On the Art of Reading · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in On the Art of Reading by Arthur Quiller-Couch.
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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.