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89-780: John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic , and literary critic . One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tarkington , William Faulkner , and Colson Whitehead ), Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker starting in 1954. He also wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books . His most famous work

178-512: A Toyota dealership". Updike found it difficult to end the book, because he was "having so much fun" in the imaginary county Rabbit and his family inhabited. After writing Rabbit Is Rich , Updike published The Witches of Eastwick (1984), a playful novel about witches living in Rhode Island . He described it as an attempt to "make things right with my, what shall we call them, feminist detractors ". One of Updike's most popular novels, it

267-529: A "late masterpiece overlooked or praised by rote in its day, only to be rediscovered by another generation", while others, though appreciating the English mastery in the book, thought it overly dense with minute detail and swamped by its scenic depictions and spiritual malaise. In Villages (2004), Updike returned to the familiar territory of infidelities in New England . His 22nd novel, Terrorist (2006),

356-399: A Book (1970), Bech Is Back (1981) and Bech at Bay : A Quasi-Novel (1998). These stories were compiled as The Complete Henry Bech (2001) by Everyman's Library. Bech is a comical and self-conscious antithesis of Updike's own literary persona: Jewish, a World War II veteran, reclusive, and unprolific to a fault. In 1990, he published the last Rabbit novel, Rabbit at Rest , which won

445-750: A bonus difficult question at the oral examination. In Italy, 110 e lode (at institutions using a 110-point system) is the highest rank that can be achieved during the academic studies, and corresponds usually to a final score greater than 110/110 (the specific threshold varies from university to university). Up to 3 bonus points can be awarded for merits, e.g. having an average exams score greater than 28.5/30 (95% equivalent), excellent final project or for graduating on time. More notations include: bacio e abbraccio accademico ("academic kiss and embrace"), menzione d'onore ("honor mention"), and dignità di stampa ("dignity of printing"), and were given based on various university-specific requirements, but without

534-400: A chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in any ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never ... try to put the author "in his place," making of him

623-617: A college or university's regulations set out definite criteria a student must meet to obtain a given honor. For example, the student might be required to achieve a specific grade point average, submit an honors thesis for evaluation, be part of an honors program , or graduate early. Each school sets its own standards. Since these standards vary, the same level of Latin honors conferred by different institutions can represent different levels of achievement. Similarly, some institutions grant equivalent (or additional) non-Latin honors to undergraduates. The University of Wisconsin–Madison , for example, has

712-675: A computer program. Author and critic Martin Amis called it a "near-masterpiece". The novel S. (1989), uncharacteristically featuring a female protagonist, concluded Updike's reworking of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter . Updike enjoyed working in series; in addition to the Rabbit novels and the Maples stories, a recurrent Updike alter ego is the moderately well-known, unprolific Jewish novelist and eventual Nobel laureate Henry Bech , chronicled in three comic short-story cycles: Bech,

801-715: A final exam. A silver medal is awarded to high school students who have one or two grades of 4 ( Russian : хорошо horosho , "good", being second highest grade) on their final exams or other subjects as listed in the high school diploma ( аттестат о (полном) среднем образовании attestat o (polnom) srednem obrazovanii ). In Singapore , the Latin honors, cum laude , magna cum laude and summa cum laude are used by Singapore Management University . Graduates from Singapore Management University have to achieve GPAs of 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8 out of 4.3 (SMU awards 4.3 for A+ grades) respectively and without any exceptions to qualify for

890-435: A full scholarship to Harvard College , where he was the roommate of Christopher Lasch during their first year. Updike had already received recognition for his writing as a teenager by winning a Scholastic Art & Writing Award , and at Harvard he soon became well known among his classmates as a talented and prolific contributor to The Harvard Lampoon , of which he was president. He studied with dramatist Robert Chapman ,

979-607: A healthy incentive to the best work without exciting an excessive spirit of emulation. The new system of administration, of which the above is a part, is so original and peculiar that it is known as the Amherst System. In the UK , the Latin cum laude is used in commemorative Latin versions of degree certificates sold by a few universities (e.g. the University of Edinburgh ) to denote a bachelor's degree with honours , but

