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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 men
collaborated on Lyrical Ballads (1798), a collection of poems frequently regarded as the symbolic
beginning 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 about
poetry that have since been identified with romanticism. He argued that serious poems could
describe "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 insisted
that 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 claimed
that 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 the
memory of sights and sounds in nature.
Early life. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, which is now in the county of Cumbria. His
mother died in 1778, his father in 1783. Relatives provided for his education. Wordsworth entered
Cambridge University in 1787, the year he wrote his first significant poem. During a summer
vacation in 1790, he visited France, then in turmoil because of the French Revolution. After
graduating from Cambridge in 1791, he returned to France and became a supporter of the
revolution. 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 was
reflected in his poem "Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle" (1806). This poem
may have marked the end of Wordsworth's youthful creative period. It seems to reject his early
optimistic belief, stated in "Tintern Abbey," that "nature never did betray the heart that loved her." In
1807, Wordsworth published one of the most famous poems in English literature, "Ode: Intimations
of Immortality." In this piece, Wordsworth praised childhood and urged individuals to rely on
intuition.
Wordsworth's masterpiece is his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He wrote it between
1798 and 1805, but he continued to revise it for the rest of his life. The poem was published in
1850, shortly after his death. The revisions that Wordsworth made in The Prelude between 1805
and 1850 clearly indicate how his values changed as he aged. In its best passages, The Prelude
achieves 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 Shakespeare
and John Milton.
Contributor: Frederick W. Shilstone, Ph.D., Professor of English, Clemson University.
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Whitman, Walt
(1819-1892), was an American poet who wrote Leaves of Grass.

collection of poems is considered one of the world's major literary works.
This
Whitman's poems sing the praises of the United States and of democracy. The poet's love of
America grew from his faith that Americans might reach new worldly and spiritual heights. Whitman
wrote: "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 and
content were so unusual that no commercial publisher would publish it. In 1855, he published the
collection of 12 poems at his own expense. In the preface, Whitman wrote: "The United States
themselves are essentially the greatest poem." Between 1856 and 1892, Whitman published eight
more revised and enlarged editions of his book. He believed that Leaves of Grass had grown with
his own emotional and intellectual development.
His work. Beginning students of Whitman will find it easiest to study the poems separately. They
should 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 the
poem's 52 sections. Sometimes "I" is the poet himself--"Walt Whitman, an American." In other
passages, "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 he
describes grass as a symbol of life--"the babe of vegetation," "the handkerchief of the Lord/A
scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt."
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" tells of a man recalling a boyhood experience in which a
mockingbird lost its mate in a storm at sea. The memory of the bird's song teaches the man the
meaning of death and thus the true vocation of a poet: to celebrate death as merely part of the cycle
of 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 fields
uprisen." Whitman says that each spring the blooming lilac will remind him not only of the death of
Lincoln, 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 as
symbols of universal brotherhood. Individuals are to be united with themselves and then with God,
the "Elder Brother."
A group of Civil War poems called "Drum Taps" describes battlefield scenes and Whitman's
emotions during wartime. "O Captain! My Captain!," another poem on Lincoln's death, is
Whitman's most popular poem, but differs from his others in rhyme and rhythm. The "Children of
Adam" 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 Old
Testament poetry. It is also found in sacred books of India, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, which
Whitman may have read in translation. The rhythm of his lines suggests the rise and fall of the sea
he 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 is
in 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 democratic
literature.
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 articles
on political questions, civic affairs, and the arts. Whitman loved mixing in crowds. He attended
debates, the theater, concerts, lectures, and political meetings. He often rode on stagecoaches and
ferries just to talk with people.
During the Civil War, Whitman was a government clerk and a volunteer assistant in the military
hospitals 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 write
poems and articles.
Whitman believed that the vitality and variety of his life reflected the vitality and variety of American
democracy 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.
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 was
undoubtedly 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 writings
dealt with such controversial subjects as politics and religion. A political pamphlet led to Defoe's
imprisonment in 1703 for about 4 months.
For about 25 years, Defoe earned his living as a journalist. He produced his own periodical, The
Review, single-handedly from 1704 to 1713. Many politicians hired him to write for newspapers. At
times he was secretly writing for the Whig Party in one paper and the Tories in another. Not much
is known about his last years, but he continued to write much political journalism, as well as other
kinds of work.
His writings. Defoe is unusual for the quantity and variety of his works. It is difficult to tell how
many works he produced, because most were published anonymously. The latest estimate of his
works 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 a
novelist until he was about 60 years old and this was really a minor part of his writing. Defoe's two
most famous novels are Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722).
Defoe's novels reflect the growing power and wealth the new English merchant class developed
through new business opportunities at home and abroad. Many members of this class were
Puritans and they tended to glorify hard work and getting ahead through one's own efforts. The
Puritans also stressed education, and therefore became a large part of the reading public. Defoe
was 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 is
Crusoe'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 lives
of real people who were the normal products of their social and economic surroundings. Defoe
makes us believe in the reality of what we are reading by using concrete, realistic details. But he
does not provide much psychological insight into his characters.
