Christopher Isherwood (1904–86)
an English writer of novels and plays. The musical show Cabaret was based on a story in his 1939 collection Goodbye to Berlin, and much of his other writing is based on his experiences in Germany before World War II. He also wrote three plays with W H Auden. In 1939 he moved with Auden to the US and later became a US citizen.
Kasuo Ishiguro (1954– )
a writer born in Japan who now lives in London. His books include A Pale View of Hills (1982), An Artist of the Floating World (1986) and The Remains of the Day (1989) which won the Booker Prize and was made into a film. He has since published When We Were Orphans (2000).
Henry James (1843–1916)
a US writer whose novels are often about Americans in Europe. They contrast the Americans’ innocent ideas with the Europeans’ understanding of the world. James settled in London in 1876 and became British in 1915. His novels include Daisy Miller (1879), Portrait of a Lady (1881), the ghost story The Turn of the Screw (1898), The Wings of a Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). Several of them have been made into films.
Samuel Johnson (1709–84)
an English writer and critic, often referred to as Dr Johnson. He is remembered for his many clever remarks (mostly recorded by his friend James Boswell, who wrote his life story) and his Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Among his other important books are Rasselas (1759), which he wrote in a week to pay his mother’s funeral expenses, and The Lives of the Poets (1779–81). He was an important figure in 18th-century London, and started a club (called simply The Club) with friends such as David Garrick, Edward Gibbon and Joshua Reynolds. He remained poor all his life, but his great reputation as a writer and humorous speaker brought him the honorary title of Doctor from Oxford University in 1775. His house in Gough Square, London, is now a museum.
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
an English writer of plays and poetry. His most famous comedies are Every Man in his Humour (1598), Volpone (1606), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614), in which the characters are always trying to trick each other to gain advantage for themselves, and The Devil is an Ass (1616). Jonson is regarded as the first English Poet Laureate. He was a friend of Shakespeare, who acted in some of his plays.
James Joyce (1882–1941)
an Irish author who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He left Ireland in 1904 and spent the rest of his life abroad, in Trieste, Zürich and Paris. His novels Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939) introduced new ways of writing fiction, particularly the ‘stream of consciousness’ style, which presents a person’s rapidly changing thoughts. He also made use of invented words and unusual sentence structures. His work was not well understood during his life and Ulysses was banned in Britain and the US until 1936 because it was considered offensive. Earlier books by him include Dubliners (1914) (a collection of short stories) and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914–15), which reflects Joyce’s own experiences of growing up in Dublin, and the play Exiles (1918).
John Keats (1795–1821)
an English poet. He is considered to be one of the greatest figures of the Romantic Movement and was a friend of Shelley, Hazlitt and Wordsworth. His best-known poems include Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, To Autumn and La Belle Dame Sans Merci, all written in 1819. Common themes in his poems are the beauty of nature and the short time available for human life and happiness. He died in Rome of tuberculosis (= a disease of the lungs), aged only 26. His Letters were published in 1848.
Charles Kingsley (1819–75)
an English writer and priest. He is best known for the novel Westward Ho! (1855), about Elizabethan England, and the children’s book The Water-Babies. He was also the chaplain (= private priest) to Queen Victoria.
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)
an English writer. He was born in India, where many of his books are set (e.g. The Jungle Book and Kim), and worked there as a journalist in the 1880s. He wrote in a wide range of forms, including novels, short stories and poems for adults and children. Many of his poems are still very popular, including If, Gunga Din and Mandalay (1892). The characters in his work are often soldiers in parts of the British Empire, and he has been accused of taking too much pride in the British Empire and its use of military force. In 1907 Kipling became the first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.
Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
an English writer. His best-known works are Tales from Shakespeare (1807), written for children with his sister Mary (1764–1847), and Essays of Elia, published in two collections in 1823 and 1833.
D H Lawrence (David Herbert Lawrence 1885–1930)
an English writer of novels, short stories and poetry. His father was a miner and this background is sometimes featured in his stories. His novels include Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920). A common theme in his writing is the importance of free emotional and sexual expression, and many of his books were originally considered to be obscene (= offensive or disgusting). His most famous novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was not published in full in Britain until 1960. Lawrence was also an important modern poet, and his collected poems were published in 1928.
T E Lawrence (Thomas Edward Lawrence 1888–1935)
an English soldier and writer. He began his career as an archaeologist, but in 1916 went to Saudi Arabia to plan and lead a successful military campaign against Turkish rule in the Middle East, as a result of which he became known as Lawrence of Arabia. He described the campaign in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). This brought him fame and a romantic reputation, but he disliked publicity and tried to escape it by twice changing his name. He died in a motorcycle accident in Dorset, England. A film, Lawrence of Arabia, about his life appeared in 1962.
F R Leavis (Frank Raymond Leavis 1895–1978)
an English literary critic. He taught at Cambridge University from 1936 to 1962 and started the magazine Scrutiny (1932–53). In his books New Bearings on English Poetry (1932) and The Great Tradition (1948) he helped to establish modern ideas on the work of such writers as Gerard Manley Hopkins, T S Eliot, Henry James and D H Lawrence.