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1068-447: A high minimum grade point average. Sometimes it is lost, despite a high average mark, when the student gets a mark of 6 or lower for one of the many exams (on a scale of 1–10, where 10 is the highest). It may also be awarded based on the weighted average of first achieved grades for each subject only. Generally, less than 2% receive the cum laude distinction. It is also possible to receive a PhD degree cum laude , although this honor

1157-577: A lauded novel about an African dictatorship inspired by a visit he made to Africa, found Updike working in new territory. In 1980, he published another novel featuring Harry Angstrom, Rabbit Is Rich , which won the National Book Award , the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction —all three major American literary prizes. The novel found " Rabbit the fat and happy owner of

1246-758: A legal value. In Malta , for Bachelor Honours degrees summa cum laude refers to first class honours, magna cum laude refers to second class honours (upper division), cum laude refers to second class honours (lower division), whilst bene probatus refers to third class honours. Professional degrees lasting longer than the standard three years such as the five year Bachelor of Pharmacy are awarded egregia cum laude . Postgraduate diplomas and master's degrees may be awarded as pass with distinction ( summa cum laude ), pass with merit ( magna cum laude ), or pass ( bene probatus ). In Mexico , cum laude (also known as mención honorífica in Spanish)

1335-755: A pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys of reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end. He reviewed "nearly every major writer of the 20th century and some 19th-century authors", typically in The New Yorker , always trying to make his reviews "animated". He also championed young writers, comparing them to his own literary heroes including Vladimir Nabokov and Marcel Proust . Good reviews from Updike were often seen as

1424-425: A perfect grade on all final examinations. Usually less than 2% of all graduating students accomplish this (depending on the university and year). In military schools, a "red diploma" may be accompanied by a gold medal ( summa cum laude ) for outstanding performance. Russian high schools also award a gold medal to the student who achieves a perfect score in all final examinations and in all other subjects not requiring

1513-508: A period not exceeding the standard period of study by more than one year. Other distinctions such as magna cum laude or cum laude are not used. Alternatively, the phrase s vyznamenáním , which means "with honours", is substituted for the usual summa cum laude . The Czech universities usually do not award any Latin honours to its graduates in rigorosum and doctoral study programmes. In Estonia , up until 2010 both summa cum laude and cum laude were used. Summa cum laude

1602-403: A play ( Buchanan Dying , 1974), and a memoir ( Self-Consciousness , 1989). At the end of his life, Updike was working on a novel about St. Paul and early Christianity . Biographer Adam Begley wrote that Updike "transmuted the minutiae of his life" in prose, which enriched his readers at the cost of being "willing to sacrifice the happiness of people around him for his art". In 1953, while

1691-444: A powerful prose style, with "shrewd insight into the sorrows, frustrations, and banality of American life". Art critic Differently from art history , there is not commonly an institutionalized training for art critics. Art critics come from different backgrounds and they may or may not be university trained. Professional art critics are expected to have a keen eye for art and a thorough knowledge of art history . Typically

1780-579: A series of plain English grading honors based on class standing. Some colleges and universities, notably including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) , Reed College , and Yale Law School , do not use honors at all. These honors, when they are used, are almost always awarded to undergraduate students earning their bachelor's degree, and, with the exception of law school graduates, much more rarely to graduate students receiving their master's or doctorate degree. The honor

1869-556: A significant achievement in terms of literary reputation and even sales; some of his positive reviews helped jump-start the careers of such younger writers as Erica Jong , Thomas Mallon and Jonathan Safran Foer . Bad reviews by Updike sometimes caused controversy, as when in late 2008 he gave a "damning" review of Toni Morrison 's novel A Mercy . Updike was praised for his literary criticism's conventional simplicity and profundity, for being an aestheticist critic who saw literature on its own terms, and for his longtime commitment to

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1958-422: A staunchly Pennsylvania boy." Similarly, Sylvie Mathé maintains that "Updike's most memorable legacy appears to be his homage to Pennsylvania." Critics emphasize his "inimitable prose style" and "rich description and language", often favorably compared to Proust and Nabokov . Some critics consider the fluency of his prose to be a fault, questioning the intellectual depth and thematic seriousness of his work given