Contributor: Gary A. Stringer, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of Southern Mississippi.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864), ranks among America's major authors.
Between about
1825 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 American
literature.
Hawthorne's works probe into human nature, especially its darker side. He set many stories
against the somber background of Puritan New England, the world of his ancestors. Unlike most
fiction writers of his time, he was not primarily interested in stirring the reader by sensational or
sentimental effects. Hawthorne called his writing romance, which he defined as a method of
showing "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 began
publishing. Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. While attending Bowdoin, he
became a friend of future U.S. President Franklin Pierce. After college, he settled in Salem and
continued writing. Hawthorne worked in the Boston Custom House in 1839 and 1840 and was a
member 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 in
Concord, Massachusetts, where he continued writing.
Hawthorne was surveyor of customs in the port of Salem from 1846 to 1849. In 1853, President
Pierce 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. He
died 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 and
sketches 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 by
the Puritan society of Massachusetts during the 1600's. To him, the society was represented by his
stern 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 of
Merrymount," and other short stories. He was one of the first writers in the United States to recreate the past of his native region. Hawthorne showed the effects of secret guilt in "The Minister's
Black Veil" and other stories. In "Wakefield," he described the effects of voluntary isolation from
society.
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 "the
Unpardonable Sin," describing it as the "sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of
brotherhood 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.
Hawthorne's sketches deal chiefly with New England scenes of his time. They range in tone from
the light whimsy of "A Rill from the Town Pump" to the satire of "The Celestial Railroad" and the
dark fantasy of "The Haunted Mind." Hawthorne also wrote two popular children's books, A Wonder
Book for Boys and Girls (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853).
His novels. The Scarlet Letter (1850) is introduced by "The Custom House," an essay in which
Hawthorne sketched the novel's background and his experiences as a customs official while writing
the 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. Isolation
leads to suffering, and suffering leads to further sinning and further suffering. The spiral continues
until 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 adulteress
Hester Prynne, the adulterer Arthur Dimmesdale, and Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth.
Hester symbolizes the force of love. Dimmesdale, a minister, represents the spirit, and
Chillingworth symbolizes the mind.
Hawthorne shaped his tale in four parts, each dominated by a single force. The force in the first
section (Chapters 1-8) is the Puritan community; in the second (Chapters 9-12) it is Chillingworth; in
the third (Chapters 13-20) it is Hester; and in the closing part, Dimmesdale. Each section centers
on 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 and
shamed. The forest with its darkness is the symbol in the third section. Hawthorne expanded and
intensified the meaning of the action by pictures of light and dark colors he created verbally and by
his quiet, ironic tone.
The House of the Seven Gables (1851) tells the story of a curse placed on the House of Pyncheon
by Matthew Maule, a victim of the Salem witchcraft trials. Hawthorne traces the curse's effect on
the 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 of
observed life. Hawthorne drew his characters in part from the men and women he had known in the
Brook Farm community.
The Marble Faun (1860) is a psychological study of two young American artists in Italy and their
relationship with a mysterious woman painter and a young nobleman.
Contributor: John Clendenning, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Northridge.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), was a poet, philosopher, and critic of the English
romantic movement. His poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is one of the greatest in English
literature, and all his major poems are among the most original. They embody ideals of
romanticism, a literary movement that stressed imagination, passion, and the supernatural. His
literary criticism has influenced most later critics.
His life. Coleridge was born in Devonshire. He studied at Cambridge University, where he met
Robert Southey in 1794. The two young poets favored the principles of the French Revolution and
planned to found a pantisocracy (a utopian society) in the United States. They also collaborated in
1794 on a drama opposing monarchy.
In 1795, Coleridge met William Wordsworth, and they became intimate friends. They published
Lyrical Ballads (1798), which contains the first version of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In
1798, Coleridge got an annuity (regular income) from Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood. It enabled
him 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 influenced
his own literary theories. On his return to England, he translated two plays by German author
Friedrich Schiller.
About 1800, Coleridge's health began to fail. He had begun taking opium to relieve the pain of
rheumatism. His marriage, never happy, caused him increasing distress after he fell in love with
Wordsworth's sister-in-law, Sara Hutchinson. He spent his last years under a doctor's care, largely
to 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 an
unfinished 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 his
meditative lyrics, notably "Dejection: An Ode" (1802). He called many of these works "conversation
poems" 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 greatly
elevate the reputation of English playwright William Shakespeare. Coleridge emphasized that
poetry is creative or expressive, rather than imitative, and insisted that imagination, not reason, is
the 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 criticism
appears in notebooks, lectures, journalistic essays, and marginal comments on other writers. A
devout man, Coleridge often discussed religion, morality, and theology.
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870), was a great English novelist and one of the most popular
writers of all time. His best-known books include A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great
Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens created some
of the most famous characters in English literature. He also created scenes and descriptions of
places that have long delighted readers. Dickens was a keen observer of life and had a great
understanding of humanity, especially of young people. He sympathized with the poor and
helpless, 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 personality
appear 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 with
his family to London when he was about two years old. Many of the events and people in Dickens's
books are based on events and people in his life. Dickens's father, John Dickens, was a poor and
easygoing clerk who worked for the navy. John served in some respects as the model for Wilkins
Micawber in David Copperfield. He spent time in prison for debt, an event that Charles re-created
in 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 and
was especially fond of adventure stories, fairy tales, and novels. He was influenced by such earlier
English writers as William Shakespeare, Tobias Smollett, and Henry Fielding. However, most of the
knowledge 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 in
Parliament and also wrote feature articles. His work as a reporter sharpened his naturally keen ear
for conversation and helped develop his skill in portraying his characters' speech realistically. It
also increased his ability to observe and to write swiftly and clearly. Dickens's first book, Sketches
by Boz (1836), consisted of articles he wrote for the Monthly Magazine and the London Evening
Chronicle. These descriptions, fictional portraits, and short stories surveyed manners and
conditions of the time.
Literary success. Dickens won his first literary fame with The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick
Club. Published in monthly parts in 1836 and 1837, the book describes the humorous adventures
and misadventures of a group of slightly eccentric characters in London and the English
countryside. After a slow start, The Pickwick Papers-as the book is usually called--gained a
popularity seldom matched in the history of literature. At 24, Dickens suddenly found himself
famous. He remained so until his death.
Dickens founded and edited two highly successful weekly magazines. He edited Household Words
from 1850 to 1859 and All the Year Round from 1859 to his death. As a public figure, Dickens was
constantly in the news, and was recognized and honored wherever he went. He was famous in
America 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 married
Catherine Hogarth. Catherine had a sister Mary, who died in 1837. Dickens's grief at Mary's death
has led some scholars to believe that he loved Mary more than his wife. Catherine was a good
woman but lacked great intelligence. She and Dickens had 10 children. The couple separated in
1858.
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 with
friends from the worlds of art and literature. Dickens enjoyed drama and went to the theater as
often as he could. When he was rich and famous, he made a hobby of producing and acting in
amateur 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 various
charities. These charities included schools for poor children and a loan society to enable the poor
to move to Australia. Dickens often walked for hours to work off his remaining energy. He came to
know 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, and
other non-fiction works. Not all of his books were best sellers, but the most popular ones broke all
sales 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 themes
and 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 for
its sensational presentation of London's criminal world and for its attack on England's mistreatment
of the poor.
In Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), Dickens criticized greedy proprietors of private schools, who
treated students brutally and taught them nothing.
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841) is less respected today than when it was first published, largely
because 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 a
study of many forms of selfishness. But it is best known for its unflattering picture of the crudeness
of American manners and for its comic characters. Two of its finest creations are the hypocrite
Pecksniff and the chattering, alcoholic midwife Sairey Gamp.
Dickens wrote his five "Christmas books" during the 1840's. The first, A Christmas Carol (1843), is
one of the most famous stories ever written. In the book, three ghosts show the old miser Ebenezer
Scrooge his past, present, and future. Realizing that he has been living a life of greed, Scrooge
changes 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 the
world, grew darker. His humor became more bitter, often taking the form of biting satire. His
characters and plots seemed to emphasize the evil side of human experience.
10
At the same time, Dickens increasingly refined his art. The range of his tone widened and he paid
more attention to structure and arrangement. He turned to symbolic themes to help express and
expand his observations on topical political and social issues and on larger matters of morality and
values. 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 from
the 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 all
ambition.
With David Copperfield (1849-1850), Dickens temporarily lessened the role of social criticism to
concentrate more on semiautobiography. The novel describes a young man's discovery of the
realities 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 structure
and many levels of meaning, mixing melodrama with satire and social commentary. The book deals
with many social evils, chiefly wasteful and cruel legal processes. It also attacks the neglect of the
poor, false humanitarians and clergymen, and poor sanitation.
This long novel was followed by the much shorter and simpler Hard Times (1854). Hard Times
attacks philosopher Jeremy Bentham's doctrine of utilitarianism. Bentham believed that all human
ideas, 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 also
ridiculed government inefficiency in the form of the "Circumlocution Office." The prison, like the fog
in Bleak House, is symbolic. It stands for the painful conditions of life in a materialistic, decaying
society.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) was the second of Dickens's two historical novels. It is set in London
and 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 the
realities 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." Only
by painfully revising his values does Pip reestablish his life on a foundation of sympathy, rather than
on vanity, possessions, and social position.
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) was Dickens's final novel of social criticism. Dickens again attacked
the false values of the newly rich. He satirized greed, using the great garbage heaps of the London
dumps as a symbol of filthy money. The novel is also notable for its suggestive use of London's
River 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 years
have 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 not
always so high. His reputation declined between 1880 and 1940. This was partly due to the
psychological emphasis that became fashionable in novels after Dickens's death. Critics valued
Dickens 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 a
sharp-eyed observer of London life. But they considered his outlook simple and unrealistic. They
believed he lacked artistic taste and relied too much on broad comedy, dramatic effects,
sentimentality, and superficial psychology.
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However, since 1940, numerous books and essays have described Dickens as a writer of
considerable depth and complexity. He has also been praised as a sensitive and philosophic
observer of human struggles within social institutions. In this sense, Dickens has been associated
with 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 other
claims to greatness may be, Dickens ranks as a superbly inventive comic artist. His characters
have 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 an
awareness and appreciation of the human comedy.
Contributor: K. K. Collins, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, Southern Illinois University.
12
Eliot, George (1819-1880), was the pen name of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, a great English
novelist. 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 small
towns. 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 of
many 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 country
backgrounds. Silas Marner is the story of an embittered old miser who loses his gold, but turns to a
more human life through his love for a little girl. Romola (1863) is a historical novel set in
Renaissance Florence. Felix Holt, Radical (1866), George Eliot's only political novel, is considered
one of her poorer works. Daniel Deronda (1876), her last novel, displays the author's knowledge of
and 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 and
from 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. British
intellectuals regarded her as one of the leading thinkers of her day. George Eliot lived with the
writer George Henry Lewes from 1854 to 1878, although Lewes was married and could not obtain a
divorce under existing law.
Contributor: Sharon Bassett, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Los Angeles.
13
Byron, Lord
(1788-1824), was the most colorful of the English romantic poets. Many people
find his adventurous life as interesting as his poetry. Byron often set his poems in Europe and the
Near 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's
insistence 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 was
3. Byron inherited the title Lord Byron at the age of 10, upon the death of his great-uncle. He then
returned to England, where he attended Harrow School and Cambridge University. Byron's first
book of poems, Hours of Idleness (1807), was severely criticized by the Edinburgh Review, a
Scottish literary magazine. Byron replied with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a verse
satire 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 the
countries he had recently visited, chiefly Portugal, Spain, Albania, and Greece, immediately
established 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 a
brief, 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 left
England forever in 1816.
Byron spent several months in Switzerland, where he met fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Byron
then settled in Italy, where he carried on a long romance with the Countess Teresa Guiccioli and
became involved in Italian revolutionary politics. Byron also wrote such works as the verse dramas
Manfred (1817) and Cain (1821). His last and greatest work was the long, unfinished epic Don
Juan. In 1823, while writing this poem, Byron decided to join the Greeks in their war for
independence 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 expected
of young poets at that time. In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, however, Byron adopted the
biting, 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 the
stanza form and many features of the literary style of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. This
work and the sequence of "Turkish Tales" (1813-1816) that followed defined the character type
known as "the Byronic hero." This character is the melancholy, defiant, proudly self-assured man
associated 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 felt
while living abroad.
14
During Byron's last years, he wrote several types of works, notably such historical and Biblical
tragedies 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 deflates
the legendary lover Don Juan to the level of a comic epic hero. The most important element in Don
Juan, 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. The
narrator's voice maintains Byron's scorn for what he called cant, the deceptions played by
individuals and societies upon one another. Despite the range of Byron's poetry, that scorn is the
main force running from the beginning to the end of his career.
15
Keats, John
(1795-1821), was an English poet of the romantic period. Keats's poetry is

concerned, 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 we
imagine. 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 attended
the 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 because
he had decided to become a poet. He dedicated his first volume, Poems (1817), to his friend Leigh
Hunt. Hunt was a journalist, essayist, and poet who held liberal political views. In 1818, Keats
published his second volume of poetry, Endymion, a long mythological story in verse. The
reviewers for the powerful Tory journals, always eager to attack Hunt or his friends, ridiculed
Endymion. The reviewers sneeringly assigned Keats to what they called the "Cockney School of
Poetry."
The reviews ruined Keats's reputation and even gave rise to the story that the young poet was
literally killed by the hostile reception of his works. Adding to Keats's disappointment in 1818 were
the death of his brother from tuberculosis and Keats's premonition that he himself would suffer the
same fate. Keats began to develop an increasing feeling that poverty and disease would prevent
his 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 published
in 1820. But Keats had developed tuberculosis. He traveled to Italy, hoping a warmer climate
might 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 and
William 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 First
Looking into Chapman's Homer."
In Endymion, Keats retold the classic story of the shepherd who loved and won the goddess of the
moon. Some people think that Keats simply let his imagination run wild, without a clear plan, in this
4,000-line poem. Others see in the poem a symbolic story concerned, like much of Keats's early
poetry, 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 upon
any one answer to the enduring problems of life. The intense experience of life, and not its perfect
understanding, was Keats's main poetic concern.
16
Austen, Jane (1775-1817), one of the best-loved English novelists, wrote with a keen sense of
irony about the social institutions of her time. In each of Austen's six novels, a woman meets and
marries an eligible man after a series of usually comic difficulties. Overcoming these obstacles
helps one or both of the characters gain the self-knowledge required for a happy marriage. Few
authors have matched Austen's sure eye for human weakness, her affectionate description of
everyday life, or her witty and elegant prose.
Austen's first novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811), follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two
sisters 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's
proud behavior and is blinded to his better qualities. Their marriage can take place only after he
humbles his pride and she loses her prejudice. In Mansfield Park (1814), the long-suffering and
modest Fanny Price grows up mistreated by rich relatives. Her character may seem uninteresting
compared with Austen's more flawed women, but Fanny is a successful portrait of personal
integrity.
The self-satisfied and overly imaginative heroine of Emma (1816) almost ruins her chances for
happiness 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 disapproving
family.
Jane Austen was born in Steventon, a village in Hampshire. Her father was a clergyman, and she
received a better education than most women of her time. Austen began writing novels in her early
20's but did not publish them until late in life. Austen never married, and she lived happily in the
rural, upper middle class society described in her books.
17
Darwin, Charles Robert
(1809-1882), was a British naturalist who became famous for his

theories on evolution. Like several other scientists before him, Darwin believed that, through
millions of years, all species of plants and animals had evolved (developed gradually) from a few
common 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 the
primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection, and (4)that the millions of
species present on earth today arose from a single original life form through a branching process
called speciation, by which one species can give rise to two or more species. Darwin set forth his
theories in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of
Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859).
Darwin's theories shocked most people of his day, who believed that each species had been
created 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 greatly
affected religious thought.
Darwin's life. Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. He was the grandson of the noted
physician and naturalist Erasmus Darwin, who had proposed a theory of evolution in the 1790's. As
a boy, Charles often heard his grandfather's theories discussed.
Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and theology at Cambridge University. He
received a bachelor's degree from Cambridge in 1831. From 1831 to 1836, Darwin served as a
naturalist with a British scientific expedition aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. The expedition visited
places 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 and
animals of the same general type as those in South America. He collected the fossils and other
specimens for future study.
Darwin returned to England in 1836 and settled in London. He spent the rest of his life studying
specimens, 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 of
his 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 Darwin
that modern species had evolved from a few earlier ones. He documented the evidence and first
presented his theories on evolution to a meeting of scientists in 1858.
18
In most cases, according to Darwin, no two members of any species are exactly alike. Each
organism has an individual combination of traits, and many of these traits are inherited. Darwin
claimed that gardeners and farmers commonly developed special kinds of plants and animals by
selecting and breeding organisms that had desired traits. He believed a similar selective process
took place in nature. Darwin called this process natural selection, and others have called it the
survival of the fittest.
Darwin showed that living things commonly produce many more offspring than are necessary to
replace themselves. The earth cannot possibly support all these organisms, and so they must
compete 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. On
the average, the members with favorable traits live longer and produce more offspring than do the
others. They also pass on the favorable traits to their young. The unfavorable traits are eventually
eliminated. When this process occurs in two isolated populations of one species, members of one
species 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 The
Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in
Man and Animals (1872).
The influence of Darwin's ideas. Darwin's theories of evolution through natural selection set off a
bitter controversy among biologists, religious leaders, and the general public. Many people thought
Darwin had implied that human beings were descended from monkeys, and they angrily criticized
his revolutionary ideas. But such noted British scientists as Thomas Henry Huxley and Alfred
Russel Wallace supported Darwin's work, and virtually all scientists eventually accepted his
theories. These theories, and the facts that supported them, gave biologists new insight into the
origin of living things and the relationship among various species.
Darwin's theories stimulated studies in biology, particularly in paleontology and comparative
anatomy. During the first half of the 1900's, discoveries in genetics and developmental biology
were used as evidence for theories of evolution that regarded natural selection as unimportant. But
after World War II ended in 1945, Darwin's theories again became the dominant influence in
evolutionary 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. Few
biologists reject the basic propositions of Neo-Darwinism, and Darwin's theories are still the basis
for many biological studies.
Darwin's work has had a tremendous impact on religious thought. Many people strongly oppose
the idea of evolution--and the teaching of it--because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. For
example, 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 the
role of divine guidance in the universe.
Darwin avoided discussing the theological and sociological aspects of his work, but other writers
used his ideas in their own theories about society. The German philosopher Karl Marx compared
the struggle for survival among organisms to the struggle for power among social classes Scholars
called social Darwinists used Darwin's ideas to promote the belief that people in a society--and
societies themselves--must compete for survival.
Contributor: Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Univ. of Chicago.
19
Walpole, Horace (1717-1797), was an English letter writer and author.
Even at a time when

personal 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 report
social 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 late
1700'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 influential
literary work is The Castle of Otranto (1764). This tale of terror and the supernatural was the first of
what became known as Gothic novels.
Walpole was born in London. He was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, the first prime
minister of England. Horace Walpole served in Parliament from 1741 to 1768. In 1791, he
succeeded 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
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 lonely
moors of Yorkshire, England, where they were born.
Their lives. Patrick Bronte, the sisters' father, was a poor Irishman who became the parish
clergyman in the small, isolated town of Haworth, Yorkshire. Bronte was somewhat eccentric and
inclined 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 they
received 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 jobs
as governesses or schoolteachers, lived their entire lives at home. They were shy, poor, and
lonely, and occupied themselves with music, drawing, reading and--above all--writing. Their
isolation led to the early development of their imaginations. In 1846, under the masculine pen
names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the sisters published a joint volume of poems. Although only
two 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 a
governess 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 make
Jane his mistress, should be rewarded by marrying her. Some readers were also shocked because
Jane 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 until
1857, 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 in
Brussels.
Emily Bronte wrote only one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a romantic masterpiece. The work
was not as popular as Jane Eyre, and was even more strongly condemned for its brutality, its lack
of conventional morality, and its glorification of romantic passion. Not all readers find the
supernatural 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 give
even the exaggerated elements of her story impact. Her portrait of the moors reveals Emily as a
poet 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
Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928), was an English novelist and poet.
In most of Hardy's books, his

characters fight a losing battle against the impersonal force of fate. Hardy summed up his vision of
the 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 conflict
with a hostile, meaningless universe.
Most of Hardy's stories take place in the fictional county of Wessex, a place of gloomy landscapes
well 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 with
selfless love. The Return of the Native (1878) is a somber story of the tragic results of a man's illicit
love for a woman. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) traces the spiritual and physical deterioration
of a respected man.
Hardy's last great novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), treat the
theme 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 had
never really respected, and turned to poetry.
Hardy wrote lyric poetry of high quality. His best verse captures a profound sense of human loss
and sorrow. Like his novels, many of Hardy's poems convey the bitter ironies inflicted upon
humans 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 worked
as an architect. In the early 1870's, he abandoned architecture for a full-time career as a writer.
22
Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), was a Polish-born author who wrote in English. He became
famous 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 Russian
Poland. He left Poland at the age of 16 and arrived in England at the age of 20, unable to speak
English. During the next 16 years, he worked his way up from deck hand to captain in the British
Merchant 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 its
realism or filled with metaphor.
Conrad used experiences of his life in many of his works. From his voyages in the Indian Ocean
and 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 up
the Congo River, and his novel Nostromo (1904) uses memories of his early voyages in the
Caribbean.
His sea stories were not superficial adventure tales, though they were sometimes dismissed as
such in his day. Later critics hailed Conrad for his experiments with fictional point of view and
multiple narrators. Conrad's work is also exceptional for its probing psychological analysis of the
isolated self torn between such conflicting influences as sympathy and greed, heroism and
cowardice, and idealism and cynicism. In Nostromo, for example, Conrad presented an epic picture
of the clash between capitalism and revolution in South America. Conrad also wrote two absorbing
novels 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 achieve
popular 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
Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900), was an author, playwright, and wit.
He preached the importance of

style 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 begin
until he published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in 1888. In these fairy tales and fables, Wilde
found a literary form well-suited to his talents. Wilde's only novel, the ingenious Picture of Dorian
Gray (1890), is an enlarged moral fable. It describes a man whose portrait ages and grows ugly as
a reflection of his moral corruption while his actual appearance remains the same. The book seems
to 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), A
Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895) combine the then-fashionable
drama of social intrigue with witty high comedy. In each play, Wilde brings together an intolerant
young idealist and a person who has committed a social sin in the past. They meet in a society
where appearances are everything. The effect is always to educate the idealists to their own
weaknesses and to show the need for tolerance and forgiveness.
In The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his masterpiece, Wilde departed from his standard
formula by combining high comedy with farce. The characters take insignificant things seriously
while casually dismissing important concerns. The result is a satire on the shallowness of British
society and its focus on good breeding and proper formalities. Almost every line in the play is an
epigram (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. But
in that year he was accused of having homosexual relations with Lord Alfred Douglas by Douglas's
father, the Marquess of Queensberry. As a result, Wilde became involved in a hopeless legal
dispute, and he was sentenced to two years in prison at hard labor. From his prison experiences
came his best poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and a remarkable autobiographical
document sometimes called De Profundis.
Wilde left England after his release. Ruined in health, finances, and creative energy, but with his wit
intact, he died in France three years later.
