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Cargando... A Companion to the Characters in the Fiction and Drama of W. Somerset Maugham:por samuel rogal
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The characters in the fiction and drama of W. Somerset Maugham accurately reflect English society from the end of the Victorian age through the early years of World War II. Maugham based his characters on real people whom he observed and analyzed, and his characters transcend the themes and settings of his fictional worlds. This volume lists and descibes each and every character mentioned in Maugham's fiction and drama, including living, dead, human, animal, imaginary, historical, named, and unnamed inhabitants of his works.Through his voluminous writings, W. Somerset Maugham recreated the age in which he lived. The characters in his fiction and drama accurately reflect English society from the end of the Victorian era through the early years of World War II. There exists little doubt that the strength of Maugham's works stems from his rich characterizations. When he peopled his imaginary worlds, he based his characters on real persons whom he observed and analyzed, both from a respectable distance and a not always respectable intimacy; then he recast them upon the page and the stage.This reference sets down in alphabetical order each character included in Maugham's stories, novels, and plays. Included are imaginary, historical, human, animal, named, unnamed, living, and dead characters from all of his works. Each entry indicates the work in which the character appears and provides a description of the character in relation to the work as a whole. As far as possible, the descriptions capture the substance and tone of Maugham's own words. An introductory essay discusses the importance of Maugham's characters to his literary art, while a bibliography lists editions consulted and secondary sources of additional information. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)823.912Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (2.5)
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All the individuals and personalities readers have come to know through Maugham's fiction are here: Cronshaw ('Of Human Bondage'), Leslie Crosby ('The Letter,' with separate listings for the story and the play), Sadie Thompson ('Rain'), Charles Strickland ('The Moon and Sixpence'), the evil Oliver Haddo ('The Magician'), and the unforgettable Elliott Templeton ('The Razor's Edge'). Major characters get up to a half - page of description, while others may get no more than a sentence or phrase. Countless entries are given over to minor characters, including those without names or identities. Thus, we have 2 pages of listings for "Maid" and "Maiden", 3 pages of "Lady", 4 of "Narrator" and 9 pages of "Man". I thought I had found one odd omission -- I couldn't locate the famous "Liza" (of 'Liza of Lambeth') -- until I realized that she was listed under her last name ("Kemp, Liza").
While all of the novels and short stories are included, the travel books and other non-fiction are not. At the back of the book is a listing of editions and secondary sources consulted. This is followed by a list of titles of the novels and short stories with references to the pages on which their various characters are listed. Thus, "Ashenden" refers the reader to > 100 pages, and "Mrs Craddock" to > 140 pages -- numbers that may seem surprising unless one recalls that each character warrants a separate listing, even those without names. For the reader to have to refer to that many pages makes it difficult to locate all the characters in a given novel; an alternative would have been to give each character listed a number (1, 2, etc.) to make them easier to locate via the index.
An enormous amount of work went into this encyclopedia, but it is hard to imagine it being of much use to any but the most earnest of Maugham-a-philes and scholars. I gained a few minutes of enjoyment revisiting some of my favorites, but expect this book will sit on my "Maugham" shelves as a seldom- consulted reference. It represents a companion volume to Samuel Rogal's A William Somerset Maugham Encyclopedia, arguably a more useful work. (