Literature in English
Richard Wright
American writer known for his novels dealing with the black experience in the US. Part of the Harlem Renaissance Black Boy, Native Son
Gertrude Stein
American writer of experimental novels, poetry, essays, operas, and plays. In Paris during the 1920s she was a central member of a group of American expatriates that included Ernest Hemingway. Her works include Three Lives (1908), Tender Buttons (1914), and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933).
Nathaniel Hawthorne
American writer of novels and short stories mostly on moral themes; wrote the Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and the Marble Faun.
Washington Irving
American writer remembered for the stories "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," contained in The Sketch Book (1819-1820).
Willa Cather
American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains My Antonia
Henry James
American writer who lived in England. Wrote numerous novels around the theme of the conflict between American innocence and European sophistication/corruption, with an emphasis on the psychological motivations of the characters. Famous for his novel Washington Square and his short story "The Turn of the Screw."
Herman Melville
American writer whose experiences at sea provided the factual basis of Moby-Dick (1851), considered among the greatest American novels
Ogden Nash
An American author of the 20th century known for his witty poems, many of them published in The New Yorker
Thornton Wilder
An American author of the 20th century, best known for his play Our Town
Gloria Steinem
An American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
An English poet of the nineteenth century, very popular in his own time; he was Poet Laureate of Britain for over forty years. Among his works are "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Crossing the Bar," and Idylls of the King (a retelling of the legend of King Arthur).
James Joyce
An Irish novelist who wrote Ulysses, a stream of consciousness book that mirrored Homer's book Other works: Finnegan's Wake, A Portrait of an artist as a Young Man
Falstaff
An endearing, fat, aging rogue who appears in several Shakespeare plays, especially Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth. He is a lover of wine, women, and song; and although a coward in practice, he tells stories of his supposed bravery.
My kingdom for a horse!
An exclamation from the play King Richard the Third by William Shakespeare King Richard says this after his horse has been killed in battle, leaving him at the mercy of his enemies
Tennessee Williams
an American playwright who suddenly became famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944). Later plays: Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Edith Wharton
an author - "The House of Mirth" a book of short stories. She contrasted the aristocracy of America with the upper class of Europe. She personified the American dream. The Age of Innocence
Paradise Lost
an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton. The poem concerns the Christian story of the rise of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Black Boy
autobiographical novel of Richard Wright portraying racial conflicts in the rural south
Mrs. Malaprop
character in "The Rivals" who misuses words grotesquely (called malapropisms)
John Milton
english Puritan poet who wrestled with the inevitable limitations on individual liberty, published writings in favor of divorce, Areopagitica, Paradise Lost
A Modest Proposal
essay by Jonathan Swift; often called a masterpiece of irony; Swift emphasized the terrible poverty of 18th century Ireland by proposing that Irish parents earn money by selling their children for food
Scarlett O'Hara
fictitious heroine in Gone with the Wind
White Man's Burden
A poem by British poet Rudyard Kipling commenting on American imperialism. It created a phrase used by imperialists to justify the imperialistic actions the U.S. took.
Casey at the Bat
A poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer The poem's final line is, "There is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out" Casey, an arrogant, overconfident baseball player, brings his team down to defeat by refusing to swing at the first two balls pitched to him, and then missing on the third
The Village Blacksmith
A poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about a village blacksmith in New England It begins with the line "Under the spreading chestnut tree"
Ode on a Grecian Urn
A poem by John Keats. It contains the famous lines "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'- that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Robert Frost
American poet who wrote about New England rural life The Road Not Taken, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Mending Wall
Emily Dickinson
American poet, known for slant rhyme, poems focused manly on death and immortality. Many of her poems were heavily edited and were featured in "The Repubican."
Dorothy Parker
American poet, short story writer, critic, and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks and eye for 20th-century urban foibles
Henry David Thoreau
American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support him Mexican War.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
American transcendentalist who was against slavery and stressed self-reliance, optimism, self-improvement, self-confidence, and freedom. He was a prime example of a transcendentalist and helped further the movement. Essay "Self Reliance"
Louisa May Alcott
American writer and reformer best known for her largely autobiographical novel Little Women (1868-1869). Also, Little Men
James Agee
American writer best known for his classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, an account of sharecroppers in Alabama during the 1930s Won Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1958 for a Death in the Family
F. Scott Fitzgerald
American writer famous for his novels and stories, such as The Great Gatsby, capturing the mood of the 1920s. He gave the decade the nickname the "Jazz Age."
Edgar Allan Poe
American writer known especially for his macabre poems, such as "The Raven" (1845), and short stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839). Other works: The Telltale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, The cask of Amontillado, The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Horatio Alger
19th-century American author, best known for his many novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty.