2047-443: A student at Harvard, Updike married Mary Entwistle Pennington , an art student at Radcliffe College and daughter of a prominent Unitarian minister. She accompanied him to Oxford , England, where she attended art school and their first child, Elizabeth , was born in 1955. The couple had three more children together: David (born 1957), Michael (born 1959), and Miranda (born 1960). Updike was serially unfaithful, and eventually left

2136-405: A technically accomplished manner seems to count against him". Updike was also a critic of literature and art , one frequently cited as one of the best American critics of his generation. In the introduction to Picked-Up Pieces, his 1975 collection of prose, he listed his personal rules for literary criticism: To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining

2225-527: A total of 2,500 doctoral graduates per year (i.e. 0.8%) achieve a sub auspiciis degree. In Belgium , the university degree awarded is limited to: In Brazil , most universities do not provide honors to their students. Among the few universities that do so, the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA—Technological Institute of Aeronautics) awards the cum laude honor for graduates with every individual grade above 8.5 (out of 10.0),

2314-480: A year on average. Updike populated his fiction with characters who "frequently experience personal turmoil and must respond to crises relating to religion, family obligations, and marital infidelity". His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions, and suffering of average Americans, its emphasis on Christian theology , and its preoccupation with sexuality and sensual detail. His work has attracted significant critical attention and praise, and he

2403-420: Is Couples (1968), a novel about adultery in a small fictional Massachusetts town called Tarbox. It garnered Updike an appearance on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "The Adulterous Society". Both the magazine article and, to an extent, the novel struck a chord of national concern over whether American society was abandoning all social standards of conduct in sexual matters. The Coup (1978),

2492-637: Is a distinction between art criticism and art history based on institutional, contextual, and commercial criteria; the history of art criticism is taught in universities, but the practice of art criticism is excluded institutionally from academia. An experience-related article is Agnieszka Gratza. Always according to James Elkins in smaller and developing countries, newspaper art criticism normally serves as art history. James Elkins's perspective portraits his personal link to art history and art historians and in What happened to art criticism he furthermore highlights

2581-543: Is awarded after a secret vote of the jury members, using envelopes that must be opened in a session separate from the defense session. Obtaining the qualification of doctorate cum laude requires the unanimity of the members of the examining board (between 3 and 5 experts, depending on the university). In Spain, the cum laude mention is regulated by RD 534/2013. In Switzerland , the degrees rite , cum laude , magna cum laude , insigni cum laude ("distinguished with praise"), and summa cum laude are used, but

2670-651: Is awarded to students who have achieved an average grade of 75% or higher throughout the degree. Cum laude in South Africa can be considered broadly equivalent to a first class degree in the United Kingdom or a GPA of 3.7–4.0 in the United States . In Spain , the Latin honors cum laude is used for PhD degrees only and is the highest possible qualification. It is only applicable to doctoral degrees that achieve an outstanding mark (10/10) and it

2759-515: Is certainly one of the great American novelists of the 20th century. — Martin Amis Updike is considered one of the greatest American fiction writers of his generation. He was widely praised as America's "last true man of letters", with an immense and far-reaching influence on many writers. The excellence of his prose style is acknowledged even by critics skeptical of other aspects of Updike's work. Several scholars have called attention to

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2848-530: Is even rarer than for master's graduates. In view of the difficulty and subjectivity of determining this, some universities and fields of study very seldom award doctorates cum laude . At Dutch university colleges cum laude , magna cum laude and, exceptionally, summa cum laude may be awarded. In the Philippines , junior high school and senior high school students under the new K–12 curriculum use an honor system using Filipino translations of

2937-645: Is his "Rabbit" series (the novels Rabbit, Run ; Rabbit Redux ; Rabbit Is Rich ; Rabbit at Rest ; and the novella Rabbit Remembered ), which chronicles the life of the middle-class everyman Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom over the course of several decades, from young adulthood to death. Both Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990) were awarded the Pulitzer Prize . Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class", critics recognized his careful craftsmanship, his unique prose style, and his prolific output – a book

