writers in 'the history boys
DESCRIPTION
Writers mentioned in 'The History Boys' by Alan BennettTRANSCRIPT
W.H. Auden
Went to Oxford
Poet famous from 1930s-1970s
Married (for reasons of citizenship) but homosexual and wrote some famous love poems
Rupert Brooke
A poet famous prior to WW1
Died in 1915 in service in Greece
Famous for a relatively small selection of sonnets about the war
Samuel Taylor Coleridge1772-1834
Romantic poet
Wrote poetry about nature and myths and legends (typical Romantic themes)
Was once disturbed by a knock on the door and never finished his most famous poem!
Frances Cornford
Charles Darwin’s granddaughter
Won the Queen’s medal for poetry in 1959, died in 1960
Wrote about childhood, about life, about Rupert Brooke…
Kenneth Grahame
Scottish writer
Wrote the Wind in the Willows
T S Eliot
American modernist poet (died in 1965)
Won the Noble Prize for literature in 1948
His poetry was about gender roles, the human psyche, literary history
Robert Graves
Served in WW1, but lived until 1985
Taught at Oxford, as well as writing numerous novels, poems and essays
Thomas Hardy
Lived from 1840-1925
One of the most famous British novelists and poets
Was quite controversial due to the ‘salacious’ themes in his novels
A E Housman
A poet of the British countryside
Traditional style, odes and ballads about landscapes
Was taught at Oxford, taught at Cambridge
Franz Kafka
Czech writer (born in Prague)
Created surreal, nightmarish worlds for his characters
Rudyard Kipling
Born in India so often wrote about imperialism (Jungle Book)
His son died in WW1 after Kipling had fought on his behalf to get him into the army
Philip Larkin
Northerner, Cambridge educated
Formal style and structure as a poet, but modern and shocking themes in his poems
John Milton
1608-1674 - perhaps the most famous 17th Century writer
Wrote ‘Paradise Lost’, about the battle between Heaven and Hell
Friedrich Nietzche
19th Century German philosopher
Questioned traditional morality and influenced existentialism
George Orwell
Wrote Animal Farm and 1984 (Big Brother)
Was very concerned about the correct use of the English language
The ideals of socialism influenced his life
Wilfred Owen
Became a famous poet during and after WW1
Was very critical of the war, but served for 3 years as an officer and returned twice
Blaise Pascal
French 17th Century scientist and philosopher
Wrote: “The heart has its reasons that reason knoweth not”
Plato 429-347 BC
Student of Socrates, perhaps the most famous Greek philosopher Proponent of the ‘dialectic’ teaching strategy – discussion, rhetoric
Homosexual
Marcel Proust
French author
Semi-autobiographical novel (The Remembrance of Things Past) his most famous work
Scarred by his childhood
J D Salinger
1919-2010
Most famous work is ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, about a runaway boy who goes to New York
Siegfried Sassoon
Soldier in WW1 (nicknamed ‘Mad Jack’)
Suffered from shell shock and reflected on the war in later life (died in 1967)
Wrote a poem called ‘Suicide in the Trenches’
William Shakespeare
Renaissance playwright
Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost & Antony and Cleopatra all quoted in ‘The History Boys’
Oscar Wilde
Anglo-Irish playwright
Arrested and charged with ‘gross indecency’ for his homosexual acts
Virginia Woolf
British novelist and essayist (1882-1941)
A modernist writer who used a ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative style
Walt Whitman
American poet (1819-1892)
Was very controversial in his time, with some of his work described as ‘obscene’
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Austrian-British philosopher
Considered complex issues such as the human psyche and logic
Stevie Smith British poet, considered a unique voice due to her satirical style
Poetry was about themes such as death and alienation, but often used a humorous tone