30 yazar ve Şair

8/20/2019 30 Yazar Ve Şair

1/30

ENGLISH OFFICE- KPDS,ÜDS,YDS,TOEFL FORUM/COURSES 441 42 84 İzmir http://englishoffice.50webs.com2

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), is considered by many scholars to be the most important

English romantic poet. In 1795, Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two mencollaborated on Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of poems frequently regarded as the symbolicbeginning of the English romantic movement. Wordsworth wrote most of the poems in the book.

In the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth outlined ideas aboutpoetry that have since been identified with romanticism. He argued that serious poems coulddescribe "situations from common life" and be written in the ordinary language "really used by men."He believed such poems could clarify "the primary laws of our nature." Wordsworth also insistedthat poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquility" and that a poet is "a man speaking to men,"different from his fellows only in the degree of his sensitivity but not in any essential way.

Wordsworth has frequently been praised for his descriptions of nature. However, he rightly claimedthat his primary interest was the "mind of man." In fact, a key section of his poem The Prelude: or,

Growth of a Poet's Mind insists that love of nature leads to the love of humanity. His finest poems,including the "Lucy" lyrics (1798-1799), "Michael" (1800), "Resolution and Independence" (1802),and "The Solitary Reaper" (1807), dramatize how imagination creates spiritual values out of thememory of sights and sounds in nature.

Early life. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, which is now in the county of Cumbria. Hismother died in 1778, his father in 1783. Relatives provided for his education. Wordsworth enteredCambridge University in 1787, the year he wrote his first significant poem. During a summervacation in 1790, he visited France, then in turmoil because of the French Revolution. Aftergraduating from Cambridge in 1791, he returned to France and became a supporter of therevolution. He returned to England in December 1792.

Later career. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802. They had five children. Wordsworth

was deeply saddened by the drowning death of his brother John in 1805. His sadness wasreflected in his poem "Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle" (1806). This poemmay have marked the end of Wordsworth's youthful creative period. It seems to reject his earlyoptimistic belief, stated in "Tintern Abbey," that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her." In1807, Wordsworth published one of the most famous poems in English literature, "Ode: Intimationsof Immortality." In this piece, Wordsworth praised childhood and urged individuals to rely onintuition.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He wrote it between1798 and 1805, but he continued to revise it for the rest of his life. The poem was published in1850, shortly after his death. The revisions that Wordsworth made in The Prelude between 1805and 1850 clearly indicate how his values changed as he aged. In its best passages, The Preludeachieves a remarkable combination of simplicity and grandeur.

Wordsworth wrote most of his best poetry before 1807. But he wrote several important works,notably The Excursion (1814), later. This long poem discusses virtue, education, and religious faith.Wordsworth also wrote 523 sonnets, many of which compare with those of William Shakespeareand John Milton.

Contributor: Frederick W. Shilstone, Ph.D., Professor of English, Clemson University.


2/30


Whitman, Walt (1819-1892), was an American poet who wrote Leaves of Grass. Thiscollection of poems is considered one of the world's major literary works.

Whitman's poems sing the praises of the United States and of democracy. The poet's love ofAmerica grew from his faith that Americans might reach new worldly and spiritual heights. Whitmanwrote: "The chief reason for the being of the United States of America is to bring about the common

good will of all mankind, the solidarity of the world."

Whitman may have begun working on Leaves of Grass as early as 1848. The book's form andcontent were so unusual that no commercial publisher would publish it. In 1855, he published thecollection of 12 poems at his own expense. In the preface, Whitman wrote: "The United Statesthemselves are essentially the greatest poem." Between 1856 and 1892, Whitman published eightmore revised and enlarged editions of his book. He believed that Leaves of Grass had grown withhis own emotional and intellectual development.

His work. Beginning students of Whitman will find it easiest to study the poems separately. Theyshould try to understand each poem's imagery, symbolism, literary structure, and unity of theme.

"Song of Myself," the longest poem in Leaves of Grass, is considered Whitman's greatest. It is a

lyric poem told through the joyful experiences of the narrator, simply called "I," who chants thepoem's 52 sections. Sometimes "I" is the poet himself--"Walt Whitman, an American." In otherpassages, "I" speaks for the human race, the universe, or a specific character being dramatized.Like all Whitman's major poems, "Song of Myself" contains symbols. For example, in the poem hedescribes grass as a symbol of life--"the babe of vegetation," "the handkerchief of the Lord/Ascented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt."

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" tells of a man recalling a boyhood experience in which amockingbird lost its mate in a storm at sea. The memory of the bird's song teaches the man themeaning of death and thus the true vocation of a poet: to celebrate death as merely part of the cycleof birth, life, death, and rebirth.

Whitman wrote "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" on the death of Abraham Lincoln.Lincoln died in April, a time of rebirth in nature. As his coffin is transported from Washington, D.C.,to Springfield, Ill., it passes the young wheat, "every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fieldsuprisen." Whitman says that each spring the blooming lilac will remind him not only of the death ofLincoln, but also of the eternal return to life. The evening star Venus symbolizes Lincoln, who has"droop'd in the western sky."

In "Passage to India," Whitman sees achievements in transportation and communication assymbols of universal brotherhood. Individuals are to be united with themselves and then with God,the "Elder Brother."


3/30


A group of Civil War poems called "Drum Taps" describes battlefield scenes and Whitman'semotions during wartime. "O Captain! My Captain!," another poem on Lincoln's death, isWhitman's most popular poem, but differs from his others in rhyme and rhythm. The "Children ofAdam" poems defend the sacredness of sex. The "Calamus" poems praise male companionship.

Whitman wrote in a form similar to thought-rhythm, or parallelism. This form is found in OldTestament poetry. It is also found in sacred books of India, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, whichWhitman may have read in translation. The rhythm of his lines suggests the rise and fall of the seahe loved so much. This structure is better suited to expressing emotion than to logical discussion.

In general, Whitman's poetry is idealistic and romantic while his prose is realistic. His best prose isin a book of essays, mostly autobiographical, called Specimen Days (1882). Whitman's essay"Democratic Vistas" (1871) deals with his theory of democracy and with the creation of a democraticliterature.

His life. Walter Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, New York, and grew up in Brooklyn.He worked as a schoolteacher, printer, and journalist in the New York City area. He wrote articleson political questions, civic affairs, and the arts. Whitman loved mixing in crowds. He attendeddebates, the theater, concerts, lectures, and political meetings. He often rode on stagecoaches andferries just to talk with people.

During the Civil War, Whitman was a government clerk and a volunteer assistant in the militaryhospitals in Washington, D.C. After the war, he worked in several government departments until he

suffered a stroke in 1873. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, N.J., where he continued to writepoems and articles.

Whitman believed that the vitality and variety of his life reflected the vitality and variety of Americandemocracy during his time. Most critics accept this view of the man and his poems. However,some insist Whitman was not a prophetic spokesman, but simply a powerful and unusual lyric poet.

Contributor: Jerome Loving, Ph.D., Professor of English, Texas A&M University.


4/30


Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731), was an English novelist and journalist. He wrote Robinson Crusoe,one of the first English novels and one of the most popular adventure stories in Western literature.Critics have debated what role Defoe played in the development of the English novel, but he wasundoubtedly a great master of realistic narrative and had a remarkable sense of detail in his work.

His life. Defoe was born in London. He was the son of a Protestant butcher and candle merchant.

He started a business career, but he went bankrupt and turned to writing. Defoe's earliest writingsdealt with such controversial subjects as politics and religion. A political pamphlet led to Defoe'simprisonment in 1703 for about 4 months.

For about 25 years, Defoe earned his living as a journalist. He produced his own periodical, TheReview, single-handedly from 1704 to 1713. Many politicians hired him to write for newspapers. Attimes he was secretly writing for the Whig Party in one paper and the Tories in another. Not muchis known about his last years, but he continued to write much political journalism, as well as otherkinds of work.

His writings. Defoe is unusual for the quantity and variety of his works. It is difficult to tell howmany works he produced, because most were published anonymously. The latest estimate of hisworks is almost 550, including works of poetry, theology, economics, and geography.

