Mendele Mocher Sforim, born Sholem Yankev Abramovich or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature.
Menedemus of Eretria was a Greek philosopher and founder of the Eretrian school. He learned philosophy first in Athens, and then, with his friend Asclepiades, he subsequently studied under Stilpo and Phaedo of Elis. Nothing survives of his philosophical views apart from a few scattered remarks recorded by later writers.
Menedemus was a Cynic philosopher, and a pupil of the Epicurean Colotes of Lampsacus. Diogenes Laërtius states that he used to go about garbed as a Fury, proclaiming himself a sort of spy from Hades:He assumed the garb of a Fury, and went about saying that he had come from Hades to take notice of all who did wrong, in order that he might descend there again and make his report to the deities who live in that country. And this was his dress: a tunic of a dark colour reaching to his feet, and a purple girdle round his waist, an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac embroidered on it, tragic buskins, a preposterously long beard, and an ashen staff in his hand.
Menella Bute Smedley (1820–1877) was a novelist and poet. A relative of Lewis Carroll, she wrote some minor novels and books of poems, including the anonymous, The Story of Queen Isabel, and Other Verses, 1863.
Meng Haoran was a major Tang dynasty poet, and a somewhat older contemporary of Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu. Despite his brief pursuit of an official career, Meng Haoran mainly lived in and wrote about the area in which he was born and raised, in what is now Hubei province, China. Meng Haoran was a major influence on other contemporary and subsequent poets of the High Tang era because of his focus on nature as a main topic for poetry. Meng Haoran was also prominently featured in the Qing dynasty poetry anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, having the fifth largest number of his poems included, for a total of fifteen, exceeded only by Du Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei, and Li Shangyin. These poems of Meng Haoran were available in the English translations by Witter Bynner and Kiang Kanghu, by 1920, with the publication of The Jade Mountain. The Three Hundred Tang Poems also has two poems by Li Bai addressed to Meng Haoran, one in his praise and one written in farewell on the occasion of their parting company. Meng Haoran was also influential to Japanese poetry.
Menippus of Gadara was a Cynic satirist. The Menippean satire genre is named after him. His works, all of which are lost, were an important influence on Varro and Lucian, who ranks Menippus with Antisthenes, Diogenes, and Crates as among the most notable of the Cynics.