James Fenimore Cooper
1st truly American novelist noted for his stories of Indians and the frontier life; man's relationship w/ nature & westward expansion Leatherstocking Tales, Last of the Mohicans
Dylan Thomas
20th-century British poet who wrote "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," a poetic mediation on dying which argues that humans are rarely satisfied with their lives when they die and that we can "rage against the dying of the light"; by fighting death and refusing to allow death to choose when it takes us, we can have power over it
Jane Austen
A British author of the late eighteenth and early ninetieth centuries; her best known works are the Novels Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Austen is particularly famous for her witty irony and perceptive comments about people and their social relationships,
D.H. Lawrence
A British author of the twentieth century; two of his best-regarded works are Sons and Lovers and Women in Love. Lawrence is known for his frank treatment of sex, and for the radical ideas on society and on the family that he voiced in his books. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned as obscene in both Britain and the United States, then ban was appealed to the Supreme Court, which overruled it.
C.S. Lewis
A British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. Allegory of Love, The Screwtape Letters; Narnia Chronicles
Pride and Prejudice
A comic novel by JANE AUSTEN about the life of an upper middle class family, the BENNETS, in 18th century England. A complex succession of events ends with the marriages of the two eldest Bennet daughters
Chinua Achebe
A Nigerian novelist who has won international acclaim, writes about the problems of African caught up in conflict between traditional and western values Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Pulitzer Prize winning play by Tennessee Williams about the decline and tragic end of Blanche DuBois, a southern belle who, as she puts it, has "always depended on the kindness of strangers"
Robert Louis Stevenson
A Scottish author of the nineteenth century. Stevenson spent the last few years of his life as a planter and storyteller on Samoa in the south Pacific Ocean. His worked include A Child's Garden of Verses, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Treasure Island. The song "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest" appears in Treasure Island, and a poem by Stevenson, "Requiem", contains the lines "Home is the Sailor, Home from the Sea,/ And the Hunter Home from the Hill."
Robert Burns
A Scottish poet of the 18th century known for his poems in Scottish dialect His most noted poems are "To a Mouse," "A Red, Red Rose," and "Auld Lang Syne"
Cheshire Cat
A cat with an enormous grin encountered by Alice in Alice's Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. The cat tends to disappear, leaving only its smile hanging in the air.
Tarzan
A character in popular novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The son of an English nobleman, Tarzan grows up in Africa among a pack of apes, learns the ways of the jungle, and protects its inhabitants from outsiders. The first Tarzan book appeared in 1914. Tarzan has a standard portrayal in films and comic books. He swings through the trees on long, sturdy vines, and announces his arrival with a loud yodel. Tarzan's girlfriend is Jane. A famous bit of dialogue is "Me Tarzan, you Jane."
Pollyanna
A children's book from the early 20th century by the American author Eleanor H. Porter The title character is an orphan girl who, despite the difficulties of her life, is always extremely cheerful A "Pollyanna" remains excessively sweet-tempered and optimistic even in adversity
The Canterbury Tales
A collection of stories written in Middle-English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey .
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A comedy by William Shakespeare about a group of lovers who spend the night in a forest, where they are the victims of a fairies' pranks and enchantments. One famous line from A Midsummer Night's Dream is "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
As You Like It
A comedy by William Shakespeare. Most of the action takes place in the Forest of Arden, to which several members of a duke's court have been banished. The speech " All The World's A Stage" is from As You Like It.
The Taming of the Shrew
A comedy by William Shakespeare. The "shrew" is Katerina, or Kate, a wildly moody woman. She meets her match in the spirited Petruchio, who marries her and behaves even more wildly than she, meanwhile treating her as if she were a kind and gentle lady. By the end of the play, she has been reformed, and she makes a memorable speech urging wives to submit to their husbands. The musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate, by Cole Porter, is based on The Taming of the Shrew.
The Merchant of Venice
A comedy by William Shakespeare. The most memorable character in Shylock, a greedy moneylender who demands from the title character "a pound of flesh" as a payment for a debt.
Twelfth Night
A comedy by William Shakespeare. The two central characters are a twin brother and sister; each thinks that the other has been lost at sea. The sister disguises herself as a boy and goes to serve the duke of the country, a bitter man, disappointed in love. After the brother reappears, he marries the woman whom the duke has been pursuing, and his sister marries the duke. Twelfth Night begins with the line "If music be the food of love, play on."
Shangri-la
A fictional land of peace and perpetual youth; the setting of the book Lost Horizon, a novel from the 1930's by the English author James Hilton, but probably best known from the movie version. Shangri-La is supposedly in the mountains of Tibet. A "Shangri-La," by extension, is an ideal refuge from the troubles of the world.
The female of the species is more deadly than the male
A frequently repeated line from the poem "The Female of the Species" by Rudyard Kipling
The Fall of the House of Usher
A horror story by Edgar Allan Poe. At the end of the story, two of the Usher family fall dead, and the ancestral mansion of the Ushers splits in two and sinks into a lake.
Drink to me only with thine eyes
A line from a love poem by the seventeenth- century English poet Ben Jonson. He suggests that lovers find each other's glances so intoxicating that they have no need to drink wine.