3026-656: Is primarily used in the United States . It is also used in some Southeastern Asian countries with European colonial history, such as Indonesia and the Philippines , and African countries such as Zambia and South Africa , although sometimes translations of these phrases are used instead of the Latin originals. The honors distinction should not be confused with the honors degrees offered in some countries, or with honorary degrees . The system usually has three levels of honor (listed in order of increasing merit): cum laude , magna cum laude , and summa cum laude . Generally,

3115-460: Is typically indicated on the diploma . Latin honors are often conferred upon law school students graduating as a Juris Doctor or J.D., in which case they are generally based upon class rank or grade point average . Most American colleges and universities use Latin honors for bachelor's degrees and for the Juris Doctor law degree, but not for other degrees such as master's degrees or

3204-694: Is used, by the major universities, to recognize an outstanding dissertation for bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees. Also different awards on public and private universities are given to the student with the highest final grade average (i.e. Presea Lázaro Cárdenas  [ es ] or Gabino Barreda Medal) and a diploma is given as a form of cum laude . In the Netherlands , two classes of honors may be used for bachelor's, master's and PhD degree programs: cum laude (with honor) and summa cum laude (with highest honor). Typically these distinctions are reserved to mark exceptional achievement above

3293-420: Is widely considered one of the great American writers of his time. Updike's highly distinctive prose style features a rich, unusual, sometimes arcane vocabulary as conveyed through the eyes of "a wry, intelligent authorial voice that describes the physical world extravagantly while remaining squarely in the realist tradition". He described his style as an attempt "to give the mundane its beautiful due". Updike

3382-410: The magna cum laude honor for graduates with average grade above 8.5 and more than 50% of individual grades above 9.5, and the summa cum laude honor for graduates with average grade above 9.5. As of 2009, only 22 graduates have received the summa cum laude honor at ITA. The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro awards the cum laude honor for graduates with average grade from 8.0 to 8.9,

3471-430: The magna cum laude honor for graduates with average grade from 9.0 to 9.4, and the summa cum laude honor for graduates with average grade from 9.5 to 10.0. The Federal University of Ceará awards the magna cum laude honor for undergraduates who have never failed a course, achieved an average grade from 8.5 (out of 10.0) and have received a fellowship of both Academic Extension and Teaching Initiation . In

3560-541: The British undergraduate degree classification (usually used in Commonwealth countries) which is more widely used with varying criteria and nomenclature depending on country, including Australia , Bangladesh , Barbados , Brazil , Colombia , Georgia , Hong Kong , India , Ireland , Jamaica , Kenya , New Zealand , Nigeria , Pakistan , Singapore , Sri Lanka , South Africa , Trinidad and Tobago , Uganda ,

3649-547: The Czech Republic , universities usually award the summa cum laude distinction to its best graduates in bachelors and masters study programmes. The criteria required by Czech universities are usually the following: a) an overall study results average up to 1.5 out of 4.0 (while "1" is the best, "excellent" grade and "4" is the failing grade), b) completion of the final state exam with the overall classification of 1 ("excellent") and also c) proper completion of studies in

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3738-657: The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , HEC Paris , use the Latin and English titles "summa cum laude" / "graduated with highest honors" for the top 2% and "cum laude" / "graduated with honors" for the next 5% of a year. From 2016, honorifics ceased to be used for the completion of a PhD . Before this date, the French PhD diploma could be awarded with increasing honors: mention bien , mention très honorable , mention très honorable avec félicitations du jury . While these honors grades have been revoked for

3827-516: The Library of America issued a two-volume boxed edition of 186 stories under the title The Collected Stories . In 1971, Updike published a sequel to Rabbit, Run called Rabbit Redux , his response to the 1960s; Rabbit reflected much of Updike's resentment and hostility towards the social and political changes that beset the United States during that time. Updike's early Olinger period

3916-633: The Ph.D. and M.D. degrees. There are three standard levels of Latin honors: In 1869, Harvard College became the first college in the United States to award final honors to its graduates. From 1872 to 1879, cum laude and summa cum laude were the two Latin honors awarded to graduates. Beginning in 1880, magna cum laude was also awarded. In his 1895 history of Amherst College , college historian William Seymour Tyler traced Amherst's system of Latin honors to 1881, and attributed it to Amherst College president Julius Hawley Seelye : Instead of attempting to fix

