English Writers

How to Speak about Books and Authors

• To give brief information about writers you should answer the questions:

• 1.When did they work?

• 2.What books did they write?

• 3.What kind of writers are they?

• To give brief information about writers you should answer the questions:

• 1.When did they work?

• 2.What books did they write?

• 3.What kind of writers are they?

CONNECTORS

William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer.

Shakespeare's Birthplace, John Shakespeare's house in

Stratford-upon-Avon

• His early plays were mainly comedies and histories.

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing

Comedies

• All's Well That Ends Well

• As You Like It • The Comedy of

Errors

‡

Twelfth Night You Will

The

Winter's Tale*

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Plays of William Shakespeare.

Tragedies• Romeo and Juliet • Coriolanus • Titus Andronicus • Timon of Athens• Julius Caesar • Macbeth • Hamlet • Troilus and Cressida• King Lear • Othello • Antony and• Cleopatra

Globe Theatre

Tragedies • He then wrote mainly

tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language.

Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost of Hamlet's Father.

Hamlet• Sir, in my heart there was

a kind of fighting• That would not let me

sleep. Methought I lay

– Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—

– And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know

– Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well...

– Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8

Ophelia

Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed Head.

• Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day

• Shakespeare's funerary monument

Shakespeare's grave.

• Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The stone slab covering his grave is inscribed with a curse against moving his bones:

Charles Dickens• Born Charles John

Huffam Dickens7 February 1812)Portsmouth, England

• Died 9 June 1870 (aged 58)Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England

• Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, in Hampshire, the second of eight children to John Dickens (1786–1851), a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth, and his wife, Elizabeth

• In 1834, Dickens became a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate and travelling across Britain .

A young Charles Dickens

Literary techniques

• Dickens's writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic touch.

At his desk in 1858

Social commentary

• Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty

""

"Charles Dickens as he appears when reading."

Oliver Twist

• Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime

Museums and festivals

• There are museums and festivals celebrating Dickens's life and works in many of the towns with which he was associated.

Museums and festivals

• The Cashier's Office, Chatham Dockyard.

Museums and festivals

• A child, dressed in appropriate attire, at the Dickensian Festival in Ulverston, Cumbria.

Novels

The Adventures of Oliver Twist

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

The Old Curiosity Shop

Dombey and Son

Little Dorrit

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

»The Pickwick Papers

Short story collections

• Sketches by Boz (1836)

• The Mudfog Papers (1837

A Christmas Carol (1843) The Chimes (1844)

The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) The Battle of Life (1846)

Christmas numbers of Household Words magazine:

• What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older (1851) • A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire

(1852) • Another Round of Stories by the Christmas

Fire (1853) • The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) • The Holly-Tree Inn (1855) • The Wreck of the "Golden Mary" (1856) • The Perils of Certain English Prisoners

(1857) • A House to Let (1858)

Speak about the authors»

Walter ScottBorn

15 August 1771Edinburgh, Scotland

Died21 September 1832

(aged 61)Melrose, Scotland

Occupation Historical novelist, poet

Jonathan Swift

Born30 November 1667)

Dublin, Ireland1

Died19 October 1745 (aged 77)

Ireland

Occupation

satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet, priest

Alexandre Dumas

Born24 July 1802)

Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France

Died5 December 1870

(aged 68)Puys France

Occupation playwright and novelist

Nationality French

Writing period

1829–1870

•

To give brief information about writers you should answer the questions:

1.When did they work?2.What books did they write?3.What kind of writers are they?