Kate Chopin has had three biographers, but none of them has discovered a family connection, and a French scholar in Paris has not found a link. Q: I was wondering where in Missouri Kate Chopin was born and where in Missouri she lived while she wrote her fiction. Louis on Eight Street between Chouteau and Gratiot.
The family in moved to St. Ange Avenue in St. When Kate returned to St. Louis in after her years in Louisiana, she lived first at St. Ange Avenue and then at St. Ange Avenue. In she moved to Morgan Street, which in now Delmar. In she moved to McPherson Avenue the house is still there , where she died in A: Yes. Does that mean that Chopin has African-American roots? Q: I believe Kate Chopin visited Paris in but did not stay very long. Do you have more details about her visit?
They left the city on the 10th of September of that year. So Chopin was in Paris somewhere between one week and two weeks. She did not visit Europe again. Do you know if this is true or just rumor? Lamy pronounced LAH-mee was the landowner and major person in the area, and so he named the spot which was just a post office after himself. One is or was an Episcopal priest. A: Yes, in general it was forgotten, although a few people in Europe and the United States were familiar with the book throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Several of those stories appeared in an anthology within five years after her death, others were reprinted over the years, and scholars began writing about her fiction a decade or so before it caught fire with the appearance of her Complete Works in Q: I am writing my capstone project about Kate Chopin and I am trying to establish the relevance of her works to the contemporary reader.
I have done several Internet searches to no avail. I would like to reference the number as evidence that readers are still buying and discussing this powerful novel. Part of the difficulty is that there are so many editions of the novel available, both as an individual book and as part of an anthology, both as a novel alone and as a novel along with short stories or supplements, both in print and in electronic form some electronic editions can be downloaded for free , both in English in the United States and other English-speaking countries Canada, the UK, India.
Bookstores and websites list at least a hundred editions. So we cannot count how many copies are sold. And even if we could count purchases for an individual year, we would not know precisely how widely people are reading and discussing the book, because many books that are purchased—by libraries, for example—are passed from one person to another and read many times over a period of years, and, of course, some books that are purchased or downloaded are not read at all.
This website usually averages between a thousand and three thousand visits a day during the academic year from people in dozens of countries—from students like you, but also from teachers, scholars, librarians, journalists, playwrights, filmmakers, translators, book club members, bloggers, and others.
We assume those visitors are reading and discussing The Awakening , in part because they send us all sorts of questions about it and about short stories that Chopin wrote, questions like those on this page and on other pages of this site. We seek to keep track of some transformations. We include on our site nine pages that list books, articles, and PhD dissertations in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Finally, it may be helpful for you to know that according to scholars at Columbia University who examined over six million university syllabi, as of , The Awakening is among the most often taught American novel in English courses.
Was she involved in any other historically significant happenings of her time? A: Kate Chopin was an artist, a writer of fiction, and like many artists—in the nineteenth century and today—she considered that her primary responsibility to people was showing them the truth about life as she understood it. She was not a social reformer. Her goal was not to change the world but to describe it accurately, to show people the truth about the lives of women and men in the nineteenth-century America she knew.
She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. She is in many respects a modern writer, particularly in her awareness of the complexities of truth and the complications of freedom.
Artists like Kate Chopin see the truth and help others to see it. Once people are able to recognize the truth, then they can create social reform movements and set out to correct wrongs and injustices.
A: After the s, when a remarkable literary revival made her work famous around the world, Chopin became an inspiration for artists of all kinds—women and men—as well as for translators working in twenty-some other languages.
And there is Eliza Waite , a novel. Like Mark Twain and other writers of her time, Chopin, who spoke both French and English herself, was determined to be accurate in the way she recorded the speech of the people she focused on in her fiction. Some editions of her works include translations of French expressions, and Chopin usually subtly glosses such expressions in the text. Missing the meaning of a French expression is not likely to lead to a mistake in understanding a story or novel.
Q: What about the Creole or other dialectal expressions? I love Kate Chopin, but at places in the short stories, I really struggle with understanding what her characters are saying. How do I deal with that? A: You might try reading the stories aloud—or you might find a native speaker of English who can read them aloud with feeling.
Chopin is capturing what her characters sound like as they speak, so it may be helpful to hear the story, rather than read it. The caretaker says that he himself would not be complaining about how run down the place has become:. If you could hear that read aloud, you might understand better.
