# On the Art of Writing — Character guide

> Key figures in On the Art of Writing by Arthur Quiller-Couch.

- [Unknown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): 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 th
- [Shakespeare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/shakespeare.md): 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 admire
- [Homer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/homer.md): 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 i
- [Milton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/milton.md): 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: S
- [Samuel Johnson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/johnson.md): 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 w
- [Chaucer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/chaucer.md): 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 
- [Professor Saintsbury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/professor_saintsbury.md): Contemporary literary critic referenced in the lectures.
- [Wordsworth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/wordsworth.md): 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 w
- [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/plato.md): Greek philosopher invoked in discussions of rhetoric and style.
- [Virgil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/virgil.md): Roman poet used as an example of epic verse craftsmanship.
- [Ben Jonson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/ben_jonson.md): Elizabethan playwright and poet cited for his critical views.
- [Cardinal Newman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/cardinal_newman.md): Victorian prose stylist discussed for his clarity and rhythm.
- [Gray](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/gray.md): Poet mentioned in relation to poetic diction and elegy.
- [Browning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/browning.md): Victorian poet cited for dramatic monologue and style.
- [Aristotle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/aristotle.md): Greek philosopher whose Poetics informs discussions of drama.
- [Coleridge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/coleridge.md): Romantic poet and critic quoted on imagination and language.
- [Edmund Spenser](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/spenser.md): Elizabethan poet discussed for his allegorical epic The Faerie Queene.
- [Tennyson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/tennyson.md): Victorian poet laureate mentioned for his lyrical verse.
- [Sappho](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/sappho.md): Ancient Greek lyric poet cited for her emotional intensity.
- [Bede](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/bede.md): Anglo-Saxon historian referenced in literary lineage.
- [Malory](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/malory.md): Author of Le Morte d'Arthur discussed as a prose stylist.
- [Sir Joshua Reynolds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/sir_joshua_reynolds.md): Painter and writer on art, quoted on general principles.
- [Professor Freeman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/freeman.md): Historian referenced in discussions of historical style.
- [Carlyle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/carlyle.md): Victorian essayist and historian cited for his prose energy.
- [Izaak Walton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/isaak_walton.md): Angler and biographer, praised for his simple prose.
- [Sir Thomas Browne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/sir_thomas_browne.md): 17th-century physician and writer on style and meditation.
- [Bacon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/bacon.md): Elizabethan philosopher and essayist cited for aphoristic style.
- [Lucian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/lucian.md): Greek satirist mentioned for his dialogue form.
- [Aristophanes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/aristophanes.md): Greek comic playwright cited for his verbal wit.
- [Gabriel Harvey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/gabriel_harvey.md): Elizabethan scholar and friend of Spenser, mentioned in context.
- [Dr. Courthope](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/dr_courthope.md): Literary historian cited in lectures on English literature.
- [Beowulf](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/beowulf.md): Old English epic poem discussed as a foundational text.
- [Alcuin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/alcuin.md): Anglo-Saxon scholar and advisor to Charlemagne, mentioned in lineage.
- [Abelard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/abelard.md): Medieval philosopher and theologian cited in passing.
- [Duchess](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/duchess.md): Title character in a literary example or anecdote.
- [Adonis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters/adonis.md): Mythological figure referenced in poetic allusions.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/on_the_art_of_writing_se/characters