Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as mine, me, myself

He speaks from the lectern but keeps slipping back into the child's seat, recalling a sister who wept over a primer called Reading Without Tears and summoning William Canton's old grandpapa Altegans, who watches children troop to school across the whole morning-side of the planet. His quarrel is with the word 'drudgery' and with any system that makes learning feel like it — he insists the eager joy of children is the natural thing, and our schools the aberration. That tension between institutional grind and native appetite drives the book's early case for reading as a lifelong pleasure rather than a prescribed task.

Milton

supporting

Milton stands in the lectures as the Protestant poet par excellence, the man whose Paradise Lost takes up the same impossible brief as the Book of Job: to defend divine justice through speech. Quiller-Couch presses the tension hard — a God who needs an archangel's long advocacy has already conceded that there are two sides to the question, and qui s'excuse s'accuse. Milton matters to the book's middle arc because he forces the reader to ask whether a poem can be magnificent and still fail as an answer, and what we are to do with that.

Job

supporting

Also known as patient Job

Job enters the lectures less as a sufferer to be pitied than as a structural challenge to any poet who would explain God to man. His story, Quiller-Couch notes, would hit the philosophies of Milton and Shelley to the very heart, since it poses the same question Paradise Lost attempts to answer — and both poems, he argues, fail as solutions because justification can only proceed by long argumentative speeches. Job matters to the book's middle because he embodies the reader's own difficulty: how to hold a text that moves us while resisting its conclusions.

Socrates

supporting

Socrates appears in the lectures as half of a marriage of wisdom and beauty between two minds with small acquaintance with books — and yet, by his own admission, helpless before anyone carrying one. That contradiction is the point: Hellenic culture at its best was independent of book-learning and still craved it. He matters to the book's early arc because he lets Quiller-Couch argue that the love of reading is older and stranger than the institutions that now prescribe it.

Longinus

minor

Also known as Dionysius Longinus, Dionysius

The ancient critic Longinus, cited for his treatise on the sublime in literature.

Aristotle

supporting

Aristotle hovers behind the lectures as the uncredited framework — the source of the categories Quiller-Couch reaches for when he asks what a poem is doing and whether it does it. He is invoked alongside Socrates in the book's picture of Hellenic culture, where wisdom and beauty marry without the benefit of a library. He matters to the early-middle arc because he supplies the vocabulary of craft against which the lectures measure everything from Shakespeare to the modern novel.

Sir Thomas Browne

supporting

Also known as Browne

Browne enters the lectures through his own excuse for publishing: a world where his Majesty is defamed, Parliament depraved, and his private meditations corrupted by transcription until he must set a full and intended copy before the public. He is the book's great example of a writer who publishes from duty to truth and the importunity of friends rather than for profit. He matters to the middle arc because he shows what prose can do under pressure — and what the printing press, for all its energy, took centuries to be used for.

Homer

supporting

Also known as old Homer

To Quiller-Couch's Greeks, Homer was not a set text but a living authority — cited by Aristotle for the unity of epic construction, by Longinus for sublimity as 'the echo of a great soul,' and by Socrates for the soul's power to master its affections. He is the test case for the book's central claim: that great reading requires surrendering to a writer's greatness rather than dissecting it. His presence in the early lectures establishes the standard against which all later English literature will be measured.

Shakespeare

supporting

Shakespeare arrives in these lectures as both requirement and reproach: the Tripos insists on King Lear and Hamlet, yet Quiller-Couch warns that no examination can extract the value of a play. 'Shakespeare means us to feel — to be — Hamlet,' he insists, and that is all. The tension between institutional reading and true reading runs through the book, and Shakespeare is where it cuts deepest — the author everyone studies and almost no one, by Quiller-Couch's measure, actually reads.

John Earle

minor

The English bishop and author John Earle, referenced for his character sketches.

Phaedrus

minor

A character from Plato's dialogues, used as an example in discussions of rhetoric.

Satan

minor

The biblical and literary figure of Satan, discussed in relation to Milton and evil.

Plato

supporting

Plato matters here less for the theory of forms than for a scene: Socrates and Phaedrus reclining by the Ilissus under a plane tree, the manuscript of Lysias hidden under a cloak. Jowett's reverent portrait of Plato walking the Academy with Socrates gives the lectures their elegiac note — a world 'which has passed away,' buried under the very books that admire it. Plato thus becomes the book's emblem of what reading was before it became a syllabus.

Chaucer

supporting

Also known as merry Chaucer

Chaucer enters as a case study in how institutions smother literature: his tales are 'set,' listed, and examined alongside Old English dialect papers until the brain reels. Quiller-Couch uses him to expose the absurdity of reading English Literature in two years, from 1350 to 1832, as if it were a body of facts. Yet the affection is real — 'merry Chaucer' stands for the living poet the syllabus keeps threatening to replace with outlines and bibliographies.