For most readers today, Defoe is known primarily as a novelist. However, he did not become anovelist until he was about 60 years old and this was really a minor part of his writing. Defoe's twomost famous novels are Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722).

Defoe's novels reflect the growing power and wealth the new English merchant class developedthrough new business opportunities at home and abroad. Many members of this class werePuritans and they tended to glorify hard work and getting ahead through one's own efforts. ThePuritans also stressed education, and therefore became a large part of the reading public. Defoewas one of the first writers to portray trade, capitalism, and business favorably.

Robinson Crusoe is the story of a man marooned on a desert island. It is presented as though it isCrusoe's actual autobiography. Through his own hard work, inventiveness, and will to succeed,

Crusoe turns his island into a thriving colony.

Defoe's novels marked an important break with the fiction of the past. He offered the ordinary livesof real people who were the normal products of their social and economic surroundings. Defoemakes us believe in the reality of what we are reading by using concrete, realistic details. But hedoes not provide much psychological insight into his characters.

Contributor: Gary A. Stringer, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of Southern Mississippi.


5/30


Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864), ranks among America's major authors. Between about1825 and 1850, he developed his talent by writing short fiction and the novel Fanshawe (1828).Then he gained international fame for his novel The Scarlet Letter, a masterpiece of Americanliterature.

Hawthorne's works probe into human nature, especially its darker side. He set many storiesagainst the somber background of Puritan New England, the world of his ancestors. Unlike mostfiction writers of his time, he was not primarily interested in stirring the reader by sensational orsentimental effects. Hawthorne called his writing romance, which he defined as a method ofshowing "the depths of our common nature." To Hawthorne, romance meant confronting reality,rather than evading it. Hawthorne often dealt with the themes of morality, sin, and redemption.Among his early influences were the parables and allegories of John Bunyan and Edmund Spenser.

Life. Nathaniel Hathorne was born in Salem, Mass. He added the w to his name when he beganpublishing. Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. While attending Bowdoin, hebecame a friend of future U.S. President Franklin Pierce. After college, he settled in Salem andcontinued writing. Hawthorne worked in the Boston Custom House in 1839 and 1840 and was amember of the idealistic Brook Farm community near Boston briefly in 1841.

Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842. They moved to the now-famous Old Manse inConcord, Massachusetts, where he continued writing.

Hawthorne was surveyor of customs in the port of Salem from 1846 to 1849. In 1853, PresidentPierce appointed Hawthorne to a four-year term as United States consul in Liverpool, England.After 1857, Hawthorne lived in Italy and again in England before returning to Concord in 1860. Hedied on May 18 or 19, 1864, while visiting New Hampshire with Pierce.

His stories and sketches. Between 1825 and 1850, Hawthorne wrote more than 100 tales andsketches for periodicals. Most of these works were collected in Twice-Told Tales (1837, 1842,1851), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), and The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales(1851).

The stories and sketches reveal themes central to Hawthorne's imagination. He was haunted bythe Puritan society of Massachusetts during the 1600's. To him, the society was represented by hisstern forefathers, especially John Hathorne, who was a judge during the Salem witchcraft trials.Hawthorne painted a grim picture of the Puritan past in "Young Goodman Brown," "The May-pole ofMerrymount," and other short stories. He was one of the first writers in the United States to re-

create the past of his native region. Hawthorne showed the effects of secret guilt in "The Minister'sBlack Veil" and other stories. In "Wakefield," he described the effects of voluntary isolation fromsociety.

In "The Birthmark," "Ethan Brand," and "Rappaccini's Daughter," three of Hawthorne's finest stories,the central characters suffer from intellectual pride. Hawthorne called such pride "theUnpardonable Sin," describing it as the "sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense ofbrotherhood with man and reverence with God." Other stories, such as "The Artist of the Beautiful,"show Hawthorne's concern for the artist's role in society. In "My Kinsman, Major Molineux,"Hawthorne treated the conflict between youth and established authority.


6/30


Hawthorne's sketches deal chiefly with New England scenes of his time. They range in tone fromthe light whimsy of "A Rill from the Town Pump" to the satire of "The Celestial Railroad" and thedark fantasy of "The Haunted Mind." Hawthorne also wrote two popular children's books, A WonderBook for Boys and Girls (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853).

His novels. The Scarlet Letter (1850) is introduced by "The Custom House," an essay in whichHawthorne sketched the novel's background and his experiences as a customs official while writingthe book.

The novel itself is controlled by a single idea--the suffering that results from sin. Hawthorne

believed that sin--adultery in The Scarlet Letter--results in the isolation of the sinners. Isolationleads to suffering, and suffering leads to further sinning and further suffering. The spiral continuesuntil the sinners either destroy themselves or seek forgiveness and rejoin the community.

The Scarlet Letter is set in Puritan Boston. The plot is formed by the interactions of the adulteressHester Prynne, the adulterer Arthur Dimmesdale, and Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth.Hester symbolizes the force of love. Dimmesdale, a minister, represents the spirit, andChillingworth symbolizes the mind.

Hawthorne shaped his tale in four parts, each dominated by a single force. The force in the firstsection (Chapters 1-8) is the Puritan community; in the second (Chapters 9-12) it is Chillingworth; inthe third (Chapters 13-20) it is Hester; and in the closing part, Dimmesdale. Each section centerson one great dramatic scene in a symbolic setting. The symbolic setting in the first, second, and

fourth sections is the scaffold in the Boston marketplace, on which sinners were exhibited andshamed. The forest with its darkness is the symbol in the third section. Hawthorne expanded andintensified the meaning of the action by pictures of light and dark colors he created verbally and byhis quiet, ironic tone.

The House of the Seven Gables (1851) tells the story of a curse placed on the House of Pyncheonby Matthew Maule, a victim of the Salem witchcraft trials. Hawthorne traces the curse's effect onthe Pyncheon descendants and describes their final reconciliation to their past.

The Blithedale Romance (1852), a tragic love story, is Hawthorne's closest approach to a novel ofobserved life. Hawthorne drew his characters in part from the men and women he had known in theBrook Farm community.

The Marble Faun (1860) is a psychological study of two young American artists in Italy and theirrelationship with a mysterious woman painter and a young nobleman.

Contributor: John Clendenning, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Northridge.


7/30


Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), was a poet, philosopher, and critic of the Englishromantic movement. His poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is one of the greatest in Englishliterature, and all his major poems are among the most original. They embody ideals ofromanticism, a literary movement that stressed imagination, passion, and the supernatural. Hisliterary criticism has influenced most later critics.

His life. Coleridge was born in Devonshire. He studied at Cambridge University, where he metRobert Southey in 1794. The two young poets favored the principles of the French Revolution andplanned to found a pantisocracy (a utopian society) in the United States. They also collaborated in1794 on a drama opposing monarchy.

In 1795, Coleridge met William Wordsworth, and they became intimate friends. They publishedLyrical Ballads (1798), which contains the first version of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In1798, Coleridge got an annuity (regular income) from Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood. It enabledhim to abandon a plan to become a clergyman. Then he and Wordsworth traveled to Germany.Coleridge absorbed ideas from German philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant, who influencedhis own literary theories. On his return to England, he translated two plays by German authorFriedrich Schiller.

About 1800, Coleridge's health began to fail. He had begun taking opium to relieve the pain ofrheumatism. His marriage, never happy, caused him increasing distress after he fell in love withWordsworth's sister-in-law, Sara Hutchinson. He spent his last years under a doctor's care, largelyto control his opium addiction.

His writing. Coleridge's other famous poems are "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel." Coleridge said,possibly incorrectly, that "Kubla Khan" was inspired by an opium dream. "Christabel" is anunfinished narrative of medieval times. Both poems deal with the visionary and the supernatural,combining vivid, dreamlike images with rich literary references and intricate symbolism.

Coleridge blended keen psychological insights with precise pictures of natural scenes in hismeditative lyrics, notably "Dejection: An Ode" (1802). He called many of these works "conversationpoems" and addressed them to friends, including Wordsworth and essayist Charles Lamb.

