Character guide

Unknown

major

Also known as me, mine, myself

He addresses his audience as 'Gentlemen,' building his argument lecture by lecture from the plain claim that Literature is a living art, and therefore must be personal. His distinctive tension is between reverence for the great dead and the insistence that the living must practise writing themselves, not merely admire. That conviction drives the book's early arc, as he moves from defining what Style is not toward the harder demand that his listeners master its secret for themselves.

Shakespeare

major

Also known as Man, The Man Shakespeare, a Shakespeare, Mr. Shakespeare, sweet Mr. Shakespeare

He presides over the lectures as the supreme example of writing that stays alive because it is personal, various, and true to human feeling rather than to ornament. The narrator invokes him not as a monument to be admired but as a standard to match, warning students against dwindling out his large utterance. His presence anchors the argument that style is individuality, and that even slang and neologism may be justified by the occasion, since literature must take account of all manner of writers, audiences, and moods.

Homer

supporting

Also known as The great Homer

He stands at the far origin of the argument, the poet who wished for a thousand tongues and a thousand hands not to dip pens in inkpots but to sing and pluck the wires. His example lets the narrator trace verse back to its musical accompaniments and conclude that its natural language must be keyed higher than prose. He matters because he grounds the book's historical claim that verse precedes prose, giving the lectures a firm stepping-stone rather than a mere assertion.

Milton

supporting

He appears as a touchstone of the heights English writing can reach, named alongside Shakespeare and Burke as a model students should study for guidance rather than mere admiration. His presence also carries a warning: Samuel Johnson could damn Milton because he hated Milton's politics, proof that even great critics let passion make injustice their daily food. He matters to the lectures as both an aspiration and a caution about how personal prejudice can distort judgment.

Samuel Johnson

supporting

Also known as Johnson, Samuel

He is offered as the counterweight to the notion that critics are artificial in phrase and pedantic in judgment, a man who could be wrongheaded and perverse yet could not let a well-turned but lifeless phrase pass. His willingness to damn Milton for political hatred shows the flaw, while his refusal to tolerate what was false to life shows the virtue. He matters because he embodies the book's central test: that writing lives only when it stays true to human experience.

Chaucer

supporting

He is invoked in the lecture that urges students to treat English Literature as an art with a living, improvable language, and therefore to practise writing themselves rather than embalm the past in a hortus siccus. The narrator sets the great writers of the past before his audience not for their own sakes alone but for guidance, so that they might say what they have to say worthily. Chaucer matters as one of those portraits looking down from college halls, meant to lift hearts and move students to match their manhood to its inheritance.

Professor Saintsbury

minor

Contemporary literary critic referenced in the lectures.

Wordsworth

supporting

Wordsworth hovers over these lectures as a test case in a running argument: is poetic language a set of rules to be obeyed, or the pulse of a man speaking to men? Quiller-Couch summons his verse against the pedants who would fence literature about with notice-boards, insisting that a poem lives because it is personal and various, not because it is correct. For the reader, Wordsworth becomes the hinge on which the whole question of diction turns — and the reason to keep reading.

Plato

minor

Greek philosopher invoked in discussions of rhetoric and style.

Virgil

minor

Roman poet used as an example of epic verse craftsmanship.

Ben Jonson

minor

Also known as Jonson, Ben

Elizabethan playwright and poet cited for his critical views.

Cardinal Newman

minor

Also known as Newman

Victorian prose stylist discussed for his clarity and rhythm.

Gray

minor

Poet mentioned in relation to poetic diction and elegy.

Browning

minor

Victorian poet cited for dramatic monologue and style.

Aristotle

minor

Greek philosopher whose Poetics informs discussions of drama.

Coleridge

minor

Romantic poet and critic quoted on imagination and language.

Edmund Spenser

minor

Also known as Spenser

Elizabethan poet discussed for his allegorical epic The Faerie Queene.

Tennyson

minor

Victorian poet laureate mentioned for his lyrical verse.

Sappho

minor

Ancient Greek lyric poet cited for her emotional intensity.

Bede

minor

Anglo-Saxon historian referenced in literary lineage.

Malory

minor

Author of Le Morte d'Arthur discussed as a prose stylist.

Sir Joshua Reynolds

minor

Also known as Reynolds

Painter and writer on art, quoted on general principles.

Professor Freeman

minor

Also known as the late Professor Freeman

Historian referenced in discussions of historical style.

Carlyle

minor

Victorian essayist and historian cited for his prose energy.

Izaak Walton

minor

Also known as Isaak Walton

Angler and biographer, praised for his simple prose.

Sir Thomas Browne

minor

Also known as Sir Thomas, Browne

17th-century physician and writer on style and meditation.