Isaiah

minor

The biblical prophet Isaiah, discussed for his poetic and prophetic writings.

Bacon

minor

Also known as Bacon of Studies

Francis Bacon, the philosopher and essayist, referenced for his essays and scientific method.

Wordsworth

minor

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth, discussed for his views on poetry and nature.

Dr. Johnson

minor

Also known as Johnson, Dr.

Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and critic, cited for his literary judgments.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton

minor

Also known as The late Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The 19th-century artist and writer, referenced for his works on art and literature.

Apollo

minor

Also known as Delian Apollo, the Delian Apollo

The Greek god Apollo, invoked in classical and poetic contexts.

Gibbon

minor

Edward Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire, cited for his style.

Pope Adrian VI

minor

Also known as VI, Pope

The 16th-century pope, mentioned as a historical figure in discussions of reading.

Shelley

minor

Also known as Shelley the Jehovah

The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, referenced for his poetry and radical ideas.

M. Maeterlinck

minor

The Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, cited for his symbolic works.

St. Paul

minor

Also known as Paul

The apostle Paul, discussed for his epistles and influence on Christian thought.

Matthew Arnold

minor

Also known as Arnold

The Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold, cited for his literary and cultural criticism.

Napoleon

minor

Napoleon Bonaparte, mentioned as a historical figure in discussions of power and reading.

Chatham

minor

William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham, cited as an orator and statesman.

Dante

minor

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri, referenced for his Divine Comedy and allegory.

Donne

minor

The metaphysical poet John Donne, cited for his wit and religious poetry.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

minor

Also known as Browning

The Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, cited for her poetry and sonnets.

Jesus

minor

Jesus Christ, discussed as a central figure in the Bible and Christian tradition.

Burke

minor

Edmund Burke, the statesman and philosopher, cited for his writings on the sublime.

Charles Lamb

minor

Also known as Lamb, Charles

The essayist Charles Lamb, praised for his personal and humorous style.

Cardinal Newman

minor

Also known as Newman

John Henry Newman, the theologian and writer, cited for his prose and ideas.

Christ

minor

Jesus Christ, discussed in biblical and literary contexts as a central figure.

Bunyan

minor

John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, discussed as a literary figure.

Carlyle

minor

Thomas Carlyle, the essayist and historian, cited for his style and ideas.

Euripides

minor

The Greek tragedian Euripides, referenced for his plays and characters.

David

minor

Also known as King David

The biblical King David, cited as a poet and figure in the Psalms.

Ajax

minor

The Greek hero Ajax, mentioned in discussions of Homeric epic and tragedy.

Lucifer

minor

The fallen angel Lucifer, discussed in relation to Milton and evil.

Queen Athaliah

minor

Also known as Athaliah

The biblical queen Athaliah, discussed as a dramatic character.

Jacob

minor

The biblical patriarch Jacob, discussed in relation to his story and character.

Prometheus

minor

Also known as Prometheus Unbound, the Prometheus Unbound

The Titan Prometheus, referenced in Aeschylus and Shelley as a symbol of rebellion.

Solomon

minor

The biblical King Solomon, cited for his wisdom and writings.

Odin

minor

Also known as Lidskialf Odin

The Norse god Odin, mentioned in discussions of mythology and literature.

Aeschylus

minor

Also known as the Prometheus of Aeschylus

The Greek tragedian Aeschylus, referenced for his Prometheus Bound.

Adam Smith

minor

Also known as Adam

The economist Adam Smith, cited for his works on moral sentiments and wealth.

Ruskin

minor

John Ruskin, the art critic and social thinker, cited for his views on reading.

Hans Christian Andersen

minor

Also known as Christian

The Danish author of fairy tales, referenced for his stories for children.

Zeus

minor

The king of the Greek gods, mentioned in classical and mythological contexts.

Esau

minor

The biblical figure Esau, discussed in relation to his brother Jacob.

Poseidon

minor

The Greek god of the sea, mentioned in Homeric and mythological references.

King Lear

minor

Also known as Lear

The tragic Shakespearean king, discussed as a character in literary analysis.

Emerson

minor

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the transcendentalist writer, cited for his essays.

Pindar

minor

The Greek lyric poet Pindar, mentioned for his odes and poetic style.

Gray

minor

Thomas Gray, the poet of the Elegy, cited for his literary contributions.

Keats

minor

John Keats, the Romantic poet, referenced for his odes and poetic theory.

Ruth

minor

The biblical figure Ruth, discussed for her story and character in the Bible.