East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
A line from a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It continues, a few lines later: "But there is neither East nor West... When two strong men stand face to face."
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
A line from the end of A Tale of Two Cities The character speaking has nobly chosen to die in the place of another
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
A line from the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare. A mischievous fairy, Puck, addressing his king, is commenting on the folly of the human beings who have come into his forest.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
A line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare Polonius, a garrulous old man, gives this advice to his son
There is a tide in the affairs of men
A line from the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. Mark Antony and Brutus are on opposite sides of an armed conflict, and Brutus is urging his comrades to seize a fleeting opportunity: "There is a tide in the affairs of men/ Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
"Lay on, Macduff"
A line from the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Macbeth speaks these words as he attacks his enemy Macduff at the end of the play; Macbeth is killed in the fight.
The quality of mercy is not strained
A line from the play The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. Strained means "constrained," or "forced"; the speaker is telling Shylock that mercy must be freely given, and is inviting him to show mercy to the title character.
Give me your tired, your poor
A line from the poem "The New Colossus" by the 19th century American poet Emma Lazarus This poem appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
A line from the sixteenth century play Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe; Faustus says this when the Devil Mephistopheles shows him Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in history. The "thousand ships" are warships, a reference to the Trojan War.
Friday
A native character in Robinson Crusoe, so named by Crusoe because Crusoe found him on a Friday. Friday places himself in service to Crusoe, and helps him survive. Figuratively, a "man Friday" or "girl Friday" is a valued helper.
Brave New World
A novel by Aldous Huxley that depicts the potential horrors of life in the 25th century The title comes from a line in the play The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Great Expectations
A novel by Charles Dickens, Worldly ambitions lead a young boy, Pip, to abandon his true friends.
David Copperfield
A novel by Charles Dickens, largely the story of Dickens's own life. David Copperfield is sent away to work at a very young age, and grows to manhood over the course of the book. The account of David's grim boyhood was designed to expose the cruel conditions of child labor in Britain at the time.
Oliver Twist
A novel by Charles Dickens; the title character is an orphan boy. In one famous scene, Oliver is severely punished for asking for more gruel, or porridge ("Please, sir, I want some more"). Oliver later becomes a pickpocket in a gang of young thieves led by Fagin. Violent in plot, the book exposes the inadequacies of British public institutions for dealing with the poverty of children like Oliver. Oliver is eventually taken into a wealthy household and educated.
Wuthering Heights
A novel by Emily Brontë about the thwarted love of two young people, Catherine and Heathcliff, and the cruel suffering Heathcliff inflicts on all involved in their separation
The Sun Also Rises
A novel by Ernest Hemingway about a group of young Americans living in Europe in the 1920s It captures the disillusionment and cynicism of the Lost Generation
Invisible Man
A novel by Ralph Ellison, set in the United States in the 1930s; it depicts a black man's struggle for identity. In the end, the unnamed narrator runs for his life and falls into a cellar. He decides to remain underground and write a novel about the absurdities of his life.
Native Son
A novel by Richard Wright about a young black man whose life is destroyed by poverty and racism.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A novel by Robert Louis Stevenson about the good Dr. Jekyll, whose well- intentioned experiments on himself periodically turn him into a cruel and sadistic Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde provide a classic example of split personality. In addition, the two characters often serve as symbols of the good and evil sides of a single personality.
Babbitt
A novel by Sinclair Lewis in which the title character, an American real estate agent in a small city, is portrayed as a crass loud, over optimistic boor who thinks about only money is a narrow, materialistic businessman
Lord of the Flies
A novel by William Golding. A play crash lands on an island and the boys try to create a society, which soon falls apart into savagery.
Robinson Crusoe
A novel by the English author Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe, an English sailor, is shipwrecked and cast ashore alone on an uninhabited island
Tobacco Road
A novel from the 1930s by Erskine Caldwell, about a family of sharecroppers from Georgia and their many tragedies ; a "Tobacco Road" is a poor shantytown, usually in the rural South, and usually populated by whites.
The Catcher in the Rye
A novel from the 1950s by the American author J.D. Salinger The book relates the experiences of Holden Caulfield, a sensitive but rebellious youth who runs away from his boarding school
The Red Badge of Courage
A novel from the late 19th century by the American author Stephen Crane, about a young man whose romantic notions of heroism in combat are shattered when he fights in the Civil War.
Vanity Fair
A novel from the middle of the nineteenth century by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray. The leading character is Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous woman who gains wealth and influence by her cleverness.
Far From the Madding Crowd
A phrase adapted from the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," by Thomas Gray; madding means "frenzied." The lines containing the phrase speak of the people buried in the churchyard: "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife/ Their sober wishes never learned to stray." In the late nineteenth century, the English author Thomas Hardy named one of his novels Far from the Madding Crowd.
The Winter of Our Discontent
A phrase from Shakespeare's historical play, Richard III describing a civil war in England. The phrase has come to suggest disaffection in general.