Coleridge was most influential in his literary criticism. He said that a good poem has an organic(natural), not a mechanical (artificial), unity. He used this idea, among other ways, to greatlyelevate the reputation of English playwright William Shakespeare. Coleridge emphasized thatpoetry is creative or expressive, rather than imitative, and insisted that imagination, not reason, isthe foundation of the fine arts. Coleridge's best-known critical work, Biographia Literaria (1817),contains valuable analyses of Wordsworth's poetry. Much of Coleridge's shrewdest criticismappears in notebooks, lectures, journalistic essays, and marginal comments on other writers. Adevout man, Coleridge often discussed religion, morality, and theology.



8/30


Dickens, Charles (1812-1870), was a great English novelist and one of the most popularwriters of all time. His best-known books include A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, GreatExpectations, Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens created someof the most famous characters in English literature. He also created scenes and descriptions ofplaces that have long delighted readers. Dickens was a keen observer of life and had a greatunderstanding of humanity, especially of young people. He sympathized with the poor andhelpless, and mocked and criticized the selfish, the greedy, and the cruel.

Dickens was also a wonderfully inventive comic artist. The warmth and humor of his personalityappear in all his works. Perhaps in no other large body of fiction does the reader receive so strong

and agreeable an impression of the person behind the story.

Dickens's life

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, on Feb. 7, 1812. He moved withhis family to London when he was about two years old. Many of the events and people in Dickens'sbooks are based on events and people in his life. Dickens's father, John Dickens, was a poor andeasygoing clerk who worked for the navy. John served in some respects as the model for WilkinsMicawber in David Copperfield. He spent time in prison for debt, an event that Charles re-createdin Little Dorrit.

Even when John was free, he lacked the money to support his family adequately. At the age of 12,Charles worked in a London factory pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish. He held the job only a

few months, but the misery of that experience remained with him all his life.

Dickens attended school off and on until he was 15, and then left for good. He enjoyed reading andwas especially fond of adventure stories, fairy tales, and novels. He was influenced by such earlierEnglish writers as William Shakespeare, Tobias Smollett, and Henry Fielding. However, most of theknowledge he later used as an author came from his observation of life around him.

Dickens became a newspaper reporter in the late 1820's. He specialized in covering debates inParliament and also wrote feature articles. His work as a reporter sharpened his naturally keen earfor conversation and helped develop his skill in portraying his characters' speech realistically. Italso increased his ability to observe and to write swiftly and clearly. Dickens's first book, Sketchesby Boz (1836), consisted of articles he wrote for the Monthly Magazine and the London EveningChronicle. These descriptions, fictional portraits, and short stories surveyed manners andconditions of the time.

Literary success. Dickens won his first literary fame with The Posthumous Papers of the PickwickClub. Published in monthly parts in 1836 and 1837, the book describes the humorous adventuresand misadventures of a group of slightly eccentric characters in London and the Englishcountryside. After a slow start, The Pickwick Papers-as the book is usually called--gained apopularity seldom matched in the history of literature. At 24, Dickens suddenly found himselffamous. He remained so until his death.

Dickens founded and edited two highly successful weekly magazines. He edited Household Wordsfrom 1850 to 1859 and All the Year Round from 1859 to his death. As a public figure, Dickens was


9/30


constantly in the news, and was recognized and honored wherever he went. He was famous inAmerica as well as in Britain, and he toured the United States in 1842 and in 1867 and 1868.

Personal life. Personal unhappiness marred Dickens's public success. In 1836, he marriedCatherine Hogarth. Catherine had a sister Mary, who died in 1837. Dickens's grief at Mary's deathhas led some scholars to believe that he loved Mary more than his wife. Catherine was a goodwoman but lacked great intelligence. She and Dickens had 10 children. The couple separated in1858.

Dickens had remarkable mental and physical energy. He recorded his activities in thousands of

letters, many of which make delightful reading. He spent much of his crowded social life withfriends from the worlds of art and literature. Dickens enjoyed drama and went to the theater asoften as he could. When he was rich and famous, he made a hobby of producing and acting inamateur theatrical productions. He had great success giving public readings of his works.Dickens's gift for creating dramatic scenes in his novels can be traced to his love for the theater.

Besides writing, editing, and touring as a dramatic reader, Dickens busied himself with variouscharities. These charities included schools for poor children and a loan society to enable the poorto move to Australia. Dickens often walked for hours to work off his remaining energy. He came toknow the streets and alleys of London better, perhaps, than any other person of his time.

Dickens's health began to decline about 1865 and he died of a stroke on June 9, 1870.

Dickens's books

Dickens wrote 20 novels (including 5 short Christmas books), and many sketches, travel books, andother non-fiction works. Not all of his books were best sellers, but the most popular ones broke allsales records for the time. Most of his novels were published in sections.

The first phase. After the success of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens turned to more serious themesand plots. However, he always introduced enough humor to keep his books entertaining.

Oliver Twist (1837-1839) describes the adventures of a poor orphan boy. The book was noted forits sensational presentation of London's criminal world and for its attack on England's mistreatmentof the poor.

In Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), Dickens criticized greedy proprietors of private schools, whotreated students brutally and taught them nothing.

The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841) is less respected today than when it was first published, largelybecause the death scene of Little Nell seems sentimental to modern tastes.

Barnaby Rudge (1841) is a historical novel that deals with a series of riots in London in 1780.Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844) is one of two books that Dickens based on his first trip to America.The other is the travel book American Notes (1842). Dickens intended Martin Chuzzlewit to be astudy of many forms of selfishness. But it is best known for its unflattering picture of the crudenessof American manners and for its comic characters. Two of its finest creations are the hypocritePecksniff and the chattering, alcoholic midwife Sairey Gamp.

Dickens wrote his five "Christmas books" during the 1840's. The first, A Christmas Carol (1843), isone of the most famous stories ever written. In the book, three ghosts show the old miser EbenezerScrooge his past, present, and future. Realizing that he has been living a life of greed, Scroogechanges into a warm and unselfish person. The other Christmas books are The Chimes (1844),The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848).

The second phase. During the 1840's, Dickens's view of Victorian society, and perhaps of theworld, grew darker. His humor became more bitter, often taking the form of biting satire. Hischaracters and plots seemed to emphasize the evil side of human experience.


10/30


At the same time, Dickens increasingly refined his art. The range of his tone widened and he paidmore attention to structure and arrangement. He turned to symbolic themes to help express andexpand his observations on topical political and social issues and on larger matters of morality andvalues. The unhealthy London fog in Bleak House, for example, symbolizes the illness of society,especially its lack of responsibility toward the downtrodden and the unfortunate.

Dombey and Son (1846-1848) deals primarily with a selfish egotist whose pride cuts him off fromthe warmth of human love. The book stresses the evils of the Victorian admiration for money.Dickens believed that money had become the measure of all personal relations and the goal of allambition.

With David Copperfield (1849-1850), Dickens temporarily lessened the role of social criticism toconcentrate more on semiautobiography. The novel describes a young man's discovery of therealities of adult life. David's youth is clearly patterned after Dickens's youth.

Bleak House (1852-1853) is in many respects Dickens's greatest novel. It has a complex structureand many levels of meaning, mixing melodrama with satire and social commentary. The book dealswith many social evils, chiefly wasteful and cruel legal processes. It also attacks the neglect of thepoor, false humanitarians and clergymen, and poor sanitation.

This long novel was followed by the much shorter and simpler Hard Times (1854). Hard Timesattacks philosopher Jeremy Bentham's doctrine of utilitarianism. Bentham believed that all humanideas, actions, and institutions should be judged by their usefulness. Dickens was convinced that

Bentham reduced social relations to problems of cold, mechanical self-interest.

In Little Dorrit (1855-1857), Dickens continued his campaign against materialism and snobbery,which were represented by the rich Merdle family and their social-climbing friends. He alsoridiculed government inefficiency in the form of the "Circumlocution Office." The prison, like the fogin Bleak House, is symbolic. It stands for the painful conditions of life in a materialistic, decayingsociety.

