whose own sword their death did give,
Afraid were or asham'd to Live;
And by an act so desperate,
Did poorly run away from fate;
'Tis braver much t'out-ride the storm,
Endure its rages and shun his harm;
Affliction nobly undergone,
More Greatness shews than having none.
But yet the Wheel in turning round,
At last may lift us from the ground,
And when our Fortune's most severe,
The less we have, the less we fear.
And why should we that grief permit,
Which can nor mend nor shorten it?
Let's wait for a succeeding good,
Woes have their Ebb as well as flood:
And since Parliament have rescu'd you,
Believe that Providence will do so too.

• Katherine Philips (Orinda)

Eden Phillpotts
b. 11-4-1862; British India
d. 12-29-1960; Broadclyst, Devon, England

Author, poet and dramatist Eden Phillpotts had worked for 10 years in insurance before he studied for the stage and became a writer. Many of Phillpotts work were set in Dartmoor, a moorland, that Phillpotts was passionate about conserving.

Phillpotts novel Widecombe Fair, was the basis of a comic play, The Farmer's Wife, which has been made into a 1928 silent movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and again in 1941.

Phillpotts was a friend of Agatha Christie; author Jose Luis Borges also admired his work.

Eden Phillpotts quotes ~
• “The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
• “We are often jealous of our little secrets, though to another ear they generally convey neither profit nor entertainment.”
• “We always think every other man's job is easier than our own. The better he does it, the easier it looks.”
• “I used to hurt so badly that I'd ask God why, what have I done to deserve any of this? I feel now He was preparing me for this, for the future, That's the way I see it.”
• “People who are sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible enough to give none.”
• “You never know what a fool you can be till life gives you the chance.”
• “If you go on working with the light available, you will meet your Master, as he himself will be seeking you.”
• “Novelty proclaims a better price than truth.” ~ My Laughing Philosopher

Pindar
ca. 522-443 BC; Thebes, Boeotia, Greece

Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet who wrote music and choregraphed the dances that accompanied his poetry.

FYI ~ Pindar's house in Thebes became one of the city's landmarks, especially after Alexander the Great didn't raze the building out of gratitude for verses praising his ancestor, King Alexander I of Macedon.

Pindar quotes ~
• “The present will not long endure.”
• “Seek not, my soul, the life of the immortals; but enjoy to the full the resources that are within thy reach.”
• “The best of healers is good cheer.”
• “Whatever is beautiful is beautiful by necessity.”
• “Learn what you are and be such.”

Harold Pinter
b. 10-10-1930; London, England
d. 12-24-2008

Playwright, screenwriter, poet, director, actor and political activist Harold Pinter was the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient for “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms.”

Pinter was married to biographer Antonia Fraser.

Harold Pinter quotes ~
• “Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.”
• “I mean, don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?”
• “I think it is the responsibility of a citizen of any country to say what he thinks.”

Luigi Pirandello
b. 6-28-1867; Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
d. 12-10-1936; Rome

Luigi Pirandello was the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient for “for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art.” Pirandello became famous as the creator of the theatrical innovation of the “theater within the theater”.

Luigi Pirandello quotes ~
• “Nature uses human imagination to lift her work of creation to even higher levels.”
• “In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.”
• “When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.”
• “Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!”
• “Life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.”
• “Our whole knowledge of the world hangs on this very slender thread: the re-gu-la-ri-ty of our experiences.”

• Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays

Christine di Pisan
b. c.1362; Venice, Italy
d. c.1431

Christine de Pizan was a feminist philosopher and first professional women writer in the medieval era. Her first works as a writer was to provide for her family after the death of her husband. She then became a critic of Jean de Meun who slandered women in his Romance of the Rose.

The illustration for the presentation frontispiece of Christine de Pizan presenting her Collected Works to Queen Isabeau of France, consists solely of females. It is possible the entire Collected Works was produced by women in the spirit of patronage of women's intelligence and talent.

Christine de Pisan quotes ~
• “Just as women’s bodies are softer than men’s, so their understanding is sharper.”
• “This woman in love with scholarship intends, to be sure, that woman should acquire learning: but it must be for the purpose of developing her intelligence, or raising her heart to serious things, not of widening her field of ambitions, dethroning man.”
• “I say it to thee again, and doubt never the contrary, that if it were the custom to put the little maidens to the school, and they were made to learn the sciences as they do to the men-children, that they should learn as perfectly, and they should be.”

• The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan