Who Was Sir Walter Scott?
His life: Scott was born in Edinburgh, of an ancient stock of Border freebooters. At the age of eighteen months he was crippled for life by a children’s ailment; and though he grew up to ...
Read MoreWho was Joel Spingarn?
Spingarn was widely learned in the history of literary criticism, and tired of the fruitless study of critical theories, which merely indulged in scholarly hair-splitting and led nowhere. He rejected the conventional approaches to literature, ...
Read MoreWho was Francis Beaumont?
Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) combined to produce a great number of plays, said to be fifty two in all. How much of the joint work was assigned to the respective hands is ...
Read MoreWho was James Thomson?
Thomson can hardly be called a great poet, yet in the history of literature he is unusual enough to be regarded (chronologically) as a freak. As such he is important, and it is necessary to ...
Read MoreWho was Ben Jonson?
Post-Shakespearian Drama Although much of the work was composed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, the most typical of the plays appeared after his death. On the whole, moreover, the work marks a decline from the Shakespearian standard, and ...
Read MoreWho was August Wilson?
August Wilson was growing up when the two diverse strains (one moderate, conciliatory and integrationist of Hansberry and the other of violence of Baraka) in Black theatre had been experimented with. Born in 1945 as ...
Read MoreWho was Antov Chekov?
ANTON CHEKHOV, born at Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southwestern Russia, on 29th January 1860, began writing his short stories as a medical student in Moscow. His first story was published ...
Read MoreWho was Allen Tate?
In prominence as a New Critic, Allen Tate stands next to Ransom. Born in Kentucky, he studied at Georgetown and Washington, and graduated in 1922 from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. He edited Hound and Horn from ...
Read MoreWho was Aldous Leonard Huxley?
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894), descendant of the famous scientist T.H. Huxley, was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he began his literary career as a poet. In 1917 he was editor of Oxford ...
Read MoreWho was W.H.Auden?
W. H. Auden (1907-1973), the son of a York doctor, was educated at Gresham’s School, Holt, and at Oxford. On leaving the university, he spent some time in Germany before taking up a teaching post ...
Read MoreWho Was Earnest Hemingway?
Earnest Hemingway was perhaps the most widely known American novelist of recent times. His style of narration created a revolution in the art of English prose. His attitude to life caught the imagination of a ...
Read MoreWho Was Walter De La Mare?
Walter de la Mare (1873) was born in Kent of Huguenot stock and educated at St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir School before going into business in a London office. After some years of contributing to magazines, ...
Read MoreWho Was Sophocles?
The Life of Sophocles Scanty material on his life - The available material relating to the life of Sophocles is scanty, and even what we have, does not enable us to trace any significant relationship between ...
Read MoreHow To Get Rid Of Loneliness?
Loneliness might be one of the emotions that attract the most attention from writers, singers and philosophers. It seems that the human being is meant to be in contact with others, communicating through speech, touch, ...
Read MoreHow To Get Rid Of Jealousy?
Jealousy can be a frustrating, maddening emotion. It’s also been described as one of the most confusing human emotions because we have negative feelings about someone else’s good fortune. While we will all feel some ...
Read MoreWho Was Kamala Das?
Kamala Das is one of the three most significant Indian poets writing in English today, the other two being Nissim Ezekiel and Ramanujan. Her poetry is all about herself, about her intensely felt desire for ...
Read MoreWho is Wole Soyinka?
Wole Soyinka is the first black African to win international fame as a dramatist. He is also the first black African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Soyinka’s popularity rests not only ...
Read MoreWho Was William Somerset Maugham?
William Somerset Maugham (1874-) was born in Paris. At the age of ten he came to England, and he was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University, and worked as a doctor at St ...
Read MoreWho Was William Makepeace Thackeray?
Thackeray was born at Calcutta, and was descended form an ancient Yorkshire family. His father having died in 1816, the boy was sent to England for his education, and on the voyage home he had ...
Read MoreWho Was Walt Whitman?
Life, Career and Reputation Whitman was born at West Hills on Long Island, on May 31, 1819. The paternal side of the family was of New England Puritan stock, and maternal of Dutch and Quaker ...
Read MoreWho Was Wilkie Collins?
Wilkie Collins is considered to be the most successful to the followers of Dickens. At one time, about 1860, his vogue was nearly as great as that of Dickens himself. Collins was born in London, ...
Read MoreWho Was Sean O’ Casey?
Sean O’ Casey (1884) was born in Dublin, and worked as a labourer, living in the crowded tenements of Dublin’s slums, which he describes so vividly in his early plays. After his early stage success ...
Read MoreWho Was Elizabeth Barrett Browning?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1860-61), whose maiden name was Elizabeth Barrett, was the daughter of a West India planter and was born at Durham. She began to write poems at the age of eight: her first ...
Read MoreWho Was Edward Morgan Forster?
Edward Morgan Forster (1879), the son of a cultured family, was educated at Tonbridge and has travelled widely. An intellectual and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, he ranks among the most cosmopolitan men of his ...
Read MoreWho Was Charles Reade?
Charles Reade (1814-84) was born in Oxfordshire, being the youngest son of a squire. He was educated at Iffley and Oxford, and then, entering Lincoln’s Inn, was called to the Bar. He was only slightly ...
Read MoreWho Was Robert Louis Stevenson?
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was born at Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish Bar. He had little taste for the legal profession, and a constitutional tendency to consumption made an outdoor life necessary. He ...
Read MoreWho Was Robert Browning?
His Life. Browning was born at Camberwell, his father being connected with the Bank of England. The future poet was educated semi-privately, and from an early age he was free to follow his inclination towards ...
Read MoreWho Was Patrick White?
Patrick White: A Biographical Note Patrick Victor Martindale White was born in London on May 28, 1912, of Australian parents. He was brought up and educated in Sydney, Australia, until he was 13, when he returned ...
Read MoreWho Was Hawthorne?
HAWTHORNE – HIS LIFE AND WORKS Nathaniel Hawthorne was unquestionably the first major writer of the United States. Earlier, Cooper had introduced a distinctively American voice into fiction, but his novels are often “formless and inarticulate.” ...
Read MoreWho Was Mark Twain?
Mark Twain was the pen-name of Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910), who, like his fellow-humorist Bret Harte, had an early career not devoid of picturesque incidents. Born in Florida, Missouri, he was in turn, a pilot ...
Read MoreWho Was J.B. Priestley?
J.B. Priestley (1894), the son of a schoolmaster, was born in Bradford in 1894. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and has made literature his career. He is a novelist, critic, dramatist, and essayist, ...
Read MoreWho Was Henry James?
HENRY JAMES: THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY Henry James has come to occupy such a central position in Anglo-American fiction that any account of the modern novel must take notice of his pioneering industry, particularly in ...
Read MoreWho Was Herbert George Wells?
His Life. H. G. Wells was born and educated at Bromley in Kent. His father was an unsuccessful shop-keeper and professional cricketer, and already at thirteen Wells was earning a living as an apprentice, first ...
Read MoreWho Was Faulkner?
FAULKNER’S LIFE AND WORKS Faulkner was born on 25th September, 1897 at New Albany, the eldest of the four sons of Murry C. Faulkner and his wife, Maud Rutler of Oxford. The family moved to ...
Read MoreWho Was C. Day Lewis?
C. Day Lewis (1904- ), a descendant on his mother’s side from Oliver Goldsmith, was born in Eire, but while still in his infancy he came to England on the appointment of his father as ...
Read MoreWho Was Eugene O’Neill?
Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) is the first American dramatist of international significance. The son of an actor, he spent his early years in a great variety of occupations. Journalism, gold-prospecting, acting, office work, and experience as ...
Read MoreWho Was Benjamin Disraeli?
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was born in London of a Jewish family. He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn but also showed his interest in literature. After the success of his first novel he spent three years ...
Read MoreWho Was Arthur Miller?
Arthur Miller is an American playwright who came to the scene after the Second World War. Born on 17 Oct., 1915 in a Jewish middle-class family in New York, Miller was educated at the University ...
Read MoreWho Was Anthony Trollope?
Anthony Trollope (1815-82) is another Victorian novelist who just missed greatness. The son of a barrister, he was born in London, educated at Harrow and Winchester, and obtained an appointment in the Post Office. After ...
Read MoreWho was George Eliot?
‘George Eliot’, Life and Career ‘George Eliot’ was the pen-name of Mary Anne, who later called herself Marian Evans. She was born at Chilvers Coton, near Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, on November 22, 1819. She was the ...
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