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) was the second of Dickens's two historical novels. It is set in Londonand Paris and tells of the heroism of fictional Sydney Carton during the French Revolution.

In Great Expectations (1860-1861), Dickens returned to the theme of a youth's discovery of therealities of life. An unknown person provides the young hero Pip with money so that Pip can live as

a gentleman. Pip's pride is shattered when he learns the source of his "great expectations." Onlyby painfully revising his values does Pip reestablish his life on a foundation of sympathy, rather thanon vanity, possessions, and social position.

Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) was Dickens's final novel of social criticism. Dickens again attackedthe false values of the newly rich. He satirized greed, using the great garbage heaps of the Londondumps as a symbol of filthy money. The novel is also notable for its suggestive use of London'sRiver Thames.

Dickens had completed about one-third of his novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood when he died.Nobody knows how Dickens intended the story to end. Scholars and readers throughout the yearshave proposed many possible solutions for the mystery.

Dickens's place in literature

Dickens is now considered one of the major figures in English literature, but his position was notalways so high. His reputation declined between 1880 and 1940. This was partly due to thepsychological emphasis that became fashionable in novels after Dickens's death. Critics valuedDickens chiefly as an entertainer and, above all, as a creator of a huge gallery of comic, pleasant,and villainous characters. They recognized him as a master creator of plot and scene, and as asharp-eyed observer of London life. But they considered his outlook simple and unrealistic. Theybelieved he lacked artistic taste and relied too much on broad comedy, dramatic effects,sentimentality, and superficial psychology.


11/30


However, since 1940, numerous books and essays have described Dickens as a writer ofconsiderable depth and complexity. He has also been praised as a sensitive and philosophicobserver of human struggles within social institutions. In this sense, Dickens has been associatedwith such authors as Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Recent criticism has demonstrated that Dickens can no longer be regarded only as an entertainer,though his ability to entertain is probably the major reason for his popularity. Whatever his otherclaims to greatness may be, Dickens ranks as a superbly inventive comic artist. His charactershave been compared to those of Shakespeare in their variety, color, energy, and life. Dickens was

aware of human evil, but he never lost his perspective. Dickens's art was sustained by anawareness and appreciation of the human comedy.

Contributor: K. K. Collins, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, Southern Illinois University.


12/30


Eliot, George (1819-1880), was the pen name of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, a great Englishnovelist. Much of her fiction reflects the middle-class rural background of her childhood and youth.George Eliot wrote with sympathy, wisdom, and realism about English country people and smalltowns. She wrote seriously about moral and social problems, but her characters are living portraits.

George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (1871-1872), is a long story ofmany complex characters, and their influence on and reaction to each other. Adam Bede (1859),her first novel, is a tragic love story in which her father serves as the model for the title character.The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861) are somber works set against countrybackgrounds. Silas Marner is the story of an embittered old miser who loses his gold, but turns to amore human life through his love for a little girl. Romola (1863) is a historical novel set inRenaissance Florence. Felix Holt, Radical (1866), George Eliot's only political novel, is consideredone of her poorer works. Daniel Deronda (1876), her last novel, displays the author's knowledge ofand sensitivity to Jewish culture. The book is notable for the warm portrait of its heroine,Gwendolen Harleth.

George Eliot was born in Warwickshire. She received an excellent education in private schools andfrom tutors. After her father's death in 1849, she traveled in Europe and then settled in London.There she wrote for important journals and became a friend of many important people. Britishintellectuals regarded her as one of the leading thinkers of her day. George Eliot lived with thewriter George Henry Lewes from 1854 to 1878, although Lewes was married and could not obtain adivorce under existing law.

Contributor: Sharon Bassett, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Los Angeles.


13/30


Byron, Lord (1788-1824), was the most colorful of the English romantic poets. Many peoplefind his adventurous life as interesting as his poetry. Byron often set his poems in Europe and theNear East, and they reflect his own experiences and beliefs. Byron's poetry is sometimes violent,sometimes tender, and frequently exotic. However, the underlying theme is always Byron'sinsistence that people be free to choose their own course in life.

Byron's life. George Gordon Byron was born in London, but he lived most of his first 10 years in

Scotland with his mother. His father, who had abandoned Byron's mother, died when the boy was3. Byron inherited the title Lord Byron at the age of 10, upon the death of his great-uncle. He thenreturned to England, where he attended Harrow School and Cambridge University. Byron's firstbook of poems, Hours of Idleness (1807), was severely criticized by the Edinburgh Review, aScottish literary magazine. Byron replied with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a versesatire in which he attacked almost every notable literary figure of the day.

From 1809 to 1811, Byron traveled through southern Europe and parts of the Near East. In 1812,he published the first two cantos (sections) of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. These cantos, set in thecountries he had recently visited, chiefly Portugal, Spain, Albania, and Greece, immediatelyestablished his fame. Eastern verse tales, such as The Bride of Abydos (1813) and The Corsair(1814), kept him in the public eye. In 1815, Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke. They had abrief, unhappy marriage, during which a daughter, Ada, was born. The marriage ended partly

because of rumors that Byron had committed incest with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Byron leftEngland forever in 1816.

Byron spent several months in Switzerland, where he met fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Byronthen settled in Italy, where he carried on a long romance with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli andbecame involved in Italian revolutionary politics. Byron also wrote such works as the verse dramasManfred (1817) and Cain (1821). His last and greatest work was the long, unfinished epic DonJuan. In 1823, while writing this poem, Byron decided to join the Greeks in their war forindependence from the Turks. After a brief illness, he died in Missolonghi, Greece.

Byron's poetry. Hours of Idleness is mainly a collection of the learned and romantic poses expectedof young poets at that time. In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, however, Byron adopted thebiting, satiric style used by the poet Alexander Pope in his Dunciad.

Byron wrote the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as a fictional allegory using thestanza form and many features of the literary style of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. Thiswork and the sequence of "Turkish Tales" (1813-1816) that followed defined the character typeknown as "the Byronic hero." This character is the melancholy, defiant, proudly self-assured manassociated with Byron and widely imitated in later literature. In canto III (1816) and canto IV (1818),Byron identifies himself with Harold and through him expresses the loss and defiance the poet feltwhile living abroad.


14/30


During Byron's last years, he wrote several types of works, notably such historical and Biblicaltragedies as Sardanapalus (1821) and Cain. But the masterpiece of his Italian period is Don Juan.Byron wrote the poem in the loose, flexible Italian verse form called ottava rima. The poem deflatesthe legendary lover Don Juan to the level of a comic epic hero. The most important element in DonJuan, however, is the narrator, a free and self-contradictory spirit whose tone changes continually,ranging through the forceful, biting, sentimental, cynical, self-mocking, and self-assured. Thenarrator's voice maintains Byron's scorn for what he called cant, the deceptions played byindividuals and societies upon one another. Despite the range of Byron's poetry, that scorn is themain force running from the beginning to the end of his career.



15/30


Keats, John (1795-1821), was an English poet of the romantic period. Keats's poetry isconcerned, in various ways, with joy in the beauty of this world, sorrow over its inevitable passing,and attempts to find bridges between the perishable world we know and the eternal world weimagine. His verse employs unusually rich and vivid images to express his intense feelings.

His life. Keats was born in London on Oct. 31, 1795, the son of a livery stable keeper. He attendedthe Clarke school in Enfield, outside London, and his interest in literature was first aroused there.Keats later studied medicine and passed his medical examinations, but he never practiced becausehe had decided to become a poet. He dedicated his first volume, Poems (1817), to his friend LeighHunt. Hunt was a journalist, essayist, and poet who held liberal political views. In 1818, Keatspublished his second volume of poetry, Endymion, a long mythological story in verse. Thereviewers for the powerful Tory journals, always eager to attack Hunt or his friends, ridiculedEndymion. The reviewers sneeringly assigned Keats to what they called the "Cockney School ofPoetry."

