Famous Irish Writers and Poets.

Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) is the greatest satirist of British literature. He is the author of the immortal work Gulliver’s Travels which all of our schoolchildren know very well.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin. His father died a few months the birth of his son, and the boy saw but little of his mother. Swift’s school and college life were passed at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote The Drapier’s Letters, his famous pamphlets in defence of the Irish people, and at the same time he wrote another pamphlet A Modest Proposal in defence of Irish children.

Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852), an Irish poet who sang his native land in the same way as Robert Burns sang Scotland. He came from a well-t0-do Irish family. He was born in Dublin. T.Moore studied at Dublin University and then studied law in London.

He published his first verses as Poems by Thomas Little in 1801, then his romantic stories in verse Lalla-Rookh (1817). His Irish Melodies made a great impression on Byron. Thomas Moore was George’s Byron’s friend and after Byron’s death he wrote the first biography of this great English poet, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of His Life.

In his work National Airs there were two songs on Russian melodies One of them, “Those Evening Bells” was translated into Russian by I. Kozlov and became very popular.

Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) was the son of a well-known Irish doctor and scientist. His mother was a very educated woman, a poetess who published many poems and other works, among them Legends of Ireland.

Oscar Wilde received a very good education. He began his education at Trinity College in Dublin and graduated from Oxford in 1878.

Oscar Wilde wrote many poems (in 1881 he published a volume of Poems), Fairy tales (the best ones are The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend, The Star-Child, The Remarkable Rocket and others), plays (Lady Windermere’s fan, A Woman of no Importance, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband), critical essays and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).

Oscar Wilde died in Paris and is buried there.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, Ireland.

Bernard’s Shaw’s childhood was very hard. His father was taken to drink and Shaw’s mother left him and went to London where she gave lessons of music to earn her living.

At the age of fourteen, after graduating from secondary school, Shaw was put into a job as clerk in a land agent’s office. Bernard Shaw was rather educated and he was better informed in many things than most of his

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fellow clerks at the office. Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley and many other great poets and writers had been read and reread by him. He could discuss art, for he had studied the best works at the Ireland National Gallery. In 1876 Shaw went to London here he became a journalist and wrote music, art and dramatic critiques for various periodicals.

Bernard Shaw became a Socialist in 1882 and took an active part in the Socialist movement.

Shaw’s most important plays besides Widower’s Houses, Mrs Warren’s Profession, The Apple Cart and Pygmalion are Candida, The Devil Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, Too Good to be True and many, many others.

Bernard Shaw loved Russian realistic drama and with a few English writers and actors in his time brought the plays by Chekhov Gorky and Tolstoy onto the English stage.