"Time's winged chariot"
A phrase from the seventeenth century English poem "To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell. It appears in these lines: "But it my back I always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near."
"More things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio"
A phrase used by the title character in the play Hamlet, By William Shakespeare. Hamlet suggest that human knowledge is limited: "There are no more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,' Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Death of a Salesman
A play by Arthur Miller whose protagonist, Willy Loman, an aging, confused salesman in decline, has centered his life and that of his family on the notion that material success is secured through personal popularity.
Pygmalion
A play by George Bernard Shaw, about a professor, Henry Higgins, who trains a poor, uneducated girl, Eliza Doolittle, to act and speak like a lady. Shaw based his story on a tale from Greek mythology about a sculptor who carves the statue of a woman and falls in love with it. Higgins and Eliza develop a strong bond, and he is furious when she announces her intention to marry someone else. The musical comedy My Fair Lady is an adaptation of Pygmalion.
Our Town
A play by Thornton Wilder. The play deals with everyday life in a small town in New England.
Henry Fielding
A writer who developed many features of the modern novel Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A poem by Robert Browning based on a folktale from the Middle Ages in Germany. The town of Hamelin is infested with rats, and the citizens hire a piper in multicolored (pied) clothing to lure the rats out with his charming music.mthe rats follow the piper into the river and drown. When the townspeople refuse to pay the piper, he lures away all the children
Gunga Din
A poem by Rudyard Kipling about the native water carrier for a British regiment in India
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
A poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about an old sailor who is compelled to tell strangers about the supernatural adventures that befell him at sea after he killed an albatross, a friendly sea bird. NB: Albatross around one's neck.
The Waste Land
A poem by T. S. Eliot, published shortly after the end of World War I. Its subject is the fragmented and sterile nature of the modern world.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
A poem written by Lord Tennyson about the Campaign when Britain and France invaded the Crimean Peninsula in March of 1853 to capture Sevastopol, and it took them 322 days. There were many casualties and much disease on both sides.
Invictus
A popular poem from the late nineteenth century by the English author William Ernest Henley. Invictus is Latin for "unconquered." The speaker in the poem proclaims he strength in the face of adversity: My head is bloody, but unbowed... I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
A proclamation by the pigs who control the government in the novel Animal Farm, by George Orwell. The sentence is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim that absolute equality of their citizens, but give power and privileges to a small ELITE.
Pilgrim's Progress
A religious allegory by the 17th century English author John Bunyan Christian, the central character, journeys from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City Along the way he faces many obstacles, including the Slough of Despond He is eventually successful in his journey and is allowed into Heaven.
Gulliver's Travels
A satire by Jonathan Swift Lemuel Gulliver, an Englishman, travels to exotic lands He travels to Lilliput (where the people are six inches tall), Brobdingnag (where the people are seventy feet tall), and the land of the Houyhnhnms (where horses are the intelligent beings, and humans, called Yahoos, are mute brutes of labor)
The horror! The horror!
A sentence spoken by the dying adventurer Kurtz ("The horror! The horror!") in Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.
Jeeves
A servant who appears in comic novels and short stories about the English upper classes by p.g. Wodehouse, a 20th century American author born in England
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
A short story by James Thurber about a henpecked husband with extravagant daydreams He imagines himself as a heroic pilot in wartime,ma world famous surgeon, and a soldier who can face a firing squad without fear An ordinary person who dreams of leading a romantic life may be called a "Walter Mitty"
The Gift of the Magi
A short story by O. Henry An extremely poor young couple are determined to give Christmas presents to each other He sells his watch to buy a set of combs for her long hair She cuts off her hair and sells it to buy him a watch fob
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
A standard American reference book for quotations from literature and speeches
Brutus is an honorable man
A statement made several times in a speech by Mark Antony in the play Julius Caesar. The speech is Antony's funeral oration over Caesar, whom Brutus has helped kill. "Brutus is an honorable man" is ironic, since Antony is attempting to succeeds in turning the Roman people against Brutus and the other assassins.
A Christmas Carol
A story by Charles Dickens about the spiritual conversion of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. At first, Scrooge scoffs at the idea of Christmas with a "Bah, humbug!" After the appearance of the ghost of his stingy partner, Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, Scrooge reforms the offers help to the crippled boy Tiny Tim, son of Scrooge's clerk, Bob Cratchit.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
A story by Washington Irving. Its central character, Ichabod Crane, is a vain and cowardly teacher, and he rivals Brom Bones for the love of a woman. Bones terrorizes Crane by disguising himself as a legendary headless horseman.
Rip Van Winkle
A story by Washington Irving. The title character goes to sleep after a game of bowling and much drinking in the mountains with a band of dwarfs. He awakes twenty years later and old man. Back home, Rip finds that all has changed; his wife is dead, his daughter is married, and the American Revolution has taken place.
King Lear
A tragedy by William Shakespeare about an old king who unwisely hands his kingdom over to two of his daughters. The daughters, who had flattered Lear while he was in power, turn on him; their actions reduce him to poverty and eventually madness. His youngest daughter, Cordelia, whom he had first spurned, remains faithful to him.