The reviews ruined Keats's reputation and even gave rise to the story that the young poet wasliterally killed by the hostile reception of his works. Adding to Keats's disappointment in 1818 werethe death of his brother from tuberculosis and Keats's premonition that he himself would suffer thesame fate. Keats began to develop an increasing feeling that poverty and disease would preventhis marrying Fanny Brawne, whom he deeply loved. Yet from the fall of 1818 through the fall of

1819, Keats experienced an intense burst of creativity, and his final and best volume was publishedin 1820. But Keats had developed tuberculosis. He traveled to Italy, hoping a warmer climatemight improve his health. He died in Rome and was buried there.

His work. Keats's early poetry was uneven. It showed the influence of Edmund Spenser andWilliam Shakespeare, but it lacked the consistency these poets displayed. In his 1817 volume,perhaps the only poem of mature stature was the sonnet of excited literary discovery "On FirstLooking into Chapman's Homer."

In Endymion, Keats retold the classic story of the shepherd who loved and won the goddess of themoon. Some people think that Keats simply let his imagination run wild, without a clear plan, in this4,000-line poem. Others see in the poem a symbolic story concerned, like much of Keats's earlypoetry, with showing how appreciation of the beauty of nature can lead to the understanding of

eternal truth. Endymion opens with the famous line "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Most of the poems written during Keats's brief maturity display what he called "negative capability."They explore many possibilities of the subjects with which they are concerned but do not insist uponany one answer to the enduring problems of life. The intense experience of life, and not its perfectunderstanding, was Keats's main poetic concern.



16/30


Austen, Jane (1775-1817), one of the best-loved English novelists, wrote with a keen sense ofirony about the social institutions of her time. In each of Austen's six novels, a woman meets andmarries an eligible man after a series of usually comic difficulties. Overcoming these obstacleshelps one or both of the characters gain the self-knowledge required for a happy marriage. Fewauthors have matched Austen's sure eye for human weakness, her affectionate description ofeveryday life, or her witty and elegant prose.

Austen's first novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811), follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, twosisters with differing temperaments. Elinor possesses careful self-control, or "sense," while

Marianne permits hasty emotions, or "sensibility," to rule her decisions. Pride and Prejudice (1813)is Austen's most famous work. In the novel, the lively Elizabeth Bennet dislikes Fitzwilliam Darcy'sproud behavior and is blinded to his better qualities. Their marriage can take place only after hehumbles his pride and she loses her prejudice. In Mansfield Park (1814), the long-suffering andmodest Fanny Price grows up mistreated by rich relatives. Her character may seem uninterestingcompared with Austen's more flawed women, but Fanny is a successful portrait of personalintegrity.

The self-satisfied and overly imaginative heroine of Emma (1816) almost ruins her chances forhappiness with matchmaking schemes. Northanger Abbey, begun in 1797 and published in 1818,makes fun of the Gothic tales of romance and terror popular in Austen's time . In Persuasion (1818),Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth find love that survives an earlier parting and a disapprovingfamily.

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, a village in Hampshire. Her father was a clergyman, and shereceived a better education than most women of her time. Austen began writing novels in her early20's but did not publish them until late in life. Austen never married, and she lived happily in therural, upper middle class society described in her books.



17/30


Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882), was a British naturalist who became famous for histheories on evolution. Like several other scientists before him, Darwin believed that, throughmillions of years, all species of plants and animals had evolved (developed gradually) from a fewcommon ancestors.

Darwin's theories included several related ideas. They were: (1) that evolution had occurred; (2)that most evolutionary change was gradual, requiring thousands or millions of years; (3) that theprimary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection, and (4)that the millions ofspecies present on earth today arose from a single original life form through a branching processcalled speciation, by which one species can give rise to two or more species. Darwin set forth histheories in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation ofFavoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859).

Darwin's theories shocked most people of his day, who believed that each species had beencreated by a separate divine act. His book, which is usually called simply The Origin of Species,presented facts that refuted this belief. It caused a revolution in biological science and greatlyaffected religious thought.

Darwin's life. Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. He was the grandson of the notedphysician and naturalist Erasmus Darwin, who had proposed a theory of evolution in the 1790's. Asa boy, Charles often heard his grandfather's theories discussed.

Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and theology at Cambridge University. Hereceived a bachelor's degree from Cambridge in 1831. From 1831 to 1836, Darwin served as anaturalist with a British scientific expedition aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. The expedition visitedplaces throughout the world, and he studied plants and animals everywhere it went.

In South America, Darwin found fossils of extinct animals that closely resembled modern species.On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, he noticed many variations among plants andanimals of the same general type as those in South America. He collected the fossils and otherspecimens for future study.

Darwin returned to England in 1836 and settled in London. He spent the rest of his life studyingspecimens, doing experiments, corresponding with other scientists, and writing about his findings.Darwin's early books included The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842) and a journal ofhis research aboard the Beagle.

In 1839, Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. The family moved to Downe, near Croydon,in 1842, and Darwin lived there until his death. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

Darwin's theories. The study of the specimens from the voyage of the Beagle convinced Darwinthat modern species had evolved from a few earlier ones. He documented the evidence and firstpresented his theories on evolution to a meeting of scientists in 1858.


18/30


In most cases, according to Darwin, no two members of any species are exactly alike. Eachorganism has an individual combination of traits, and many of these traits are inherited. Darwinclaimed that gardeners and farmers commonly developed special kinds of plants and animals byselecting and breeding organisms that had desired traits. He believed a similar selective processtook place in nature. Darwin called this process natural selection, and others have called it thesurvival of the fittest.

Darwin showed that living things commonly produce many more offspring than are necessary toreplace themselves. The earth cannot possibly support all these organisms, and so they mustcompete for such necessities as food and shelter. Their lives also are threatened by animals that

prey on them, by unfavorable weather, and by other environmental conditions.

Darwin suggested that some members of a species have traits that aid them in this struggle for life.Other members have less favorable traits and therefore are less likely to survive or reproduce. Onthe average, the members with favorable traits live longer and produce more offspring than do theothers. They also pass on the favorable traits to their young. The unfavorable traits are eventuallyeliminated. When this process occurs in two isolated populations of one species, members of onespecies may become so genetically different that they will be regarded as separate species.

Darwin wrote several books that further discussed his theories of evolution. These included TheDescent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions inMan and Animals (1872).

The influence of Darwin's ideas. Darwin's theories of evolution through natural selection set off abitter controversy among biologists, religious leaders, and the general public. Many people thoughtDarwin had implied that human beings were descended from monkeys, and they angrily criticizedhis revolutionary ideas. But such noted British scientists as Thomas Henry Huxley and AlfredRussel Wallace supported Darwin's work, and virtually all scientists eventually accepted histheories. These theories, and the facts that supported them, gave biologists new insight into theorigin of living things and the relationship among various species.

Darwin's theories stimulated studies in biology, particularly in paleontology and comparativeanatomy. During the first half of the 1900's, discoveries in genetics and developmental biologywere used as evidence for theories of evolution that regarded natural selection as unimportant. Butafter World War II ended in 1945, Darwin's theories again became the dominant influence inevolutionary biology in a form often called Neo-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism gave a fuller

explanation for the genetic origin of variation within species and for howspecies are formed. Fewbiologists reject the basic propositions of Neo-Darwinism, and Darwin's theories are still the basisfor many biological studies.

Darwin's work has had a tremendous impact on religious thought. Many people strongly opposethe idea of evolution--and the teaching of it--because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Forexample, they claim that the theory of evolution disagrees with the Biblical account of the Creation.Some people argue against the theory of natural selection because they believe it diminishes therole of divine guidance in the universe.

Darwin avoided discussing the theological and sociological aspects of his work, but other writersused his ideas in their own theories about society. The German philosopher Karl Marx comparedthe struggle for survival among organisms to the struggle for power among social classes Scholarscalled social Darwinists used Darwin's ideas to promote the belief that people in a society--andsocieties themselves--must compete for survival.

Contributor: Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Univ. of Chicago.


19/30


Walpole, Horace (1717-1797), was an English letter writer and author. Even at a time whenpersonal letters were considered a minor art form, Walpole's huge correspondence is remarkable.His witty letters provide an entertaining documentary of life in English high society. They reportsocial and political gossip and express Walpole's opinions on literature and the arts.