4005-529: The United Kingdom , Zimbabwe and many other countries. Malta shows the Latin honors on the degree certificates, but the UK model is shown on the transcript. In Austria , the only Latin honor in use is sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae ("under the auspices of the president of the republic") for doctoral degrees. Candidates must have consistently excellent grades throughout high school and university, making it very difficult to attain: only about 20 out of

4094-568: The experimental fiction of Seek My Face (2002). In the midst of these, he wrote what was for him a more conventional novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), a historical saga spanning several generations and exploring themes of religion and cinema in America. It is considered the most successful novel of Updike's late career. Some critics have predicted that posterity may consider the novel

4183-462: The 20th. In the lecture he argued that American art, until the expressionist movement of the 20th century in which America declared its artistic "independence", is characterized by an insecurity not found in the artistic tradition of Europe . In Updike's own words: Two centuries after Jonathan Edwards sought a link with the divine in the beautiful clarity of things, William Carlos Williams wrote in introducing his long poem Paterson that "for

4272-411: The Latin honors. It is also used by Yale-NUS College, with the top 5% of a graduating class receiving summa cum laude , the next 10% magna cum laude , and the next 20% cum laude . There are no credit (CAP) requirements to achieve the Latin honors at Yale-NUS College. In South Africa , the Latin honors cum laude is used for bachelor's degrees, honour's degrees and master's degrees, and

4361-457: The Latin original. Students who achieve a final grade average of 90-94 are awarded the title May Karangalan ( with honors ) and will receive a bronze medal with the DepEd seal. Those who have a final grade average of 95–97 receive the title of May Mataas na Karangalan ( with high honors ) and a silver medal with the same seal. Students with a final grade average of 98-100 shall be awarded

4450-474: The Mississippi of Faulkner's novels, the world of Updike's novels is fictional (as are such towns as Olinger and Brewer), while at the same time it is recognizable as a particular American region." Sanford Pinsker observes that "Updike always felt a bit out of place" in places like "Ipswich, Massachusetts, where he lived for most of his life. In his heart—and, more important, in his imagination—Updike remained

4539-558: The PhD diploma, they are still in use for doctors of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dental Medicine. In Germany , the range of degrees is: These degrees are mostly used when a doctorate is conferred, not for diplomas, bachelor's or master's degrees, for which numerical grades between 1.0 ("very good") and 4.0 ("pass"), and 5.0 ("fail"), are given. In Hungary , the range of degrees—similar to the German system—is: rite ("duly" conferred, that is,

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4628-689: The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Over 500 pages long, the novel is among Updike's most celebrated. In 2000, Updike included the novella Rabbit Remembered in his collection Licks of Love , drawing the Rabbit saga to a close. His Pulitzers for the last two Rabbit novels make Updike one of only four writers to have won two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction, the others being William Faulkner , Booth Tarkington , and Colson Whitehead . In 1995, Everyman's Library collected and canonized

4717-577: The advice of such critics as a way to enhance their appreciation of the art they are viewing. Many now-famous and celebrated artists were not recognized by the art critics of their time, often because their art was in a style not yet understood or favored. Conversely, some critics have become particularly important helping to explain and promote new art movements – Roger Fry with the Post-Impressionist movement and Lawrence Alloway with pop art as examples. According to James Elkins there

4806-606: The art critic views art at exhibitions , galleries , museums or artists ' studios and they can be members of the International Association of Art Critics which has national sections. Very rarely art critics earn their living from writing criticism. The opinions of art critics have the potential to stir debate on art-related topics. Due to this the viewpoints of art critics writing for art publications and newspapers adds to public discourse concerning art and culture. Art collectors and patrons often rely on

4895-492: The director of Harvard's Loeb Drama Center. He graduated summa cum laude in 1954 with a degree in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa . Upon graduation, Updike attended the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford with the ambition of becoming a cartoonist . After returning to the United States, Updike and his family moved to New York, where he became a regular contributor to The New Yorker . This

