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 Coleridge
1772-1834

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