As a scholar fascinated by medieval life, Walpole greatly influenced the Gothic revival of the late1700's. He transformed Strawberry Hill, his house in Twickenham, into a miniature Gothic castle.He built a printing press nearby, and published many of his own writings. His most influentialliterary work is The Castle of Otranto (1764). This tale of terror and the supernatural was the first ofwhat became known as Gothic novels.

Walpole was born in London. He was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, the first primeminister of England. Horace Walpole served in Parliament from 1741 to 1768. In 1791, hesucceeded to the family title as the fourth Earl of Orford.

Contributor: Martin C. Battestin, Ph.D., William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor Emeritus of English, Univ.of Virginia.


20/30


Bronte sisters , were three sisters who became famous novelists--Charlotte (1816-1855),Emily (1818-1848), and Anne (1820-1849). Their lives and works are associated with the lonelymoors of Yorkshire, England, where they were born.

Their lives. Patrick Bronte, the sisters' father, was a poor Irishman who became the parishclergyman in the small, isolated town of Haworth, Yorkshire. Bronte was somewhat eccentric andinclined to be strict. His wife died in 1821 and her sister brought up the family conscientiously, but

with little affection or understanding. The sisters went to several boarding schools where theyreceived a better education than was usual for girls at that time, but in a harsh atmosphere.

Few jobs were available for women at that time, and the Bronte sisters, except for occasional jobsas governesses or schoolteachers, lived their entire lives at home. They were shy, poor, andlonely, and occupied themselves with music, drawing, reading and--above all--writing. Theirisolation led to the early development of their imaginations. In 1846, under the masculine pennames of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the sisters published a joint volume of poems. Although onlytwo copies were sold, all three sisters soon had their first novels published.

Their works. Charlotte Bronte's famous novel Jane Eyre (1847) is largely autobiographical.Through the heroine, Charlotte relived the hated boarding school life and her experiences as agoverness in a large house. Rochester, the hero and master of the house, is fictional. Jane Eyre

was enormously successful, but many readers were shocked that Rochester, who tried to makeJane his mistress, should be rewarded by marrying her. Some readers were also shocked becauseJane wanted to be regarded as a thinking and independent person, rather than as a weak female.

Charlotte Bronte wrote three other novels. The first one, The Professor, was not published until1857, after her death. Shirley (1849) is set among labor riots of the early 1800's. Villette (1853),the most popular of the three, is based on Charlotte's unhappy experiences as a governess inBrussels.

Emily Bronte wrote only one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a romantic masterpiece. The workwas not as popular as Jane Eyre, and was even more strongly condemned for its brutality, its lackof conventional morality, and its glorification of romantic passion. Not all readers find thesupernatural elements, or the hero Heathcliff's pitiless cruelty, wholly believable. However, the

author's vivid descriptions and her understanding of social class and individual temperament giveeven the exaggerated elements of her story impact. Her portrait of the moors reveals Emily as apoet of enduring power.

Anne Bronte was the mildest and most patient of the sisters. Both her novels, Agnes Grey (1847)and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), can be seen as less violent versions of Jane Eyre.

Contributor: Sharon Bassett, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Los Angeles.


21/30


Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928), was an English novelist and poet. In most of Hardy's books, hischaracters fight a losing battle against the impersonal force of fate. Hardy summed up his vision ofthe unfairness of life in the novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. He wrote that, with the heroine's death,"Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals, ... had ended his sport with Tess."

Hardy's characters can be viewed as people with psychological weaknesses. But Hardy saw

human downfall not primarily as personal weakness, but rather as the result of an unwilling conflictwith a hostile, meaningless universe.

Most of Hardy's stories take place in the fictional county of Wessex, a place of gloomy landscapeswell suited to stories of tragedy. Hardy modeled Wessex on the county of Dorset, his birthplace.

Hardy's first successful novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), contrasts selfish love withselfless love. The Return of the Native (1878) is a somber story of the tragic results of a man's illicitlove for a woman. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) traces the spiritual and physical deteriorationof a respected man.

Hardy's last great novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), treat thetheme of sexual attraction with a frankness that shocked the people of his time. The public outcry

against Jude the Obscure was so great that Hardy stopped writing novels, an occupation he hadnever really respected, and turned to poetry.

Hardy wrote lyric poetry of high quality. His best verse captures a profound sense of human lossand sorrow. Like his novels, many of Hardy's poems convey the bitter ironies inflicted uponhumans by "Immanent Will," the blind force that he felt drives the world.

Hardy was born in Upper (or Higher) Bockhampton in Dorset. He studied architecture and workedas an architect. In the early 1870's, he abandoned architecture for a full-time career as a writer.



22/30


Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), was a Polish-born author who wrote in English. He becamefamous for the novels and short stories that he wrote about the sea.

Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski near Kiev, in what was then RussianPoland. He left Poland at the age of 16 and arrived in England at the age of 20, unable to speakEnglish. During the next 16 years, he worked his way up from deck hand to captain in the BritishMerchant Navy. He mastered English so completely that he was able to write some of its greatest

novels. Conrad's rich prose style is noted for its gripping intensity, which can be precise in itsrealism or filled with metaphor.

Conrad used experiences of his life in many of his works. From his voyages in the Indian Oceanand Malay Archipelago came some of his best-known novels. He began with Almayer's Folly(1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896), both set in Borneo.

Such later masterpieces as The Nigger of the "Narcissus" (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Typhoon (1903),and The Shadow Line (1917) are also set in the eastern seas. Several of his short stories, including"The Secret Sharer" and "Youth," are set there, too. "Heart of Darkness" is based on his voyage upthe Congo River, and his novel Nostromo (1904) uses memories of his early voyages in theCaribbean.

His sea stories were not superficial adventure tales, though they were sometimes dismissed assuch in his day. Later critics hailed Conrad for his experiments with fictional point of view andmultiple narrators. Conrad's work is also exceptional for its probing psychological analysis of theisolated self torn between such conflicting influences as sympathy and greed, heroism andcowardice, and idealism and cynicism. In Nostromo, for example, Conrad presented an epic pictureof the clash between capitalism and revolution in South America. Conrad also wrote two absorbingnovels about revolutionaries in Europe, The Secret Agent (1907) and Under Western Eyes (1911),and the autobiographical pieces collected in The Mirror of the Sea (1906) and A Personal Record(1912). After years of praise from critics but little public attention, Conrad only began to achievepopular success with the more melodramatic material of his novels Chance (1914) and Victory(1915).

Contributor: Garrett Stewart, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of Iowa.


23/30


Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900), was an author, playwright, and wit. He preached the importance ofstyle in both life and art, and he attacked Victorian narrow-mindedness and complacency.

Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland. His full name was Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. At 20,Wilde left Ireland to study at Oxford University where he distinguished himself as a scholar and wit.He soon became a well-known public figure, but the period of his true achievement did not beginuntil he published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in 1888. In these fairy tales and fables, Wildefound a literary form well-suited to his talents. Wilde's only novel, the ingenious Picture of DorianGray (1890), is an enlarged moral fable. It describes a man whose portrait ages and grows ugly asa reflection of his moral corruption while his actual appearance remains the same. The book seemsto show the destructive side of a devotion to pleasure and beauty similar to Wilde's own.

Wilde's plays taken together are his most important works. Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), AWoman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895) combine the then-fashionabledrama of social intrigue with witty high comedy. In each play, Wilde brings together an intolerantyoung idealist and a person who has committed a social sin in the past. They meet in a societywhere appearances are everything. The effect is always to educate the idealists to their ownweaknesses and to show the need for tolerance and forgiveness.

In The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his masterpiece, Wilde departed from his standardformula by combining high comedy with farce. The characters take insignificant things seriouslywhile casually dismissing important concerns. The result is a satire on the shallowness of Britishsociety and its focus on good breeding and proper formalities. Almost every line in the play is anepigram (clever saying). Wilde also wrote Salome (1893), a one-act Biblical tragedy, in French.