4984-405: The ebb and flow of Updike's first marriage; "Separating" (1974) and "Here Come the Maples" (1976) related to his divorce. These stories also reflect the role of alcohol in 1970s America. They were the basis for the television movie also called Too Far To Go , broadcast by NBC in 1979. Updike's short stories were collected in several volumes published by Alfred A. Knopf over five decades. In 2013,

5073-466: The equivalent in Italian ) is used as an increasing level of the highest grade for both exams (30/30) and degrees (110/110), in all its levels; Passing an exam cum laude ( 30 e lode ) has usually only an honorific meaning, but sometimes it influences the average grade and can be useful to the student so honored (usually weighting 31/30). "30 e lode" is usually awarded after answering correctly

5162-474: The exact GPA corresponding to each varies by institution. In Ukraine , the university education honor system is based on by-law # 161 (2 June 1993) of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine (3.12.3.5). For a student to graduate from a university with a diploma with honors ( cum laude ), students have to receive mark 5 (excellent) at least on 75% of courses, receive mark 4 (good) at max 25% of courses, and pass

5251-587: The fact that he had departed the magazine's employment after only two years. Updike's memoir indicates that he stayed in his "corner of New England to give its domestic news" with a focus on the American home from the point of view of a male writer. Updike's contract with the magazine gave it right of first offer for his short-story manuscripts, but William Shawn , The New Yorker 's editor from 1952 to 1987, rejected several as too explicit. The Maple short stories, collected in Too Far To Go (1979), reflected

5340-645: The final examination. The Finnish Matriculation Examinations at the end of lukio / gymnasium uses the grades of: improbatur (I, failing; "not accepted"), approbatur (A; "accepted"), lubenter approbatur (B; "willingly accepted"), cum laude approbatur (C; "accepted with praise"), magna cum laude approbatur (M; "accepted with great praise"), eximia cum laude approbatur (E; "accepted with excellent praise") and laudatur (L; "praised"). They are roughly equivalent to Finnish school grades ranging from 4 to 10. Some Finnish universities, when grading master's theses and doctoral dissertations, use

5429-431: The four novels as the omnibus Rabbit Angstrom ; Updike wrote an introduction in which he described Rabbit as "a ticket to the America all around me. What I saw through Rabbit's eyes was more worth telling than what I saw through my own, though the difference was often slight." Updike later called Rabbit "a brother to me, and a good friend. He opened me up as a writer." After the publication of Rabbit at Rest , Updike spent

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5518-405: The gap between art historians and art critics by suggesting that the first rarely cite the second as a source and that the second miss an academic discipline to refer to. Erik de Smedt Summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system

5607-534: The honours classification is stated as in English, e.g. primi ordinis for first class rather than summa cum laude , etc. Official degree certificates use English. For undergraduate degrees, Latin honors are used in only a few countries such as Israel , Indonesia , the Dominican Republic , the Philippines , one university in Singapore and Canada . Most countries use a different scheme, such as

5696-471: The importance of place, and especially of southeast Pennsylvania , in Updike's life and work. Bob Batchelor has described "Updike's Pennsylvania sensibility" as one with profound reaches that transcend time and place, such that in his writing, he used "Pennsylvania as a character" that went beyond geographic or political boundaries. SA Zylstra has compared Updike's Pennsylvania to Faulkner's Mississippi: "As with

5785-704: The influence of J. D. Salinger (" A&P "); John Cheever ("Snowing in Greenwich Village"); and the Modernists Marcel Proust , Henry Green , James Joyce , and Vladimir Nabokov . During this time, Updike underwent a profound spiritual crisis. Suffering from a loss of religious faith, he began reading Søren Kierkegaard and the theologian Karl Barth . Both deeply influenced his own religious beliefs, which in turn figured prominently in his fiction. He believed in Christianity for

5874-576: The latter won the National Book Award . Rabbit, Run featured Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom , a former high school basketball star and middle-class paragon who would become Updike's most enduring and critically acclaimed character. Updike wrote three additional novels about him. Rabbit, Run was featured in Time ' s All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels. Updike's career and reputation were nurtured and expanded by his long association with The New Yorker , which published him frequently throughout his career, despite