Fagin
A villain in the novel Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. The unscrupulous, miserly Fagin teaches Oliver Twist and other orphaned boys to pick pockets and steal for him.
Beware the Ides of March
A warning Julius Caesar receives from a fortune teller in the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. Later in the play he is assassinated on the Ides of March
Lansgton Hughes
African American author known for his poems about the black experience in the US. Figure in the Harlem Renaissance. What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Maya Angelou
African American poet, activist, and story teller. After finding reason with her own struggles, she organized with Dr. King to write literature about the struggle for civil rights I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Zora Neale Hurston
African American writer and folklore scholar who played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance Their Eyes Were Watching God
Paul Laurence Dunbar
African-American poet, novelist, and playwright whose most popular work was written in the Negro dialect associated with the antebellum South. One of the first African American writers to establish a national reputation. From one of his poems came the title of Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings
Ralph Ellison
African-American writer who explored the theme of the lonely individual imprisoned in privacy. Invisible Man, Shadow and Act
Walt Whitman
American poet and transcendentalist who was famous for his beliefs on nature, as demonstrated in his book, Leaves of Grass. He was therefore an important part for the buildup of American literature and breaking the traditional rhyme method in writing poetry.
Eugene O'Neill
America's great playwright of tragedy; author of "The Iceman Cometh," "Long Day's Journey into Night," and "Moon for the Misbegotten'
William Faulkner
America's greatest 20th century novelist; wrote The Sound and the Fury, much of whose drama is confusedly seen through the eyes of an idiot. As I Lay Dying
James Thurber
American author and cartoonist of the 20th century. The author of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." His humorous drawings, short stories, and essays poke gentle fun at the lives and folly of men and women.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
American author and daughter of Lyman Beecher, she was an abolitionist and author of the famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Lillian Hellman
American dramatist and screenwriter known for her success as a playwright on Broadway, as well as her left-wing sympathies and political activism Plays: The Children's Hour, Toys in the Attic
Theodore Dreiser
American naturalist who wrote Sister Carrie. he helped reveal the poor conditions people in the slums faced and influenced reforms.
Jack London
American naturalists who achieved a degree of popular success with his adventure stories The Call of the Wild (1903) and The Sea Wolf (1904), celebrating the triumph of brute force and the will to survive.
Toni Morrison
American novelist (The Bluest Eye; Song of Solomon; Beloved) She won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993
John Dos Passos
American novelist and artist active in the first half of the twentieth century; wrote the U.S.A. trilogy, in which the country itself acts as protagonist
Sinclair Lewis
American novelist who satirized middle-class America in his 22 works, including Babbitt (1922) and Elmer Gantry (1927). He was the first American to receive (1930) a Nobel Prize for literature.
John Steinbeck
American novelist who wrote "The Grapes of Wrath". (1939) A story of Dustbowl victims who travel to California to look for a better life. Also, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden
Eudora Welty
American novelist, short-fiction writer, critic and essayist; Great writer of the South - mastered southern vernacular, the culture and the customs of the South; "A Curtain Of Green", "The Ponder Heart", "The Optimist's Daughter" - won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1972
Norman Mailer
American novelist, short-story writer, essayist and journalist; "The Naked and The Dead" - autobiographical novel of WWII; Blended gritty realism with an unique and arresting writing style; "Armies Of The Night" - Pulitzer Prize, "The Executioner's Song", "Ancient Evenings", "Harlot's Ghost"
e.e. cummings
American poet and author Style: lowercase letters, distorted syntax, (the arrangement of words and phrases to create well formed sentences) unusual punctuation to illustrate simple, and often satirical themes on either the decay of modern society, or on love.
Allen Ginsberg
American poet and communist admirer; leading figure of the Beat Generation and the ensuing counterculture movement of the mid-20th century. Represented and encouraged the counterculture movement of the mid-1900's with his art (poetry), his advocacy for Gay rights, cultural acceptance of Gays, the freeing of drug restrictions, and the legalization of marijuana Howl
Sylvia Plath
American poet and novelist of the confessional school whose tempestuous life was the subject of many of her poems. "Daddy," "The Bell Jar." She commited suicide.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
American poet that was influenced somewhat by the transcendentalism occurring at the time. He was important in building the status of American literature. The Song of Hiawatha, Paul Revere's Ride
Poor Richard's Almanac
Benjamin Franklin's highly popular collection of information, parables, and advice
Walden
Book written by Thoreau in which he wrote about his experiences while living alone on Walden Pond
A.A. Milne
British author; most famous for his two books about Christopher Robin & Winnie the Pooh. Based those stories on his son and his stuffed toys. Books were illustrated by E.H. Shepard. Adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel "The Wind in the Willows" into a stage play titled "Toad of Toad Hall."