When a chimney breaks, I take one or two [of] the boys; we patch it up [the] best we know how. We keep on mending the fences, first [at] one place [and then at] another. Khoa says that he's tall and big. Can anyone give a reliable info? Autrey : According to a few books I've read, Chopin was anywhere between 5'5" to 5'8" tall. He never weighed more that lbs. In one book I read I, unfortunately, can't remember the name or the author, sorry, but it's at the Furman University Music Library , he once took Solange, George Sand's daughter, to a fair where they both had themselves weighed.
The receipt containing his weight read 98 lbs. If I remember correctly this was about or According to the same book, at the time of his death he weighed about 88 or 90 lbs. Teresa : Chopin was 1. According to that same passport, his eyes were blue-grey. This evidence is far more reliable than "souvenirs" after his death. His weight is given in one of the volumes of Sand's correspondence edited by G. Elene : In English measurement, though he would have been thinking metric, he was about 5'7" tall.
He was at times under lbs and probably never much more than that. This was an extremely flexible body with little muscle mass, very well suited for its owner's musical proclivities. It's said that Chopin was able to do contortions quite easily. His insistence on "souplesse" suppleness was probably a lot easier for him to achieve than it was for his students.
Question 8. Question 9. Tim : The third funeral march movement of the Op. Jim Samson writes in his biography, "Those inclined to relate Chopin's works directly to incidents in his life will have no difficulty with the Marche funebre. Samson states that Chopin probably worked on them during his winter in Majorca with George Sand, and Chopin also mentions working on the sonata in a letter he wrote in the summer of his first summer at Nohant with Sand.
Veronica : I read somewhere that chopin was having a little party and then there was a storm, obviously inspired he sat in the darkness and composed it with so much passion that he fainted. Norn Jornsen : Chopin's funeral march is the slow movement of his second sonata.
It is modeled after Beethoven's twelfth sonata which contains a funeral march "on the death of a hero. I do not know the specific story, if there is one, but Chopin was certainly influenced by Beethoven. Question Autrey : Chopin considered himself a 'nationalist' and is considered by Poland to be one. However, Chopin was not actively or blatantly nationalist. He never used his status as a means of aiding Poland in a political sense. Politically, his national stance came from his voluntary exile from Poland.
I suppose you could call him conscientious objector to the Russian regime in Poland. His music, however, is what makes Chopin a nationalist. He drew from Polish folk music for inspiration and, though some musicologists would argue, wrote his despair for Poland into his music. For more info, read Marek's or Sculz's biography about Chopin. Autrey : Surprisingly, this is a difficult question to answer. For some reasons there seems to be a lot of controversy over the details of his physical appearance.
Some say that his eyes were dark brown, almost black. Biographer George Marek believes this to be true. However, others believe that his eyes were very light blue or blue green, as biographer Tad Szulc believes. Others still believe that his eyes were hazel. Although I've never read a work by any Chopin biographer who asserts this point of view, many contemporary accounts state that his eyes were hazel, including the accounts of several childhood friends.
I've also seen portraits that show Chopin's eyes a dark grey. Most of the portraits that show his eyes as dark brown are copies of lost originals, which lead me to believe that dark brown was not his eye color. I believe the contemporary accounts over the biographers his eyes! Teresa : Chopin's eyes were blue grey, as stated in the passport he obtained in to go to England with Pleyel. In Maria Wodzinska's watercolor portrait which is an impressive painting, especially considering her age of 16 , one can clearly see the blue, and she was looking straight at him at the time.
Even more convincing, to me, is the fact that Rosemary Brown, the famous medium who channeled works of Chopin, Liszt, and a number of other "dead" composers, perceived his eyes as "a beautiful clear grey-blue.
John: There are numerous errors in the above answers regarding the color of Chopin's eyes. Liszt did not state that Chopin's eyes were brown but rather that they were blue. There is also no documented record of Chopin's passport stating his eye color as being blue.
I have yet to see prove of this particular passport. Many books on the life of Chopin disagree on eye color. It is most probably either blue or brown. Frederick Nieck's book on Chopin's life references several of Chopin's childhood friends who all report a brownish color. Nieck's descredits Liszt's account of his eyes being blue.
It is most likely that Chopin's eyes were of a brown color. Joe : Chopin's French passport does indeed exist and has been reproduced in many sources, notably on the official Warsaw Chopin site. It states his weight given in kilos as 98 pounds, his height given in milimeters and just under 5'7", his hair as blond, his eyes as blue.