5963-753: The marriage in 1974 for Martha Ruggles Bernhard . In 1977, Updike and Bernhard married. In 1982, his first wife married an MIT academic. Updike and Bernhard lived for more than 30 years in Beverly Farms , Massachusetts. Updike had three stepsons through Bernhard. He died of lung cancer at a hospice in Danvers, Massachusetts , on January 27, 2009, at age 76. He was survived by his wife, his four children, three stepsons, his first wife, and seven grandchildren and seven step-grandchildren. Updike published eight volumes of poetry over his career, including his first book The Carpentered Hen (1958), and one of his last,

6052-464: The ordinary seem strange", and called him one of the few modern novelists capable of writing good poetry. Reading Endpoint aloud, the critic Charles McGrath claimed that he found "another, deeper music" in Updike's poetry, finding that Updike's wordplay "smooths and elides itself" and has many subtle "sound effects". John Keenan, who praised the collection Endpoint as "beautiful and poignant", noted that his poetry's engagement with "the everyday world in

6141-453: The poet there are no ideas but in things." No ideas but in things. The American artist, first born into a continent without museums and art schools, took Nature as his only instructor, and things as his principal study. A bias toward the empirical, toward the evidential object in the numinous fullness of its being, leads to a certain lininess, as the artist intently maps the visible in a New World that feels surrounded by chaos and emptiness. He

6230-467: The polish of his language and the perceived lightness of his themes, while others criticized Updike for misogynistic depictions of women and sexual relationships. Other critics argue that Updike's "dense vocabulary and syntax functions as a distancing technique to mediate the intellectual and emotional involvement of the reader". On the whole, however, Updike is extremely well regarded as a writer who mastered many genres, wrote with intellectual vigor and

6319-481: The posthumous Endpoint (2009). The New Yorker published excerpts of Endpoint in its March 16, 2009 issue. Much of Updike's poetical output was recollected in Knopf's Collected Poems (1993). He wrote that "I began as a writer of light verse , and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form." The poet Thomas M. Disch noted that because Updike

6408-472: The practice of literary criticism. Much of Updike's art criticism appeared in The New York Review of Books , where he often wrote about American art . His art criticism involved an aestheticism like that of his literary criticism. Updike's 2008 Jefferson Lecture , "The Clarity of Things: What's American About American Art?", dealt with the uniqueness of American art from the 18th century to

6497-430: The rank of every individual student by minute divisions on a scale of a hundred as formerly, five grades of scholarship were established and degrees were conferred upon the graduating classes according to their grades. If a student was found to be in the first or lowest grade, he was not considered as a candidate for a degree, though he might receive a certificate stating the facts in regard to his standing; if he appeared in

6586-466: The remainder of his life. Updike said, "As to critics, it seems to be my fate to disappoint my theological friends by not being Christian enough, while I'm too Christian for Harold Bloom 's blessing. So be it." Later, Updike and his family relocated to Ipswich, Massachusetts . Many commentators, including a columnist in the local Ipswich Chronicle , asserted that the fictional town of Tarbox in Couples

6675-431: The requirements are fulfilled), cum laude (with honors), summa cum laude (with highest honors). These degrees are used in university diplomas and in certain fields of sciences (medical, legal and a very few others) only. The grades of degrees are dependent on the received average points from final exams and from average points from the university studies. In Italy , the cum laude notation ( con lode being

6764-524: The rest of the 1990s and early 2000s publishing novels in a wide range of genres; the work of this period was frequently experimental in nature. These styles included the historical fiction of Memories of the Ford Administration (1992), the magical realism of Brazil (1994), the science fiction of Toward the End of Time (1997), the postmodernism of Gertrude and Claudius (2000), and

6853-484: The same scale with the additional grade of non sine laude approbatur (N; "accepted not without praise") between lubenter and cum laude ; technical universities use a numerical scale (1–5) instead. In France , usually the French honors mention très bien ("very good mention"), mention bien ("good mention"), and mention assez bien ("quite good mention") are used. However some Grandes Écoles , like

6942-473: The second grade the degree of A.B. was conferred upon him rite; if in the third, cum laude ; if in the fourth, magna cum laude ; while if he reached the fifth grade he received the degree summa cum laude . The advantages of this course, as stated to the trustees by the president, are that it properly discriminates between those who, though passing over the same course of study, have done it with great differences of merit and of scholarship, and that it furnishes

