12Th Grade Research Paper: Suggested Authors

12th Grade Research Paper: Suggested Authors

BRITISH/IRISH

· W.H. Auden (p) His early poems were written in an intense and dramatic tone and established his reputation as a left-wing political poet and prophet. His later explored religious and ethical themes in a less dramatic manner than his earlier works, but still combined traditional forms and styles with new forms devised by Auden himself. In the 1950s and 1960s many of his poems focused on the ways in which words revealed and concealed emotions.

· Jane Austen (n) an English novelist whose realism, biting social commentary and masterful use of free indirect speech, caricature, and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature.

o Pride and Prejudice

o Sense and Sensibility

· Samuel Beckett (play) an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist.

· William Blake (p) Blake is held in high regard for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic" for its large appearance in the 18th century.

· Charlotte Bronte (n)

o Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character, an English orphan. Partly autobiographical, the novel abounds with social criticism and sinister gothic elements.

· Emily Bronte (n) an English novelist now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature.

· Robert Browning (p) an English poet whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

· Anthony Burgess (n) His dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange, widely considered to be his magnum opus, is by far his most famous novel, and was adapted into a famous, if highly controversial, 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick.

· Robert Burns (p) He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement and after his death became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism.

o Auld Lang Syne

o A Red, Red Rose

· George Gordon, Lord Byron (p) a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems “She Walks in Beauty”, “When We Two Parted”, and “So, we'll go no more a roving,” in addition to the narrative poems “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” and “Don Juan”. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond.

· Arthur C. Clarke (n) a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

· Samuel Taylor Coleridge (p) an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.”

· Joseph Conrad (n, ss) recognized as a master prose stylist. Some of his works have a strain of romanticism, but more importantly he is recognized as an important forerunner of modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many writers

o Heart of Darkness

· Charles Dickens (n) the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print.

· John Donne (p) a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to those of his contemporaries.

· Arthur Conan Doyle (ss)

o The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

· George Eliot (n) Mary Anne Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological insight.

· T. S. Eliot (p, play) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Waste Land”, “The Hollow Men.”

· E. M. Forster (n) known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy and also the attitudes towards gender and homosexuality in early 20th-century British society.

· Robert Graves (p, n) His poems, together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek Myths, his memoir of the First World war, Good-bye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of print.

· Thomas Hardy (n) of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances.

· A.E. Housman (p) best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian taste, and to many early twentieth century English composers.

· James Joyce (ss, n) was an Irish expatriate author of the 20th century. He is known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

· John Keats (p) one of the key figures of the Romantic movement. Keats' poetry was characterized by elaborate word choice and sensual imagery, notably in a series of odes that were his masterpieces, and which remain among the most popular poems in English literature.

· Rudyard Kipling (n) Born in Bombay, British India, he is best known for his work of fiction The Jungle Book.

· D.H. Lawrence (n, ss) His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

· C.S. Lewis (n) The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.

· Katherine Mansfield (ss) a prominent modernist writer of short fiction.

· John Milton (p) is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.

· Harold Pinter (play) described as "the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation."

· J.K. Rowling (n) Harry Potter

· Sir Walter Scott (n)

o Rob Roy (1817)

o Ivanhoe (1819)

· Shakespeare (play)

· George Bernard Shaw (play) an Irish playwright. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care and class privilege, and found them all defective.

· Mary Shelley (n) Frankenstein

· Robert Louis Stevenson (n) Treasure Island (1883)

· Dylan Thomas (p) “Do not go gentle into that good night.“

· J.R.R. Tolkien (n) The Lord of the Rings

· H.G. Wells (n) best known for his work in the science fiction genre. The War of the Worlds.

· Oscar Wilde (play, n) Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. The Picture of Dorian Gray.

· Virginia Woolfe (n) most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

· William Wordsworth (p) a major English Romantic poet.

· William Butler Yeats (p) one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature.

American

· Edward Albee (play) best known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The Sandbox and The American Dream. His works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition.

· Maya Angelou (p, n) Having been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" she is best known for her series of six autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adulthood experiences. The first, best-known, and most highly acclaimed, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), focuses on the first seventeen years of her life, brought her international recognition, and was nominated for a National Book Award.

· James Baldwin (n) novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and homosexual well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups was improved.

· Toni Cade Bambara (p) considered one of the best African American short story writers, her first collection, Gorilla, My Love, was published in 1972. She preferred to classify her writing as upbeat fiction. Most of the stories in Gorilla, My Love are told through a first-person point of view.

· Dan Brown (n) The Da Vinci Code

· Truman Capote (n) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966)

· Willa Cather (n) best known for her depictions of frontier life on the Great Plains in novels such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark.

· Kate Chopin (n) The Awakening (1899), which is set in New Orleans and Grand Isle, respectively. The people in her stories are usually inhabitants of Louisiana. Many of her works are set about Natchitoches in north central Louisiana.

· Stephen Crane (n, p) he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation.

· e.e. cummings (p) body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular.

· Philip K. Dick (n) published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states.

· Emily Dickinson (p) she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

· Ralph Waldo Emerson (p) best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century.

· William Faulkner (ss, n) most of Faulkner's works are set in his native state of Mississippi. He is considered one of the most important Southern writers along with Mark Twain.

· F. Scott Fitzgerald (n) works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the Twenties.

· Robert Frost (p) highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.

· Charlotte Perkins Gilman (ss) a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper", which she wrote after a severe bout of post-partum depression.

· Dashiel Hammett (n) an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse).

· Bret Harte (ss) best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.

· Nathaniel Hawthorne (ss, n) writing centers around New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity.

· Robert Heinlein (n) a science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers," he was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of the genre.

· Ernest Hemingway (n) part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation." He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

· Langston Hughes (p) one of the earliest innovators of the new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.