11 An outline of British literature

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 1856-1950

• Irish playwright

• Wrote more than 60 plays

• He examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, class privilege, and exploitation of working class.

• Was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature and an Oscar. His most famous play is Pygmalion, which is named after a Greek mythological character.

• Pygmalion - Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he will be able to transform the cockney speaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess by teaching her to assume gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is perfect speech.

The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day.

1. Contemporary literature - 20th century up to the present

• The 20th century was marked by the terrible world wars, revolutions, economic ups and downs, and tensions in the world

• Britain was plagued by social dissatisfaction, labour unrest, strikes, and high unemployment

• Literature reflected despair, loss of hope, and decline in moral values

• 20th century prose

• Significant prose writers: Arthur Conan DOYLE, Rudyard KIPLING, Herbert George WELLS, Agatha CHRISTIE, John Ronald Reuel TOLKIEN, George ORWELL, Sir William Gerald GOLDING, J. K. ROWLING

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 1859-1930

• Scottish physician and writer

• Most famous for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes – the stories are considered an innovation in the crime fiction

• He also wrote science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, and non-fiction.

• Was born as the 3rd of 10 siblings in Edinburgh. His parents were Irish

• As a physician (later ophthalmologist) he didn't have many patients – had a lot of time for writing

• Had 5 children (was married twice)

• Was knighted in 1902

• Died of heart attack

• Works about Sherlock Holmes include 56 short stories and 4 novels: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles

• Sherlock Holmes - is a fictional character, a brilliant London-based detective famous for his intellect and reasoning. He lives at 221b Baker Street in London. There is now a museum at this address. Holmes is tall and thin, with a long, sharp face. He usually wears a deerstalker hat, smokes a pipe or cigarettes, and carries a magnifying glass. He is an extremely intelligent man who always thinks logically about the crimes he is trying to solve. He is also a brilliant violinist. But he also has a dark side to his character- he is lonely and rather sad man who is easily bored with everyday life. He is not married and says that he doesn’t understand women. His assistant and only friend is Dr Watson. Almost all stories are narrated by Dr Watson.

RUDYARD KIPLING 1865-1936

• An English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children

• Received the Nobel Prize for literature (1st English writer to receive the prize)

• Was born in Bombay (Mumbai), India (moved with parents to England when he was 5)

• He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature

• Travelled a lot during his life (India, USA, South Africa, …)

• The Jungle Book – his most notable work; a collection of stories; the tales are fables (1 of the characters - Mowgli - an abandoned "man cub" who is raised by wolves in the Indian jungle), using animals in an antropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. Other main characters are e.g. a heroic mongoose, Akela (the head wolf), Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther, and the tiger Shere Khan (wants to kill Mowgli)

• Just So Stories - highly fantasized origin stories which are among Kipling's most known works