Contributor: Gerald M. Berkowitz, Ph.D., Former Professor of English, Northern Illinois University.
24
Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965), ranks among the most important poets of the 1900's. In "The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," The Waste Land, and other poems, he departed radically from the
techniques 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 poems
came to the attention of the American poet Ezra Pound. Pound encouraged Eliot, and helped him
with his poetry.
Many of Eliot's views on literature appeared in The Criterion, a literary magazine he edited from
1922 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 in
politics, and classicist in literature."
His works. Eliot's first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917), revealed his
original and highly developed style. The poem shows the influence of certain French poets of the
1800's, but its startling jumps from rhetorical language to cliche, its indirect literary references, and
its 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 critics
called 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 the
spiritual 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 more
musical, direct, and traditional, and, in its religious emphasis, tentatively hopeful. Four Quartets, his
last major poem, is a deeply religious, often beautiful, meditation on time and timelessness. It
includes 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
Lawrence, D. H.
(1885-1930), was an English writer known chiefly for his novels. His fiction
shows 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 first
major novel, Sons and Lovers (1913), describes his early life there. This novel, like most of
Lawrence's other works, criticizes social attitudes that he believed were filled with hypocrisy and
self-deception. It urges men and women to follow their instincts and is highly critical of industrial
society, which Lawrence thought separates people from their feelings.
Lawrence used experimental techniques and unconventional themes that made him one of the most
controversial authors of his time. For example, his frank discussion of sexual passion shocked
many 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, when
a shortened version appeared. The complete novel was not published in the United States until
1959.
Lawrence's other novels include The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and The Plumed
Serpent (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's
Doll," "The Fox," "The Man Who Died," "The Rocking Horse Winner," and "The Virgin and the
Gypsy."
One of the handful of great English novelists who was also a major poet, Lawrence continually
strove for an unorthodox poetic quality in his prose. His nervous, heated, rhapsodic style, which
was always driven and sometimes overly repetitive, was one of his most original contributions to the
art of fiction.
Lawrence suffered from tuberculosis and traveled widely in an effort to improve his health. He
made several trips to Australia, Italy, and Mexico, and these journeys supplied the background for
many of his works.
Contributor: Garrett Stewart, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of Iowa.
26
Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950), a British playwright, critic, and essayist, became one
of 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 performed
more than those of any English playwright except William Shakespeare.
Shaw's dramas are filled with wit, challenging ideas, forceful characters, and vigorous, eloquent
dialogue. While the plays often treat serious matters and promote Shaw's views, their points are
frequently twisted, compromised, or emphasized through comedy. Shaw thought that a sense of
humor can give balance and depth to seriousness.
Shaw also gained fame as a witty and wise "character." The press eagerly sought him out. Shaw
was a political, social, and religious thinker. He was a critic of art, music, and theater, as well as a
socialist, vegetarian, and feminist. Shaw had so many stimulating opinions and presented them so
sharply that his views are often quoted. He defended his ideas in a series of essays, many
published as prefaces to his plays. Like the plays, the essays are stimulating for their brilliance and
wit, 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 none
were successful. In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society, an organization of socialists who
believed 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 proved
himself 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's
influence. Widowers' Houses (1892) attacks slum landlords. Mrs. Warren's Profession, written in
1893, highlights the social causes of prostitution. It was immediately censored and not produced
until 1902. Because of the unpopularity of these plays, Shaw then combined his unconventional
views 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 Army
are challenged by the social philosophy of an armaments tycoon.
Contributor: Charles A. Berst, Ph.D., Professor of English, Univ. of California, Los Angeles.
27
London, Jack
(1876-1916), was an American author, journalist, and political activist. He

became the most widely read American author. Much of London's fiction can be read as juvenile
adventure 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 and
economic 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. The
trip to the Klondike region of the Yukon was a major turning point in London's life. He found
materials there that would allow him to express his major literary theme, the struggle for survival of
strong men driven by primitive emotions. London's first Klondike stories, collected in The Son of the
Wolf (1900), made him a best-selling author.
London was fascinated with environmental determinism, which states that the world shapes us in
ways we are powerless to resist. This is the theme of London's two great animal novels. The Call
of 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 a
wolf who, through the power of a human master's love and kindness, turns from a savage beast into
a loyal domestic animal. Among London's other major novels are two that portray strong, brutal
men who scorn conventional social attitudes--The Sea Wolf (1904) and the autobiographical Martin
Eden (1909). In these and many other novels and essays, London attacked capitalism. His
understanding and sympathy for the poor are strong elements in such works as The People of the
Abyss (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, but
he also held a cruelly individualistic notion of the survival of the fittest. He praised democracy, but
he saw his own success as illustrating the rightness of the concept of the superman who stands
above ordinary humanity and prevails by force of will. This philosophy had been developed by the
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. London advocated brotherhood, but he believed that
people of the "Anglo-Saxon" or "Teutonic" races were superior to "colored" people.
