Famous Writers in English Literature

William Shakespeare

Elizabethan period was the golden age in the history of Britain. Age of William Shakespeare, was actually the age of Queen Elizabeth. He was the author of great English plays and poems. He wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets and many narrative poems.

He was born on 23 April at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His birthday is celebrated all over the world as International Book Day. He started his profession as an actor in London theatre. He married Anne Hathaway and had three children. His first work was a long poem "Venus and Adonis", published in 1593. His notable works include

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597)
• Measure for Measure (1603)
• The Comedy of Errors (1594)
• Love's Labour's Lost (1594)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1590)
• All is well that Ends Well (1595)
• The Merchant of Venice (1596)
• Macbeth (1605)
• Hamlet (1600)
• Othello (1604)
• King Lear (1605)
• Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
• Julius Caesar (1599)
• Coriolanus (1607)
• Troilus and Cressida (1601)
• King John (1596)
• Romeo and Juliet (1594)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

The beautiful and philosophic lines that we often quote from his works include;

• "All the world is a stage and all men and women are merely players" from the play “As You Like It”.
• “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"
• "To be or not to be"
• "Women are as roses whose fair flower being once displayed doth fade that every hour" from the play “Twelfth Night”.
• "Brevity is the soul of wit" from the play “Hamlet”.
• "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound" from the play “Henry V”.
• "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" from the play "Macbeth" (1606).

He died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer and prominent dramatist. He is considered as the national poet of England.

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was the greatest playwright after William Shakespeare. He was also a novelist and critic. He was born on 26 July 1856 in Dublin, Ireland.

He received his early education in Dublin. After leaving school at the age of 15, he worked for an estate agent for five years. In 1876, he went with his mother to London. There he began a programme of voracious reading. He became a socialist in 1882 and after two years he joined the Fabian Society. He started writing also. His first publications were novels.

His notable works are "Cashel Byron's Profession" and "An Unsocial Socialist" and several more. He wrote around 50 novels. But he didn't get popularity. So he started writing plays. "Widowers' Houses" was his first play. It was published in 1492. It was a vigorous attack on slum landlordism. Of his serious plays the last one was "Apple Cart". Some of his famous plays are: "Arms and the Man", "Back to Methuselah", "Saint Joan", "Major Barbara", "The Doctor's Dilemma", "Heartbreak House", etc.

In 1925, he got Nobel Prize in Literature for his play, "Saint John". The play follows the fortunes of the girl from Lorraine, from her first meet with Robert de Baudricourt, to her meeting with Dauphin at Chinon, and her following destiny after her assault on the English and raises the Siege of Orleans. After their victory her faith in her inspiration raises doubt of heresy; the Earl of Warwick Seizes on this. The Bishop of Beauvais and John de Stogumber see her as a girl who may be in fault but whose soul can be saved. Warwick sees her as a dangerous enemy to be extinguished. When Joan is taken by the Burgundians she is sold to warwick, who hands her over to the church. She tried for heresy and, terrified by the threat of burning, signs a recantation of her belief in the voices that inspired her. But the alternative sentence, perpetual imprisonment, is worse. Joan destroys her recantation and they hurry her to the stake. The Epilogue deals with the nullification of the church's verdict of 1431, and the canonization of Joan of Arc. (Ian Ousby).

The great writer died in 1950 after leading a simple life.

John Milton

John Milton was the supreme English poet and is placed next to Shakespeare in the hierarchy of English poets. He was a blind poet. His "Paradise Lost" is the finest epic in the English language. He was born in Bread Street (London) in the year, 1608. After his MA degree, he dedicated himself to self-culture and poetry. He was a lover of art and literature. He was a great puritan also. He served as Latin secretary to the committee for Foreign Affairs. Unluckily, he lost his eyesight in 1653.

His other works include "Paradise Regained", "Comus", "Lycidas, "Samson Agonistes", "L'Allegro", "Il Penseroso", "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" and sonnets. "On His Blindess" is the best known sonnet. It was written in 1655, three years after he became completely blind. It expresses his doubts and fears, his triumphant faith in wisdom of God and his humble resignation to the divine will. It gives us a forecast of the poet who later on wrote "Paradise Lost" to justify the ways of God to men. The supreme masterpiece of epic literature sets forth the revolt of Satan against God and the fall of man. It is the greatest epic poem in any modern literature on a theological topic, as a vehicle of Christian teaching. He died in 1647.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the Father of English Literature. The exact date of birth of him is not certain. But most scholars say that his period covers from 1340 to 1400. He spent his early life in London. He began his career humbly as a translator. Many of his poems were taken from French literature. He was considered the greatest English poet of the middle Ages.

The chronology of his poetry is less certain. Before 1369, he had struck out a line of elegant and caring sentiment in “The Compleynt unto Pite". It was followed by "The Book of the Dutches" in 1369 - the Dutchess being the wife of Chaucer's Patron, John of Gaunt. His other works include: "Boece", "Anelida and Arcite', "The Parliament of Fowls", "Troilus and Criseyde", "The House of Fame", "The Legend of Good Women", etc.

He wrote "Canterbury Tales" in between 1387 and 1392. He is now remembered for this poem. But this work itself was incomplete. His plan was to tell more than hundred stories in heroic couplets. But he completed 24 tales. Two of them were in prose: "The Tale of Melibee" and "The Parson's Tale". There were twenty nine story tellers including Chaucer himself. Some of the stories are adaptations of Boccassio's "Decameron". Chaucer told two stories: "Sir Thopas" and "The Tale of Melibee". There were tragedies and comedies in the tales. Some were grave and subdued others ablazed with colour and merriment, but the thread of honest and kindly laughter runs through them all, serious and gay alike.

He was a representative poet. His realism was seen in the work which was represented as a mirror to the life of the age. In the field of literature, he worked as social chronicler. He died in 1700. He was the first poet to be buried in Poet's Corner of Westerminister Abbey.

Herbert George Wells

H.G.Wells was a prolific English writer in his own days and is remembered today as an innovative writer on politics, history, society and on science fiction.

He was born at Bromley in 1866. His family was of a poor background, an unsuccessful tradesman which was not usual for a writer at that time. He got a scholarship to study at the Normal School of Science, London and passed with a first-class degree in Biology. He briefly became a school teacher. Later an accident damaged his kidneys. Then he started to write books on Biology and Geography first. Then he turned to write science fiction stories.

His first novel was "The Time Machine". The central character in the short novel tells a group of friends that he has invented a machine that can travel through time, enabling him to investigate the destiny of the human species. Other works of science fiction followed include: "The Wonderful Visit" (1895), “The Island of Dr. Morean" (1896), "The Invisible Man" (1897), "The War in the Air" (1907). Among them "The Invisible Man" is very popular. The central character, Griffin (the invisible man) himself researches on optics and invents how to convert a body's refractive index to that of air. As a result the body absorbs and reflects no light which makes the body invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure. Although the novel is absolutely a fantasy, the reader meets him through the eyes of the ordinary villagers rather than the aliens of his earlier books.

From 1903, he was a member of the Fabian Society, but his contact with its members was brief and mostly belligerent. His quarrel with G.B Shaw was only one of his controversies with leading thinkers of the day. He died in 1946.