Doris Lessing (1919– )
a British writer, born in Iran. Her early novels, e.g. The Grass is Singing (1950), used the background of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she lived as a child. Many of her novels, including The Golden Notebook (1962), are concerned with social and political issues, especially relating to women. She has also written science fiction novels. Her later novels include The Fifth Child (1988), Love, Again (1996) and Ben, in the World (2000). She has written two books about her life, Under My Skin (1994) and Walking in the Shade (1997), and a collection of ‘views and reviews’, Time Bites (2004).
John Locke (1632–1704)
an English philosopher. In his Two Treatises of Government (1690) he opposed the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, arguing that governments should rule only if they are supported by the people. This was an important influence on the later revolutions in America and France, and on the development of Western democracy. Locke also wrote books on religion, education and economics. His most famous work of philosophy is An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), an attempt to show what can and cannot be known.
Richard Lovelace (1618–58)
an English poet. He was one of the ‘ Cavalier poets’ who supported King Charles I during the English Civil War. He was put in prison during the war and wrote some of his finest works there, including the poem To Althea, from Prison, which contains the famous lines:
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
Thomas Macaulay (1800–59)
an English writer and politician. His best-known works are his unfinished History of England, which was a great influence on later writers of history, and Lays of Ancient Rome. He was a Member of Parliament and Secretary of War (1839–41), and was made a baron in 1857.
Harold Macmillan (1894–1986)
a British Conservative politician. He entered Parliament in 1924 and was Foreign Secretary (1955) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1955–7) before becoming Prime Minister (1957–63). After gaining power he concentrated on improving Britain’s international relations and encouraging economic growth, becoming known for his phrase ‘You’ve never had it so good’ (taken from a US election campaign). Because of his successes he was sometimes called ‘Supermac’ by the press. The Profumo affair in 1963 damaged his party and he resigned later that year because of ill health, being replaced by Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Macmillan was the author of several books, including Winds of Change (1966), the title of which refers to a famous phrase in his 1960 speech about African independence. He was made an earl in 1984.
Thomas Malthus (1766–1834)
an English economist and priest. In his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) he suggested that human populations grow faster than the supply of food, and that unless population growth is artificially controlled, this leads to poverty and an increased death rate. His ideas were an important influence on Charles Darwin.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–93)
an English writer of plays and poetry. He is considered the greatest English playwright of the period before William Shakespeare, and was an important influence on Shakespeare’s style. His best-known works are Tamburlaine (c. 1587), Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta (c. 1590) and Edward II (c. 1592). He may also have written parts of the Shakespeare plays Titus Andronicus and Henry VI. Marlowe led a wild and violent life, was put in prison briefly in 1589 on suspicion of murder, and was himself murdered in a fight at the age of 29.
Andrew Marvell (1621–78)
one of the English metaphysical poets. Among his best-known poems is To his Coy Mistress, a clever and entertaining attempt to persuade a young woman to go to bed with him. It contains the famous lines:
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
During his life Marvell was better known as a Member of Parliament (1659–78) and a supporter of Oliver Cromwell.
Karl Marx (1818–83)
a German writer on politics and economics. In 1848 he wrote the Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels (1820–95), and in the following year he came to live in London, England. He spent much of the rest of his life developing his theories, and published the results in Das Kapital (1867–95), the major work of Marxist economics. His theories about the need for a workers’ socialist revolution had a very great influence on 20th-century history, especially in Russia, China and eastern Europe. Marx died in London and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
John Masefield (1878–1967)
an English poet who often wrote about the sea. His best-known collections of poetry include Sea Fever (1902) and The Everlasting Memory (1911). He was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death. He also wrote children’s books, novels and critical works.
Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
an English writer thought to be one of the best writers of short stories in the English language. He also wrote plays and novels, including Of Human Bondage (1915) and Cakes and Ale (1930). Many of his stories are about human weakness.
metaphysical poets
a group of 17th-century English poets, including John Donne, George Herbert and Andrew Marvell. Their poetry was marked by a clever and complicated mixture of words and ideas, with each poem being based on a central idea, or ‘conceit’. They gained a high reputation in the 20th century, mainly because of critical praise from T S Eliot.
John Stuart Mill (1806–73)
an English philosopher whose ideas had a great influence on modern thought. His best-known works include On Liberty (1859), in which he argued that people should be free to do what they want if this does not harm others, and Utilitarianism (1863), in which he explained and supported the theory that actions are morally right if they lead to happiness. He criticized the way in which married women were treated at the time.
John Milton (1608–74)
one of the most famous of all English poets. He is best known for his great poem Paradise Lost, which he completed in 1667. This was based on the Old Testament story of the Garden of Eden, and its central character is Satan. It was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, published together in 1671. His earlier works of poetry included L’Allegro and Il Penseroso (both 1631) and Lycidas (1638), and he also wrote political articles supporting Parliament against the king, and the freedom of the press.
Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
a US poet, known for her clever and intellectual poetry, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems (1952). Her other collections included Poems (1921), Observations (1924) and Complete Poems (1967).
লেখকঃ সুশান্ত পাল, ৩০তম বিসিএস পরীক্ষায় সম্মিলিত মেধাতালিকায় ১ম স্থান অধিকারী।
Ajgar Ali 