ENGL

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

– Jesuit priest and poet known for sprung rhythm and inscape (the unique essence of things). His works (The Windhover, Pied Beauty) blend religious fervor with innovative meter.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

WWI poet depicting the horrors of war (Dulce et Decorum Est). Pioneered pararhyme and brutal realism to critique patriotism.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Irish poet and playwright, key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. Works (The Second Coming, Easter 1916) blend mysticism, nationalism, and modernism. Nobel Prize (1923).

T.S. Eliot

Anglo-American modernist poet (The Waste Land), theorist (objective correlative), and playwright (Murder in the Cathedral). Nobel Prize (1948).

Philip Larkin

Leading Movement poet (The Whitsun Weddings), known for bleak, colloquial realism and themes of English provincial life.

Ted Hughes

UK Poet Laureate, wrote visceral, nature-focused poetry (Crow). Married to Sylvia Plath; his work often explores violence and myth.

Sylvia Plath

Confessional poet (Ariel) and novelist (The Bell Jar). Explored mental anguish, feminism, and existential despair.

Simon Armitage

Contemporary UK Poet Laureate, blends everyday speech with profound themes (The Unaccompanied).

Patience Agbabi

British-Nigerian poet known for performance poetry and reworking Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in modern verse (Telling Tales).

Joseph Conrad

Polish-British writer exploring colonialism and moral darkness (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim). Used impressionist narration.

James Joyce

Irish modernist pioneer of stream of consciousness (Ulysses), epiphanies, and linguistic experimentation (Finnegans Wake).

Virginia Woolf

Feminist modernist (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse) who advanced interior monologue and critiques of patriarchy.

D.H. Lawrence

Controversial for explicit sexuality (Lady Chatterley’s Lover). Explored industrialization’s dehumanizing effects (Sons and Lovers).

George Orwell

Political writer critiquing totalitarianism (1984, Animal Farm) and colonialism (Burmese Days). Coined Orwellian.

Samuel Beckett

Irish absurdist playwright (Waiting for Godot) and novelist (Molloy). Nobel Prize (1969) for his minimalist, existential themes.

Chinua Achebe

Nigerian novelist (Things Fall Apart), father of African literature. Challenged colonial narratives and promoted Igbo oral traditions.

Ngũgĩwa Thiong’o

Kenyan writer (Petals of Blood) who abandoned English to write in Gikuyu, advocating linguistic decolonization.

Salman Rushdie

Indian-British author of magical realism (Midnight’s Children). Sparked global controversy with The Satanic Verses (fatwa, 1989).Z

Zadie Smith

British-Jamaican novelist (White Teeth, NW) exploring multicultural London and identity politics.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist; founded psychoanalysis (unconscious, Oedipus complex). Influenced modernist stream of consciousness.

Edward Said

Palestinian-American theorist; wrote Orientalism (1978), defining cultural imperialism and founding postcolonial studies.