Salman Rushdie
British novelist most notable for the death sentence imposed on him by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who thought his novel The Satanic Verses to be blashemous.
W.H. Auden
British-born American writer and critic. Influenced by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War Wrote The Double Man and The Dyers' Hand
Globe Theater
Built in 1599, this is a famous theater in London where many of William Shakespeare's best-known plays were first performed
Captain Ahab
Captain of Pequad in "Moby Dick". Obsessed so he sacrificed himself, his crew, and his boat
H.L. Mencken
In 1924, founded The American Mercury, which featured works by new writers and much of Mencken's criticism on American taste, culture, and language. He attacked the shallowness and conceit of the American middle class.
The Wind in the Willows
Classic children's fantasy by British writer Kenneth Grahame. Chronicles the adventures of Mr. Toad, Mole, Rat, and their friend Badger
A Farewell to Arms
E. Hemingway. A love story which draws heavily on the author's experiences as a young soldier in Italy. Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver during WWI. Falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley. The Battle of Caporetto. In Switzerland, their child is born dead, and Catherine dies due to hemorrhages.
Isak Dinesen
Danish author best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast AKA, Karen Blixen
The Brontë Sisters
Emily (1818-1848) - Wuthering Heights Charlotte(1816-1855) - Jane Eyre Anne (1820-1849) - Agnes Grey Pseudonym - Currer, Ellis, Acton Bell All died young
John Keats
English Romantic poet who wrote "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
English Romantic poet; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Frost at Midnight
Virginia Woolf
English Writer, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures in 20th century. Wrote Mrs. Dalloway, Night and Day, The Voyage Out, Jacobs Room
Charles Dickens
English author during the Victorian era; he wrote Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities, among many other works.
Samuel Johnson
English author who made lasting contributions to Engish language as a poet, author of essays, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. His dictionary compiled during the 18th century was far beyond those that had been created before
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
English author who wrote "The Lost World" as well as the Sherlock Holmes books
Agatha Christie
English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright; wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap; created Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple; wrote Murder on Orient Express and Murder of Roger Ackroyd
H.G. Wells
English journalist and novelist; Known as the founding father of science fiction; "The Time Machine", "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "The War of the Worlds", "Tono-Bungay", "The Outline of History"; Socialist who believed the salvation of society would be its techonology
Rudyard Kipling
English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist Jungle Book, Just So Stories; Kim, the Light that Failed Poems: Gunga Din, The Road to Mandalay
Francis Bacon
English philosopher who developed scientific method; believed that instead of relying on the ideas of ancient authorites, scientists should use inductive reasoning to learn about nature; wanted science to benefit industry, agriculture, and trade
Robert Browning
English poet and husband of Elizabeth Barrett Browning noted for his dramatic monologues Pied Piper of Hamlin, My Last Duchess
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
English poet best remembered for love sonnets written to her husband Robert Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
English poet known for his sexual exploits, rebelliousness, and air of brooding Don Juan
Percy Bysshe Shelley
English poet, son of a member of the House of Lords, felt that less gifted didn't recognize his brilliance, wrote "Prometheus Unbound" which was about people revolting against oppression, and wrote "Hymn of Apollo"
William Blake
English romantic author of the late 18th and early 19th C. He illustrated, printed, and distributed all of his books himself Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience
Aldous Huxley
English writer best known for his novel Brave New World; promoter of ancient Eastern pantheist viewpoint
J.R.R. Tolkien
English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
T.S. Eliot
English/American Modernist; jazz poet; The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock, Journey of the Magi, The Waste Land
Beowulf
Epic in Old English which is the earliest work of literature in English
Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare play. The story of a love affair and of the final Roman civil war, ending with Octavius' victory at Actium. The title character commits suicide when he falsely hears his lover is dead. His lover then kills herself with the bite of an asp rather than be made captive by Octavius.
Bard of Avon
Shakespeare's nickname because he was born in Stratford-Upon-the-Avon River
Kubla Khan
poem that describes one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's dreams
Carl Sandburg
poet who used common speech to glorify the midwest and the expansive nature of american life. Chicago, Rootabaga Stories
Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau advocated this process of defying codes of conduct within a community or ignoring the policies and government of a state or nation when the civil laws are unjust.
Edward Gibbon
Historian who wrote "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
One that loved not wisely but too well
In the play Othello, by William Shakespeare, the title character's description of himself after he has murdered his wife in a jealous rage.
George Bernard Shaw
Irish playwright and Nobel Prize winner wrote many notable plays, including Pygmalion and Saint Joan.
Oscar Wilde
Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Famous for his flamboyant wit and style of dress. He wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray; The Importance of Being Earnest He urged art for art's sake
William Butler Yeats
Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939), wrote "A Fisherman," "The Second Coming," and "Easter 1916;" Irish poet and dramatist; foremost figures of 20th century literature; British WWI poet
Jonathan Swift
Irish poet who moved to London and became renowned poet and political writer and Anglican clergyman Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal
all the world's a stage
The beginning of a speech in the play "As you like it" by William Shakespeare
Water, water everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink
Lines from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The speaker, a sailor on a becalmed ship, is surrounded by salt water that he cannot drink. By extension, these lines are used to describe a situation in which someone is in the midst of plenty but cannot partake of it.
