British Culture - User contributions [en]

John Osborne

2012-06-15T17:50:09Z

Kordzl:

(1929-1994) was a British playwright. He started as actor and founded his reputation as one of the innovators of British theatre and drama with ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956). His plays typically feature strong, idiosyncratic and nonconformist protagonists, who struggle against a repressive social system and conventions.

Osborne was born in the London suburb of Fulham into a lower working-class family. Until he was expelled at the age of 16 he attend a minor public school in Barnstaple, Devon. For several month Osborne worked as a journalist before joining a local theatre as an amateur actor. He started to take lessons at a London drama school and was recommended by its director to a minor theater company in 1947. He stayed with the company until 1955, when his first play ''Look Back in Anger'' was accepted by the newly established English Stage Company.

The play premiered on 8 March 1956 in The Royal Court Theater and was praised by ''The Obsever'' as “the best young play of its decade” (cited in Molino). It transformed British theater and its protagonist Jimmy Porter become the very symbol of the dissatisfied generation of young authors and playwrights, termed the 'Angry Young Men'. Like many others counting themselves to this 'movement', Osborne was influenced by socialist ideas and an anti-Establishment spirit. His plays betray the deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and his disillusion with the post-war welfare state.

Osborne's following plays written in the late 1950s and 60s, ''The Entertainer'' (1957),starring [[Laurence Olivier]] in the title role, ''Luther'' (1961), ''Inadmissible Evidence'' (1965), and ''A Patriot for Me'' (1965) were also largely successful and controversial. Set against the backdrop of the Suez-crisis, ''The Entertainer'', was the first play to question the monarchy on one of England's major stages. ''A Patriot for Me'', a play about the Austro-Hungarian officer Redl openly addresses male homosexuality and sparked off a debate on theater censorship leading to its eventual abolition in 1968.

In the decades following Osborne authored several more plays the more prominent being ''A Sense of Detachment'' (1972), ''The Hotel in Amsterdam'' (1968) and ''West of Suez'' (1971), ''Watch it Come Down'' (1975) and ''Déjàvu'' (1992), as well as the screen plays for ''Look Back in Anger'' and ''The Entertainer''. He also tried himself as screen writer, although many of his scripts, apart from ''Tom Jones'' (1962), for which he won the Oscar, could not live up to earlier successes.

Until his death in 1994, Osborne had written 25 full-length plays, two autobiographies and countless essays and screenplays.

'''Works Cited'''

Molino, Michael R. "Osborne, John". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature''. Ed. David Scott Kastan. 2005. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxford-britishliterature.com/entry?entry=t198.e0357>

Klotz, Günther. ''Britische Dramatiker der Gegenwart'' . Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1982.

Ratcliffe, Michael. “Osborne, John James (1929–1994)”.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55236>

John Osborne

2012-06-15T17:49:17Z

Kordzl:

(1929-1994) was a British playwright. He started as actor and founded his reputation as one of the innovators of British theatre and drama with ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956). His plays typically feature strong, idiosyncratic and nonconformist protagonists, who struggle against a repressive social system and conventions.

Osborne was born in the London suburb of Fulham into a lower working-class family. Until he was expelled at the age of 16 he attend a minor public school in Barnstaple, Devon. For several month Osborne worked as a journalist before joining a local theatre as an amateur actor. He started to take lessons at a London drama school and was recommended by its director to a minor theater company in 1947. He stayed with the company until 1955, when his first play ''Look Back in Anger'' was accepted by the newly established English Stage Company.

The play premiered on 8 March 1956 in The Royal Court Theater and was praised by ''The Obsever'' as “the best young play of its decade” (cited in Molino). It transformed British theater and its protagonist Jimmy Porter become the very symbol of the dissatisfied generation of young authors and playwrights, termed the 'Angry Young Men'. Like many others counting themselves to this 'movement' Osborne was influenced by socialist ideas and an anti-Establishment spirit. His plays betray the deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and his disillusion with the post-war welfare state.

Osborne's following plays written in the late 1950s and 60s, ''The Entertainer'' (1957),starring [[Laurence Olivier]] in the title role, ''Luther'' (1961), ''Inadmissible Evidence'' (1965), and ''A Patriot for Me'' (1965) were also largely successful and controversial. Set against the backdrop of the Suez-crisis, ''The Entertainer'', was the first play to question the monarchy on one of England's major stages. ''A Patriot for Me'', a play about the Austro-Hungarian officer Redl openly addresses male homosexuality and sparked off a debate on theater censorship leading to its eventual abolition in 1968.