I assume he reaches this conclusion by viewing measures as a B-section. Tim : popular songs 1. Based on the Etude in E, Op. Words and music by Bob Russell and Paul Weston. Recorded by Jo Stafford Capitol. Based on the Polonaise in A-flat, Op. Words and music by Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman. Recorded by Perry Como Victor. Based on the middle section of the Fantasy-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op.
Ernie : 4. Ted: 5. It is a story of a Polish father who sends his 3 sons off to war and they come back, with one bride shared by all three. Teresa : There is no evidence whatever that any of the Ballades had a "story" behind it. It is all due to a suggestion made by Schumann. The only Ballade which may have had an intended "message" is the second one, which was referred to by a publisher's agent as the "Pilgrim's Ballade" see the book by Kallberg Yeshe : The three sons did not share one bride, each son took a Polish bride, their deceased mother having been of Polish decent as well.
A lot of people said that his name should be pronounced "Show-pan". James Gath said the Polish pronunciation on Chopin's name was as follows: "Shop-an"; the French variant was pronounced as "Show-pan".
Alexei said that he is Dreyschock. Jimmy : The question needs a little qualification. What is a magic piano anyway? If it were really Dreyschock, then the question should mention his "revolutionary" is done in octaves. David: he performer was Sparky and he was an amazing success until his concert career abruptly ended when the Magic Piano let him know that "your time is up, I will no longer play I grew up listening to that on LP and loved every minute of it.
Al Baffy : There are three reasons I can give that almost any music historian would agree with. The first reason is that Chopin used forms in new and original ways. The etudes are a fine example of this - while studies for piano certainly existed before Chopin, he endowed his with qualities of beauty that were never seen before in that form.
Secondly, Chopin used harmonies that were, for the time, uniquely innovative. His use of chromaticism and other gorgeous harmonic effects still astonishes us today.
Lastly, Chopin created a new type of music for the piano. He used the piano in ways that others before him never did, bringing out the qualities of the instrument that allowed a vast dramatic scope. In short, Chopin is great because he was so original. Jimmy : Op. Alex: It is said that Chopin did not formally name his etudes, rather the publishers who wanted to sell the songs better: Etude Op. Etude Op. Philip Daniel: Chopin was greatly influenced by the Italian Bel-Canto style, of which Bellini and Donizetti were the main contributors.
Chopin's melodies, which are very lyrical and expansive, seem to be a distinguished extension of Bellini's melodic style. It is regarded by many advanced pianists as well as classicists. However, who can say which work is the best, because we're talking about art. Alexei : It seems that the tougher a piece is, the more popular it is isn't it? Among the very popular of Chopin's masterpieces are the 'Heroic' Polonaise op. Paul: Although the public may not associate it with Chopin, is any piece of his better known and more commonly heard than the Funeral March from the Sonata op.
Stacie Todero: Well to me the most remembered piece is the "Sonata in "b" minor" because the way he played it was remarkable the way he wanted to stand out and be so original because he wasn't doing it for anyone, he was doing it perfectly for himself.
To impress himself and that is significant in a musician. Alex: I believe that the 'Fantasie' Impromptu Op. However, I also believe that the 'Polish' Ballade No. Jon: In addition to what has already been mentioned, the "Raindrop" prelude is pretty popular among non-pianists. Halim : the most popular masterpiece is the winter wind for its dynamic and enthousiam when you play the winter wind you feel a strange feeling inside as the wind of the winter is runnig inside and destroying the doors of your heart its such an extraordinary masterpiece!!
Nick : There are a few that stand out and have become extremely popular in movies and pop culture today. The most famous ones that I can think of right now are Fantasie impromptu, Etude op.
For me, the 4th Ballade in F minor, should have received more mention - amongst the finest pieces for piano ever written by anyone - and the Berceuse, Op. And finally the Barcarolle, Op. William McCarthy said that Chopin got his inspiration from his senior who had 30 years on him, Irish composer John Field.
But later became Chopin's opposition due to they both wanted the same thing in their music. Thanks for the great post -- best of the web, indeed. Not very many talks merit my attention for so long a time, but this was worth every second. This was a great interview. I've been a fan of Ohlsson's since I was a teenager, so thanks so much for posting it! My highest hopes for today were to fight it to a draw, but that magnificent performance at about 1 h just saved the whole thing.
Thank you so much for posting this! I learned a lot, and have a new appreciation for Chopin. Plus Ohlsson plays beautifully.
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