In 1895, Wilde was at the peak of his career and had three hit plays running at the same time. Butin that year he was accused of having homosexual relations with Lord Alfred Douglas by Douglas'sfather, the Marquess of Queensberry. As a result, Wilde became involved in a hopeless legaldispute, and he was sentenced to two years in prison at hard labor. From his prison experiencescame his best poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and a remarkable autobiographicaldocument sometimes called De Profundis.

Wilde left England after his release. Ruined in health, finances, and creative energy, but with his witintact, he died in France three years later.

Contributor: Gerald M. Berkowitz, Ph.D., Former Professor of English, Northern Illinois University.


24/30


Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965), ranks among the most important poets of the 1900's. In "The LoveSong of J. Alfred Prufrock," The Waste Land, and other poems, he departed radically from thetechniques and subject matter of pre-World War I poetry. His poetry, along with his critical works,helped to reshape modern literature. Eliot received the 1948 Nobel Prize for literature.

His life. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis. He studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne in Paris,and Oxford. He settled in London in 1914. Eliot was working as a bank clerk when his poemscame to the attention of the American poet Ezra Pound. Pound encouraged Eliot, and helped himwith his poetry.

Many of Eliot's views on literature appeared in The Criterion, a literary magazine he edited from1922 to 1939. Eliot served as a director of a London publishing house from 1925 until his death.

In 1927, Eliot became a British subject, declaring himself "Anglo-Catholic in religion, royalist inpolitics, and classicist in literature."

His works. Eliot's first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917), revealed hisoriginal and highly developed style. The poem shows the influence of certain French poets of the1800's, but its startling jumps from rhetorical language to cliche, its indirect literary references, andits simultaneous humor and pessimism were quite new in English literature.

"Prufrock" created a small literary stir, but The Waste Land (1922) created an uproar. Some criticscalled the work a masterpiece, others a hoax. While this long, complex poem includes many

obscure literary references, many in other languages, its main direction is clear. It contrasts thespiritual bankruptcy Eliot saw in modern Europe with the values and unity of the past.

Eliot's "Ash Wednesday" (1930), far different from The Waste Land in tone and mood, is moremusical, direct, and traditional, and, in its religious emphasis, tentatively hopeful. Four Quartets, hislast major poem, is a deeply religious, often beautiful, meditation on time and timelessness. Itincludes four sections: "Burnt Norton" (1936), "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941), and"Little Gidding" (1942). In "Little Gidding," he wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Contributor: William Harmon, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of North Carolina.


25/30


Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930), was an English writer known chiefly for his novels. His fictionshows deep concern for the complicated, often tortured relationships between men and women.Many of his works deal with people torn by the need for both love and independence.

David Herbert Lawrence was born in Eastwood, a coal-mining town in Nottinghamshire. His firstmajor novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), describes his early life there. This novel, like most ofLawrence's other works, criticizes social attitudes that he believed were filled with hypocrisy andself-deception. It urges men and women to follow their instincts and is highly critical of industrialsociety, which Lawrence thought separates people from their feelings.

Lawrence used experimental techniques and unconventional themes that made him one of the mostcontroversial authors of his time. For example, his frank discussion of sexual passion shockedmany readers, and some of his novels were considered obscene. Lawrence's most famous novel,Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), was banned from publication in the United States until 1944, whena shortened version appeared. The complete novel was not published in the United States until1959.

Lawrence's other novels include The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and The PlumedSerpent (1926). A collection of his essays called Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)ranks as a classic of literary criticism. Lawrence wrote many short stories, including "The Captain'sDoll," "The Fox," "The Man Who Died," "The Rocking Horse Winner," and "The Virgin and theGypsy."

One of the handful of great English novelists who was also a major poet, Lawrence continuallystrove for an unorthodox poetic quality in his prose. His nervous, heated, rhapsodic style, whichwas always driven and sometimes overly repetitive, was one of his most original contributions to theart of fiction.

Lawrence suffered from tuberculosis and traveled widely in an effort to improve his health. Hemade several trips to Australia, Italy, and Mexico, and these journeys supplied the background formany of his works.

Contributor: Garrett Stewart, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of Iowa.


26/30


Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950), a British playwright, critic, and essayist, became oneof the most famous writers of the 1900's. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.He wrote over 50 plays in a remarkable career that spanned 70 years. His plays are performedmore than those of any English playwright except William Shakespeare.

Shaw's dramas are filled with wit, challenging ideas, forceful characters, and vigorous, eloquentdialogue. While the plays often treat serious matters and promote Shaw's views, their points arefrequently twisted, compromised, or emphasized through comedy. Shaw thought that a sense ofhumor can give balance and depth to seriousness.

Shaw also gained fame as a witty and wise "character." The press eagerly sought him out. Shawwas a political, social, and religious thinker. He was a critic of art, music, and theater, as well as asocialist, vegetarian, and feminist. Shaw had so many stimulating opinions and presented them sosharply that his views are often quoted. He defended his ideas in a series of essays, manypublished as prefaces to his plays. Like the plays, the essays are stimulating for their brilliance andwit, even when the causes they argue no longer seem daring or unconventional.

Early life. Shaw was born in Dublin. In 1876, he settled in London. He wrote five novels, but nonewere successful. In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society, an organization of socialists whobelieved that political and economic change could be gained through reform. Soon he represented

the society in essays and lectures, and became known as one of England's finest public speakers .Shaw wrote music reviews from 1888 to 1894 and theater criticism from 1895 to 1898. He provedhimself the keenest critic in London and among the best of any time.

Shaw promoted the realistic social dramas of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in a long essay,The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891). The radical subject matter of two early plays showed Ibsen'sinfluence. Widowers' Houses (1892) attacks slum landlords. Mrs. Warren's Profession, written in1893, highlights the social causes of prostitution. It was immediately censored and not produceduntil 1902. Because of the unpopularity of these plays, Shaw then combined his unconventionalviews with more pleasant, often comic ingredients in Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1897),The Devil's Disciple (1897), and Caesar and Cleopatra (1901).

Mature period. Shaw's plays were little known in England until many were performed at the Royal

Court Theatre from 1904 to 1907. Man and Superman (1905) presents Shaw's theory of God as a"life force" evolving through humanity. In Major Barbara (1905), the ideals of the Salvation Armyare challenged by the social philosophy of an armaments tycoon.

Contributor: Charles A. Berst, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of California, Los Angeles.


27/30


London, Jack (1876-1916), was an American author, journalist, and political activist. Hebecame the most widely read American author. Much of London's fiction can be read as juvenileadventure stories. But his best work also dealt with complex adult themes.

John Griffith London was born in San Francisco. His childhood was marked by emotional andeconomic deprivation. Between the ages of 16 and 19, he held many jobs connected with the sea.In 1897, London traveled to Canada to seek his fortune in the gold rush in the Yukon Territory. Thetrip to the Klondike region of the Yukon was a major turning point in London's life. He foundmaterials there that would allow him to express his major literary theme, the struggle for survival ofstrong men driven by primitive emotions. London's first Klondike stories, collected in The Son of theWolf (1900), made him a best-selling author.

London was fascinated with environmental determinism, which states that the world shapes us inways we are powerless to resist. This is the theme of London's two great animal novels. The Callof the Wild (1903) describes the adventures of Buck, a dog taken from California to the Yukon.Buck learns to be brutal in order to survive. White Fang (1906) reverses the story. It portrays awolf who, through the power of a human master's love and kindness, turns from a savage beast intoa loyal domestic animal. Among London's other major novels are two that portray strong, brutalmen who scorn conventional social attitudes--The Sea Wolf (1904) and the autobiographical MartinEden (1909). In these and many other novels and essays, London attacked capitalism. Hisunderstanding and sympathy for the poor are strong elements in such works as The People of theAbyss (1903), a journalistic report on the poor and homeless living in London, England.