Bacon

minor

Elizabethan philosopher and essayist cited for aphoristic style.

Lucian

minor

Greek satirist mentioned for his dialogue form.

Aristophanes

minor

Greek comic playwright cited for his verbal wit.

Gabriel Harvey

minor

Elizabethan scholar and friend of Spenser, mentioned in context.

Dr. Courthope

minor

Literary historian cited in lectures on English literature.

Beowulf

minor

Old English epic poem discussed as a foundational text.

Alcuin

minor

Anglo-Saxon scholar and advisor to Charlemagne, mentioned in lineage.

Abelard

minor

Medieval philosopher and theologian cited in passing.

Duchess

minor

Title character in a literary example or anecdote.

Adonis

minor

Mythological figure referenced in poetic allusions.

Marlowe

minor

Elizabethan dramatist referenced for his blank verse.

Matthew Arnold

minor

Also known as Arnold

Critic and poet referenced on the function of criticism.

Byron

minor

Also known as Byron Byron

Romantic poet discussed for his satirical verse and style.

Keats

minor

Also known as these three Keats , who died young , cut off in his prime

Romantic poet admired for his sensuous imagery and early death.

Dryden

minor

Restoration poet and critic cited for his prose style.

Dante

minor

Also known as Dante Lord Buckhurst

Italian poet referenced as a master of vernacular epic.

Goethe

minor

Also known as The shrewder Goethe

German writer cited for his views on world literature.

Alexander Pope

minor

Also known as Pope

Augustan poet referenced for his heroic couplets and satire.

Sir Thomas Wyatt

minor

Also known as Wyat

Tudor poet and courtier, early sonneteer in English.

Rossetti

minor

Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter mentioned for style.

Petrarch

minor

Also known as the Earl of Surrey

Italian poet whose sonnets influenced English Renaissance.

Cicero

minor

Roman orator referenced as a model of prose rhythm.

Quintilian

minor

Roman rhetorician cited on education and style.

Herodotus

minor

Greek historian referenced as a narrative stylist.

Pliny

minor

Roman author referenced for his epistolary style.

Tertullian

minor

Early Christian writer noted for his rhetorical force.

Lessing

minor

German critic and dramatist discussed in comparative context.

Flaubert

minor

French novelist cited for his pursuit of le mot juste.

Carducci

minor

Italian poet and critic referenced in literary lineage.

John Jenkins

minor

Minor figure referenced in a literary anecdote.

Mr. Lloyd George

minor

Contemporary politician mentioned in a stylistic example.

Arthur John Butler

minor

Also known as Arthur

Scholar and translator referenced in academic context.

Sir Philip Sidney

minor

Also known as Philip Sidney, Sidney, G. Gascoyn

Elizabethan poet and critic, author of An Apology for Poetry.

Benvenuto Cellini

minor

Italian Renaissance artist and autobiographer mentioned for style.

Barbour

minor

Scottish poet, author of The Bruce, cited in literary history.

Ascham

minor

Tudor scholar and author of The Schoolmaster, referenced for style.

Daniel

minor

Elizabethan poet and historian mentioned in literary context.

Giraud de Borneil

minor

Occitan troubadour mentioned in discussion of lyric poetry.

Sainte-Beuve

minor

French literary critic referenced for his critical method.

Pope Gregory the Great

minor

Also known as St. Gregory, Gregory, Pope

Pope and Doctor of the Church, mentioned in historical context.

William Tyndale

minor

Also known as Tyndale

Biblical translator and Protestant reformer, cited for prose.

Wolfe

minor

General James Wolfe, mentioned in a historical allusion.

Lord Brougham

minor

Also known as Brougham, Lord Chancellor Brougham

British statesman and orator, referenced for rhetorical style.

Mr. Frederick Lamond

minor

Also known as Mr. Lamond, Beethoven Mr. Frederick Lamond, Beethoven

Pianist mentioned in an analogy about performance and style.

Captain Oates

minor

Also known as Oates

Antarctic explorer cited as an example of understatement.

the stranger

minor

Generic figure used in illustrative examples of narrative.

Apollo

minor

Greek god of poetry, invoked in classical references.

Zeus

minor

King of the gods in Greek mythology, mentioned in passing.

Venus

minor

Also known as Alma Venus

Goddess of love, referenced in poetic contexts.

Athene

minor

Greek goddess of wisdom, mentioned in classical allusion.

Minos

minor

Mythological king of Crete, referenced in literary example.

Demonax

minor

Greek philosopher cited in a rhetorical illustration.

Belisarius

minor

Byzantine general mentioned in a historical analogy.

Parmenides

minor

Pre-Socratic philosopher referenced in philosophical context.