Contributor: Daniel Mark Fogel, Ph.D., Professor of English, Associate Vice Chancellor for
Academic Affairs
28
Chaucer, Geoffrey
(1340?-1400), was the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He

wrote 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 life
there. He came from a prosperous middle-class family and was trained as a civil servant and
diplomat. Chaucer was controller of customs from 1374 to 1386 and clerk of the King's Works from
1389 to 1391. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1385 and to Parliament in 1386. His
experiences in all these positions probably developed his fascination with people, his wide
knowledge 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. Though
Chaucer supported Richard II, he also was associated with Richard's rival, the powerful nobleman
John of Gaunt. Chaucer viewed the aristocratic fashion called "courtly love" with polite and amused
skepticism. In his poetry, he often satirized the fashion's lofty ideals, elaborate etiquette, and
literary style. He viewed the corruption he saw in the medieval church with less tolerance than he
had for the fashion of courtly love. In The Canterbury Tales, he satirized church abuses in his
portrayals of the friar, monk, pardoner, and summoner.
Chaucer was one of the most learned men of his age. He traveled in Flanders, France, Italy, and
Spain 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 with
the Latin classics, medieval science, and theology. His prose works include a translation of
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and an essay on the astrolabe, an astronomical instrument that
was 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 death
of John of Gaunt's first wife. Chaucer modeled it on the French dream-vision form of poetry. He
gradually 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 philosophical
tragedy. Set in ancient Troy just before its fall, it tells of the love of Prince Troilus for Criseyde. In
the 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 Chaucer
himself. Chaucer pictured this pilgrim as a simple fellow who takes everything at face value. This
device allowed Chaucer to describe the other pilgrims objectively, while allowing the reader to see
the pilgrims' real personalities.
Contributor: Paul Strohm, Ph.D., Professor of English, Indiana University.
29
Shakespeare, William
(1564-1616), was an English playwright and poet. He is generally

considered the greatest dramatist the world has ever known and the finest poet who has written in
the English language. Shakespeare has also been the world's most popular author. No other
writer'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. He
could see in a specific dramatic situation the qualities that relate to all human beings. He could thus
create characters that have meaning beyond the time and place of his plays. Yet his characters are
not symbolic figures. They are remarkably individual human beings. They struggle just as people
do 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 in
Shakespeare's works.
In addition to his deep understanding of human nature, Shakespeare had knowledge in a wide
variety 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 the
small market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Shortly after he married at the age of 18, Shakespeare
apparently left Stratford to seek his fortune in the theatrical world of London. Within a few years, he
had become one of the city's leading actors and playwrights. By 1612, when he seems to have
partially retired to Stratford, Shakespeare had become England's most popular playwright.
Shakespeare has had enormous influence on culture throughout the world. His works have helped
shape the literature of all English-speaking countries and of such countries as Germany and
Russia. Shakespeare also contributed greatly to the development of the English language. He
freely 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 words
and 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. For
example, Shakespeare originated such familiar phrases as fair play, a foregone conclusion, catch
cold, and disgraceful conduct. As far as scholars can tell, Shakespeare also invented such
common words as assassination, bump, eventful, and lonely.
30
Many people can identify lines and passages as Shakespeare's even though they have never seen
or 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 his
tragedy Othello, for example, he described jealousy as "the green-eyed monster which doth mock
the meat it feeds on." In the tragedy King Lear, Shakespeare described a daughter's ingratitude
toward 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 liberal
education. As a result, Shakespeare's ideas on such subjects as heroism, romantic love, and the
nature of tragedy have helped shape the attitudes of millions of people. His brilliant portrayals of
historical figures and events have also influenced our thinking. For example, many people visualize
Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra as Shakespeare portrayed them, not as they have been
described in history books.
Even historians themselves have been influenced by Shakespeare's greatness. Shakespeare lived
in 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 question
whether 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. Through
the years, most serious actors and actresses have considered the major roles of Shakespeare to be
the supreme test of their art.
Shakespeare's plays have attracted large audiences in big, sophisticated cities and in small, rural
towns. His works have been performed on the frontiers of Australia and New Zealand. They were
part of the cultural life of the American Colonies and provided entertainment in the mining camps of
the Old West. Today, there are theaters in England, the United States, and Canada dedicated to
staging some of Shakespeare's works yearly.
Shakespeare's plays appeal to readers as well as to theatergoers. His plays--and his poems--have
been reprinted and translated countless times. Indeed, a publishing industry flourishes around
Shakespeare, 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 discuss
topics related to Shakespeare. Special libraries and library collections focus upon Shakespeare.
Numerous motion pictures have been made of his plays. Composers have written operas, musical
comedies, and instrumental works based on his stories and characters.
The world has admired and respected many great writers. But only Shakespeare has generated
such varied and continuing interest--and such constant affection.
31

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