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck's novel about a struggling farm family during the Great Depression. Gave a face to the violence and exploitation that migrant farm workers faced in America
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, 1902. The story reflects the physical and psychological shock Conrad himself experienced in 1890, when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo.
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Lines from a pirates' song in Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
William Wordsworth
Leader of English Romanticism who published works in the countryside Poems: Daffodills, The World is too Much with Us, Ode: Intimations of Immorality from Recollections of Early Childhood, and The Prelude
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head"
Line from Barbara Frietchie, a poem from the Civil War years by American poet John Greenleaf Whittier
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
Line from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra where friend of Marc Antony says that Cleopatra is overwhelmingly attractive to men not so much for her beauty but rather her fascinating unpredictability and change of moods.
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Lines chanted by three witches in the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, as they mix a potion
Samuel Clemens
Mark Twain's real name
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Memorable thought from Francis Bacon in one of his many essays
James Weldon Johnson
NAACP leader and Harlem Renaissance writer; he wrote poetry and, with his brother, the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Natty Bumppo
The central character in The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper Natty, a settler, is taught by the native Americans and adopts their way of life rugged individualism
Iago
the villain in William Shakespeare's tragedy who tricked Othello into murdering his wife
The Great Gatsby
Novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald which is considered by many to be the literary masterpiece of the 1920's; it focused on wealthy, sophisticated Americans who were portrayed as self-centered and shallow
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove
Opening line of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
Lewis Carroll
Pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. British professor of mathematics, writer and amateur photographer. Known particularly for those featuring children of his friends, with whom he had lasting friendships, and whom he photographed dressed-up/role playing (e.g.: Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice of "Alice in Wonderland", or Alexandra "Xie" Kitchin). Friends with Cameron. Learned photography from Rejlander.
O. Henry
Pen name of William Sydney Porter; known for his short stories and twist endings. First collection of stories was titled "Cabbages and Kings" Famous tales: "The Gift of the Magi", "The Ransom of Red Chief", & "The Retrieved Reformation"
"Trees"
Poem by American poet Joyce Kilmer
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Poem by Thomas Gray—contains references to "paths of glory" and the line "far from the maddening crowd"
In Flanders Fields
Poem published in Punch Magazine in 1915 and written by Canadian poet John McCrae. It reflects the patriotic feelings during the early days of the war. To this day, the red poppy is the symbol of Remembrance Day.
John Donne
Poet and clergyman, he was famous for intricate metaphors, as in a poem in which he compares two lovers to the two legs of a drawing compass Expressions: Death be not proud, no man is an island, and for whom the bell tolls
Dashiell Hammett
Popular American writer of noir, or detective, fiction. Many of his novels, including Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, became successful movies.
The Tempest
Prospero and Mirand live on an island, where he practices magic. He creates a TITLE that brings the enemies who deposed him to the island; they are shipwrecked and separated. Miranda meets Ferdindand; they fall in love. Prospero uses his magical powers, and Ariel, to confound his guests and to defeat the Caliban's plots against him. All the rivalries are ended; Prospero frees Ariel as he had long promised. This was Shakespeare's last play.
Roots
Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alex Haley, tracing a black American man's heritage to Africa
Idylls of the King
Series of poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson based on legends of Arthur
Animal Farm
a novel written by George Orwell about a group of animals who mount a successful rebellion against the farmer who rules them, but their dreams of equality for all are ruined when one pig seizes power; novella, dystopian animal fable
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel about a heroic boy's search for buried gold and his encounter with pirates
Vladimir Nabokov
Russian-American novelist and entomologist. His first nine novels were in Russian, but he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose Lolita
James Boswell
Scottish lawyer and author best known for his biography of the literary figure Samuel Johnson, which is considered the greatest biography written in the English language.
Sir Walter Scott
Scottish novelist whose Ivanhoe reflected the days of knighthood
Doris Lessing
The British author of the five-volume Bildungsroman entitled Children of Violence who was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature
George Orwell
The Nom De Plume of Eric Blair, an English author of the twentieth century, best known for Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four is a powerful depiction of totalitarianism; hence, the adjective Orwellian has been to government actions that suppress freedom or distort truth.
Geoffrey Chaucer
The first important poet of his time to write in English. At various times during his life he worked as a copywriter, member of Parliament, and justice of the peace. His keen observations of many different types of people was reflected in his famous work, Canterbury Tales .
Lilliput
The first land that Lemuel Gulliver visits in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift. The inhabitants, though human in form, are only six inches tall. Something "Lilliputian" is very small. The expression is especially appropriate for a miniature version of something.
