English and american writers I know

1.WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616).


The greatest English playwright and poet. He was born in Stradford-upon-Avon. He attended the local grammar school. At the age of 18 he married Ann Hathaway from nearly village Shottery, who was seven years older than William. They had three children - daughters Susan and Juliet and a son Hamnet.
Some years after he left Stradford and went to London. There he joined a group of actors. First he helped to adapt or re-write earlier plays but later he started to write his own plays and he was successful.
As he had made a name and a fortune, he could buy a new house in Stradford-upon-Avon. He died on the same day as he was born (23rd April). The legend says that he died after noisy celebration with his friends. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and beautiful sonnet's. His literature work is loved and appreciated because of Shakespeare's love of men, his understanding human weakness and richness of his language.
He wrote comedies, historical plays and tragedies. Comedies : Marry Wives of Windsor,The Comedy of Eros, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, As You Like It, Twelfth Night
Tragedies : Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth Historical plays : Richard II., III., Henry IV., V., VI., Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar His first masterpiece Romeo and Juliet. The story is well-known of the rivaly between Monteque and Capulet families and Romeo and Juliet star-crossed lover the daughter from one family and the son from the other. It's a sad moving story told in beautiful poetry. He wrote great tragedies such as Hamlet (question from this play are well-known such as "TO BE OR NOT TO BE THAT'S THE QUESTION")


CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1970)


He was famous English novelist of the Victorian period. Dickens
began his career as a journalist and reporter from the debates in
Parliament. He is author of The Posthumous Papers of the Picwick
Club, a collection of humorous sketches, which made him famous. Dickens's ability to draw characters and to decribe human
weaknesses with humour and understanding became evident here. He
wrote a number of novels including Oliver Twist, David
Copperfield, Little Dorrit and others. Many of them reflect
Dickens's unhappy childhood experience. 3.ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961)


Lost Generation - This term was in regular use after War World
I.

This term refers to the lost of young men who were killed in
it and also to the young men who survived but later were adrift


morally and spiritually and in many other ways.
To the L.G. belong writers who had spent their late youth and
early manhood in the war. Their system of values was destroyed
and they also lost their sense of life.
Roman Rolland : Peter and Lucy
Army Barbusse : The Fire
E.M.Remarque
Francis Scott Fitzerald
Ernest Hemingway


Important events are always reflected in the literature of a
country. World War I. Produced a lot of novels and stories. In
the U.S.A. the best came from Hemingway.
Born in Illinois (Ohio), he lived in the U.S.A., in Paris and
Cuba, making a number of hunting trips to Africa and traveling
all his life long. Being a newspaper reporter, he was deeply
interested in public events. He used to take an active part in
them: in World War I. He served in an ambulance group, during
the Spanish Civil War he stayed in Spain and reported on it. Being keen on hunting, Hemingway had a great respect for
courage.
Being verbally gifted, E.H. developed a striking style, very
simple, and yet emotional. His stule of writing contributed to
the international popularity.
The Sun Also Rises (1926) - the first novel,
A Farewell to Arms (1929) - antiwar love story, Frederick and
Catharine
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Old Man and the Sea (Nobel Price in 1954)
(Man can be destroyed but not
defeated)


JOSEPH HELLER (1923)


He is American novelist and playwright. During World War II he
served in the American Airforce. Then he worked for magazines. His first novel Catch-22, an anti-war satire, was on the list of
bestsellers for years. Describing the life of soldiers at an
American airforce base, Heller reveals the stupidy of bureaucratic
war administration and its regulations. Catch-22 has been traslated
into all European languages and made into a successful film in 1970.
The novel Something Happened is a pessimistic psychological
drama of a middle-aged man who being in a deep crisis, tries to
find out what happened with him, with his family and with the
society he lives in.
More recent novel Good As Gold is a satire on life in
Washighton, D.C. 2.OSCAR WILDE (1856-1900)
He was a dramatist, poet, brilliant essay and novel writer and
the author of beautiful tales.
He was born in Ireland in the family of a prominent surgeon. His mother was a poetess. He studied at Trinity Collage (Dublin)
and Oxford University. He was a leading figure of aesthets (a
group of young artists, rebelled against convention art and
behaviour of Victorian England).

He provoked people with his
extravagance dresses, long hair and anconvention views of art
and life.
He achieved a remarkable success with his fairytales, dramatic
plays and novel. His dramatic plays are brilliant, full of
dialogue, subtle irony and amusing situations. His tales belong
to the most beautiful written tales of the World literature. They are still red by both - children and the adults. He also
wrote one novel - The Picture of Dorian Gray. This psychological
novel contains his eccentric in views of the life and the role
of artest in a society .
FAIRY TALES: The Nightingate and the Rose, The Happy Prince,
The Selfish Giant
DRAMATIC PLAYS: The Importance of being Earnest, An Ideal
Husband, The Woman of no Importance
NOVEL: The Picture of Dorian Gray.