7031-459: The story of a fervent young extremist Muslim in New Jersey , garnered media attention but little critical praise. In 2003, Updike published The Early Stories , a large collection of his short fiction spanning the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. More than 800 pages long, with over one hundred stories, it has been called "a richly episodic and lyrical Bildungsroman ... in which Updike traces

7120-541: The title of May Pinakamataas na Karangalan ( with highest honors ) and a gold medal with the same specification. In college, students are awarded the latin honors cum laude , magna cum laude and summa cum laude , respectively. In Russia , the honor system is based on the grade point average. At least 4.75 out of 5.0 points are required for the summa cum laude degree (in Russian, с отличием s otlichiem , "with excellence"). The graduate has to receive

7209-569: The trajectory from adolescence, college, married life , fatherhood, separation and divorce". It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2004. This lengthy volume nevertheless excluded several stories found in his short-story collections of the same period. Updike worked in a wide array of genres, including fiction, poetry (most of it compiled in Collected Poems: 1953–1993 , 1993), essays (collected in nine separate volumes),

7298-567: The writer's equipment, the typewriter eraser, the boxes of clean paper. And I remember the brown envelopes that stories would go off in—and come back in." These early years in Berks County, Pennsylvania , would influence the environment of the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy , as well as many of his early novels and short stories. Updike graduated from Shillington High School as co- valedictorian and class president in 1950 and received

7387-495: Was adapted as a film and included on Harold Bloom 's list of canonical 20th-century literature (in The Western Canon ). In 2008 Updike published The Widows of Eastwick , a return to the witches in their old age. It was his last published novel. In 1986, he published the unconventional Roger's Version , the second volume of the so-called Scarlet Letter trilogy, about an attempt to prove God's existence using

7476-400: Was awarded only for very exceptional work. Since 1 September 2010, only cum laude is used. It is awarded to bachelors, masters and integrated studies graduates. Occasionally the word kiitusega , which means "with praise", is substituted for the usual cum laude . To receive cum laude one must achieve a 4.60 GPA (out of 5) and receive the highest grade (A – 5.00) for the thesis or

7565-481: Was based on Ipswich. Updike denied the suggestion in a letter to the paper. Impressions of Updike's day-to-day life in Ipswich during the 1960s and 1970s are included in a letter to the same paper published soon after Updike's death and written by a friend and contemporary. In Ipswich, Updike wrote Rabbit, Run (1960), on a Guggenheim Fellowship , and The Centaur (1963), two of his most acclaimed and famous works;

7654-489: Was born in Reading, Pennsylvania , the only child of Linda Grace (née Hoyer) and Wesley Russell Updike , and was raised at his childhood home in the nearby small town of Shillington . The family later moved to the unincorporated village of Plowville . His mother's attempts to become a published writer impressed the young Updike. "One of my earliest memories", he later recalled, "is of seeing her at her desk ... I admired

7743-602: Was set in the Pennsylvania of his youth; it ended around 1965 with the lyrical Of the Farm . After his early novels, Updike became most famous for his chronicling infidelity, adultery, and marital unrest, especially in suburban America; and for his controversial depiction of the confusion and freedom inherent in this breakdown of social mores. He once wrote that it was "a subject which, if I have not exhausted, has exhausted me". The most prominent of Updike's novels of this vein

7832-507: Was such a well-known novelist, his poetry "could be mistaken as a hobby or a foible"; Disch saw Updike's light verse instead as a poetry of "epigrammatical lucidity". His poetry has been praised for its engagement with "a variety of forms and topics", its "wit and precision", and for its depiction of topics familiar to American readers. British poet Gavin Ewart praised Updike for the metaphysical quality of his poetry and for his ability "to make

7921-533: Was the beginning of his professional writing career. Updike stayed at The New Yorker as a full staff writer for only two years, writing "Talk of the Town" columns and submitting poetry and short stories to the magazine. In New York, Updike wrote the poems and stories that came to fill his early books like The Carpentered Hen (1958) and The Same Door (1959). These works were influenced by Updike's early engagement with The New Yorker . This early work also featured

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