If music be the food of love, play on
The first line of the play Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare The speaker is asking for music because he is frustrated in courtship He wants an over abundance of love so that he may lose his appetite for it
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
The first line of the poem "Daffodils" by the English poet William Wordsworth
A thing of beauty is a joy forever
The first line of the poem "Endymion," by John Keats.
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
The first line of the poem "The Tiger," from Songs of Experience, by William Blake The first stanza reads: Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
The first line of the poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," from the middle of the seventeenth century, by the English poet Robert Herrick. He is advising people to take advantage of life while they are young: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
The first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, referring to the time of the French Revolution.
Death Be Not Proud
The first words of the Sonnet by John Donne. The poet asserts that death is a feeble enemy, and concludes with these lines: "One short sleep past, we waste eternally/ And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."
They also serve who only stand and wait
The last line of the poem "On His Blindness," by John Milton. The poet reflects that he has a place in God's world despite his disability.
Samuel Pickwick
The main character of The Pickwick Papers, a novel by Charles Dickens. Pickwick founds a club whose members use commin words in extremely quirky ways. "Pickwickian Sense" refers to an interpretation of an offensive remark that makes it palatable.
Shylock
The merciless moneylender in The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. He demands a pound of flesh from the title character of the play after the merchant defaults on his debt. Shylock is a Jew; there has long been controversy over whether Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock contributes to prejudice against Jews. Shylock is a cruel miser, and eventually is heavily fined and disgraced, but he maintains his dignity.
George Eliot
The nom de plume of Mary Ann Evans, an English author of novels in the nineteenth century. Some of her best known works are Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner.
Dr. Seuss
The pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel, am American author and illustrator of the 20th century who produced dozens of books for children His stories and whimsical verse include How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat and the Hat
Through the Looking Glass
The sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. In it, Alice passes through a mirror over a fireplace and finds herself once more in an enchanted land, where she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the White Knight, Humpty Dumpty, and other amazing creatures.
Count Dracula
The title character of Dracula, a novel from the late 19th century by the English author Bram Stoker Count Dracula, a vampire, is from Transylvania, a region of Eastern Europe now in Russia He takes his name from a bloodthirsty nobleman from the Middle Ages To lay the vampire Dracula's spirit to rest, one must drive a wooden stake through his heart Count Dracula was played in films by the Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi
Cordelia
The youngest of the king's three daughters in the play King Lear, by William Shakespeare. King Lear at first thinks her ungrateful to him because she refuses to flatter him as her sisters do; he soon finds out that she is the only one of the three who genuinely cares for him.
Raymond Chandler
This 20th century American author is known for his hard-boiled mysteries featuring private detective Philip Marlowe, whose adventures chronicle the seamy underside of southern California. Many of his works, including "The Big Sleep" and "Farewell, My Lovely" have been adapted for films.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
This American author of "Slaughterhouse-Five" wrote other works including 'God Bless You,' 'Mr. Rosewater,' and a novel taking place on San Lorezo featuring Bokononism, "Cat's Cradle."
Alice Walker
Twentieth C African American author, wrote The Color Purple (1982), self-declared feminist and womanist; won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Two lines from a poem by the twentieth- century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, addressed to his dying father.
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman's shocking collection of emotional poems Includes: I Hear America Singing; Song of Myself; O Captain My Captain
Gone with the Wind
a romantic drama and the only novel written by Margaret Mitchell. The story is set in Jonesboro and Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil War and Reconstruction[1] and follows the life of Scarlett O'Hara, the daughter of an Irish immigrant plantation owner.
Get thee to a nunnery
Words from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare; the advice Hamlet gives to Ophelia. He bids her a life of celibacy.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends
Words from the play King Henry V by William Shakespeare. King Henry is rallying his troops to attack a breach, or gap, in the wall of an enemy city.
Miles to go before I sleep
Words from the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost
The Song of Hiawatha
a story-poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Joseph Conrad
a British writer that wrote the book Heart of Darkness and settled in Congo. The significance of Joseph Conrad was that he wrote the Heart of Darkness and which revealed stereotypes of Africans that the Europeans were trying to convey to the rest of the world to justify their genocides and enslavements.
Jane Eyre
a Gothic novel written by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. The story is about who an impoverished young woman as she struggles to maintain her autonomy in the face of oppression, prejudice, and love; novel, bildungsroman (coming of age), social portest novel
Ayn Rand
a Russian immigrant who wrote against socialpolitical systems in "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead"
Simon Legree
a harsh, cruel, or demanding person in authority, such as an employer or officer that acts in this manner ; from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Ward, the brutal slave overseer
Catch 22
novel by Joseph Heller, World War II, there is no way to avoid, absurd, no-win situation
Elmer Gantry
novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 that satirically represents aspects of the religious activity of America within fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it.
Book of Common Prayer
the Anglican service book of the Church of England
Uncle Tom's Cabin
written by harriet beecher stowe in 1853 that highly influenced england's view on the American Deep South and slavery. a novel promoting abolition. intensified sectional conflict.