London's life and work were filled with contradictions. He upheld a socialist ideal of collectivism, buthe also held a cruelly individualistic notion of the survival of the fittest. He praised democracy, buthe saw his own success as illustrating the rightness of the concept of the superman who standsabove ordinary humanity and prevails by force of will. This philosophy had been developed by theGerman philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. London advocated brotherhood, but he believed thatpeople of the "Anglo-Saxon" or "Teutonic" races were superior to "colored" people.

Contributor: Daniel Mark Fogel, Ph.D., Professor of English, Associate Vice Chancellor forAcademic Affairs


28/30


Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400), was the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. Hewrote The Canterbury Tales, a group of stories that ranks among the masterpieces of literature.

Life. Chaucer was born in London sometime between 1340 and 1343. He lived most of his lifethere. He came from a prosperous middle-class family and was trained as a civil servant anddiplomat. Chaucer was controller of customs from 1374 to 1386 and clerk of the King's Works from1389 to 1391. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1385 and to Parliament in 1386. Hisexperiences in all these positions probably developed his fascination with people, his wideknowledge of English life, and the tone of charitable irony in his works.

Chaucer wrote for people in and around the courts of Edward III and, especially, Richard II. ThoughChaucer supported Richard II, he also was associated with Richard's rival, the powerful noblemanJohn of Gaunt. Chaucer viewed the aristocratic fashion called "courtly love" with polite and amusedskepticism. In his poetry, he often satirized the fashion's lofty ideals, elaborate etiquette, andliterary style. He viewed the corruption he saw in the medieval church with less tolerance than hehad for the fashion of courtly love. In The Canterbury Tales, he satirized church abuses in hisportrayals of the friar, monk, pardoner, and summoner.

Chaucer was one of the most learned men of his age. He traveled in Flanders, France, Italy, andSpain on diplomatic missions. He was influenced first by French writers and then by Italian writers,especially Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch. Chaucer may have studied law. He was familiar withthe Latin classics, medieval science, and theology. His prose works include a translation ofBoethius' Consolation of Philosophy and an essay on the astrolabe, an astronomical instrument thatwas the forerunner of the sextant.

Poetry. Chaucer wrote in Middle English, the form of English used from about 1100 to about 1485.He was the first English poet to use heroic verse (rhymed couplets in iambic pentameter).

The Book of the Duchess (1368), one of Chaucer's earliest works, is a graceful elegy on the deathof John of Gaunt's first wife. Chaucer modeled it on the French dream-vision form of poetry. Hegradually developed his individual style in The House of Fame (1379?), The Parliament of Fowls(1380?), The Legend of Good Women (1387?-1394?), and other shorter lyrics.

Apart from The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's greatest poem is Troilus and Criseyde (about 1386).Adapted from a love story by Boccaccio, this poem is both a medieval romance and a philosophicaltragedy. Set in ancient Troy just before its fall, it tells of the love of Prince Troilus for Criseyde. Inthe poem, Chaucer explored the beauty of love, the mysterious workings of fortune, and the sad

brevity of earthly joy.The Canterbury Tales (about 1386-1400) is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on a journey to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. One of the pilgrims represents Chaucerhimself. Chaucer pictured this pilgrim as a simple fellow who takes everything at face value. Thisdevice allowed Chaucer to describe the other pilgrims objectively, while allowing the reader to seethe pilgrims' real personalities.

Contributor: Paul Strohm, Ph.D., Professor of English, Indiana University.


29/30


Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), was an English playwright and poet. He is generallyconsidered the greatest dramatist the world has ever known and the finest poet who has written inthe English language. Shakespeare has also been the world's most popular author. No otherwriter's plays have been produced so many times or read so widely in so many countries.

Many reasons can be given for Shakespeare's broad appeal. But his fame basically rests on his

understanding of human nature. Shakespeare understood people as few other artists have. Hecould see in a specific dramatic situation the qualities that relate to all human beings. He could thuscreate characters that have meaning beyond the time and place of his plays. Yet his characters arenot symbolic figures. They are remarkably individual human beings. They struggle just as peopledo in real life, sometimes successfully and sometimes with painful and tragic failure.

Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays, which have traditionally been divided into comedies, histories,and tragedies. These plays contain vivid characters of all types and from many walks of life. Kings,pickpockets, drunkards, generals, hired killers, shepherds, and philosophers all mingle inShakespeare's works.

In addition to his deep understanding of human nature, Shakespeare had knowledge in a widevariety of other subjects. These subjects include music, the law, the Bible, military science, the

stage, art, politics, the sea, history, hunting, woodcraft, and sports. Yet as far as scholars know,Shakespeare had no professional experience in any field except the theater.

Shakespeare was born to what today would be called middle-class parents. His birthplace was thesmall market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Shortly after he married at the age of 18, Shakespeareapparently left Stratford to seek his fortune in the theatrical world of London. Within a few years, hehad become one of the city's leading actors and playwrights. By 1612, when he seems to havepartially retired to Stratford, Shakespeare had become England's most popular playwright.

Shakespeare has had enormous influence on culture throughout the world. His works have helpedshape the literature of all English-speaking countries and of such countries as Germany andRussia. Shakespeare also contributed greatly to the development of the English language. Hefreely experimented with grammar and vocabulary and so helped prevent literary English from

becoming fixed and artificial.

Shakespeare's influence on language has not been limited to writers and scholars. Many wordsand phrases from Shakespeare's plays and poems have become part of our everyday speech.They are used by millions of people who are unaware that Shakespeare created them. Forexample, Shakespeare originated such familiar phrases as fair play, a foregone conclusion, catchcold, and disgraceful conduct. As far as scholars can tell, Shakespeare also invented suchcommon words as assassination, bump, eventful, and lonely.


30/30

Many people can identify lines and passages as Shakespeare's even though they have never seenor read one of his plays. Examples include "To be, or not to be," "Friends, Romans, countrymen,lend me your ears," and "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"

Shakespeare's genius as a poet enabled him to express an idea both briefly and colorfully. In histragedy Othello, for example, he described jealousy as "the green-eyed monster which doth mockthe meat it feeds on." In the tragedy King Lear, Shakespeare described a daughter's ingratitudetoward her father as "sharper than a serpent's tooth."

Besides influencing language and literature, Shakespeare has affected other aspects of culture in

the English-speaking world. His plays and poems have long been a required part of a liberaleducation. As a result, Shakespeare's ideas on such subjects as heroism, romantic love, and thenature of tragedy have helped shape the attitudes of millions of people. His brilliant portrayals ofhistorical figures and events have also influenced our thinking. For example, many people visualizeJulius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra as Shakespeare portrayed them, not as they have beendescribed in history books.

Even historians themselves have been influenced by Shakespeare's greatness. Shakespeare livedin England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a period known as the Elizabethan Age.Historians consider the Elizabethan Age as a peak of English culture. But one can questionwhether the period would seem so important if Shakespeare had not lived and worked in it.

Shakespeare's widespread influence reflects his astonishing popularity. His plays have been a vital

part of the theater in the Western world since they were written more than 300 years ago. Throughthe years, most serious actors and actresses have considered the major roles of Shakespeare to bethe supreme test of their art.

Shakespeare's plays have attracted large audiences in big, sophisticated cities and in small, ruraltowns. His works have been performed on the frontiers of Australia and New Zealand. They werepart of the cultural life of the American Colonies and provided entertainment in the mining camps ofthe Old West. Today, there are theaters in England, the United States, and Canada dedicated tostaging some of Shakespeare's works yearly.

Shakespeare's plays appeal to readers as well as to theatergoers. His plays--and his poems--havebeen reprinted and translated countless times. Indeed, a publishing industry flourishes aroundShakespeare, as critics and scholars examine every aspect of the man, his writings, and his

influence. Each year, hundred of books and articles appear on Shakespearean subjects.Thousands of scholars from all over the world gather in dozens of meetings annually to discusstopics related to Shakespeare. Special libraries and library collections focus upon Shakespeare.Numerous motion pictures have been made of his plays. Composers have written operas, musicalcomedies, and instrumental works based on his stories and characters.

The world has admired and respected many great writers. But only Shakespeare has generatedsuch varied and continuing interest--and such constant affection.

30 yazar ve Şair

Documents