In the decades following Osborne authored several more plays the more prominent being ''A Sense of Detachment'' (1972), ''The Hotel in Amsterdam'' (1968) and ''West of Suez'' (1971), ''Watch it Come Down'' (1975) and ''Déjàvu'' (1992), as well as the screen plays for ''Look Back in Anger'' and ''The Entertainer''. He also tried himself as screen writer, although many of his scripts, apart from ''Tom Jones'' (1962), for which he won the Oscar, could not live up to earlier successes.

Until his death in 1994, Osborne had written 25 full-length plays, two autobiographies and countless essays and screenplays.

'''Works Cited'''

Molino, Michael R. "Osborne, John". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature''. Ed. David Scott Kastan. 2005. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxford-britishliterature.com/entry?entry=t198.e0357>

Klotz, Günther. ''Britische Dramatiker der Gegenwart'' . Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1982.

Ratcliffe, Michael. “Osborne, John James (1929–1994)”.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55236>

John Osborne

2012-06-15T17:48:48Z

Kordzl:

(1929-1994) was a British playwright. He started as actor and founded his reputation as one of the innovators of British theatre and drama with ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956). His plays typically feature strong, idiosyncratic and nonconformist protagonists, who struggle against a repressive social system and conventions.

Osborne was born in the London suburb of Fulham into a lower working-class family. Until he was expelled at the age of 16 he attend a minor public school in Barnstaple, Devon. For several month Osborne worked as a journalist before joining a local theatre as an amateur actor. He started to take lessons at a London drama school and was recommended by its director to a minor theater company in 1947. He stayed with the company until 1955, when his first play ''Look Back in Anger'' was accepted by the newly established English Stage Company.

The play premiered on 8 March 1956 in The Royal Court Theater and was praised by ''The Obsever'' as “the best young play of its decade” (cited in Molino). It transformed British theater and its protagonist Jimmy Porter become the very symbol of the dissatisfied generation of young authors and playwrights, termed the 'Angry Young Men'. Like many others counting themselves to this 'movement' Osborne was influenced by socialist ideas and an anti-Establishment spirit. His plays betray the deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and his disillusion with the post-war welfare state.

Osborne's following plays written in the late 1950s and 60s, ''The Entertainer'' (1957),starring [[Laurence Olivier]] in the title role, ''Luther'' (1961), ''Inadmissible Evidence'' (1965), and ''A Patriot for Me'' (1965) were also largely successful and controversial. Set against the backdrop of the Suez-crisis, ''The Entertainer'', was the first play to question the monarchy on one of England's major stages. ''A Patriot for Me'', a play about the Austro-Hungarian officer Redl openly addresses male homosexuality and sparked off a debate on theater censorship leading to its eventual abolition in 1968.

In the decades following Osborne authored several more plays the more prominent being ''A Sense of Detachment'' (1972), ''The Hotel in Amsterdam'' (1968) and ''West of Suez'' (1971), ''Watch it Come Down'' (1975) and ''Déjàvu'' (1992), as well as the screen plays for ''Look Back in Anger'' and ''The Entertainer''. He also tried himself as screen writer, although many of his scripts, apart from ''Tom Jones'' (1962), for which he won the Oscar, could not live up to earlier successes.

Until he death in 1994, Osborne had written 25 full-length plays, two autobiographies and countless essays and screenplays.

'''Works Cited'''

Molino, Michael R. "Osborne, John". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature''. Ed. David Scott Kastan. 2005. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxford-britishliterature.com/entry?entry=t198.e0357>

Klotz, Günther. ''Britische Dramatiker der Gegenwart'' . Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1982.

Ratcliffe, Michael. “Osborne, John James (1929–1994)”.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55236>

John Osborne

2012-06-15T17:44:56Z

Kordzl:

(1929-1994) was a British playwright. He started as actor and founded his reputation as one of the innovators of British theatre and drama with ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956). His plays typically feature strong, idiosyncratic and nonconformist protagonists, who struggle against a repressive social system and conventions.

Osborne was born in the London suburb of Fulham into a lower working-class family. Until he was expelled at the age of 16 he attend a minor public school in Barnstaple, Devon. For several month Osborne worked as a journalist before joining a local theatre as an amateur actor. He started to take lessons at a London drama school and was recommended by its director to a minor theater company in 1947. He stayed with the company until 1955, when his first play ''Look Back in Anger'' was accepted by the newly established English Stage Company.

The play premiered on 8 March 1956 in The Royal Court Theater and was praised by The Obsever as “the best young play of its decade” (cited in Molino). It transformed British theater and its protagonist Jimmy Porter become the very symbol of the dissatisfied generation of young male authors and playwrights, termed the 'Angry Young Men'. Like many others counting themselves to this 'movement' Osborne was influenced by socialist ideas and an anti-Establishment spirit. His plays betray the deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and his disillusion with the post-war welfare state.

Osborne's following plays written in the late 1950s and 60s, ''The Entertainer'' (1957),starring [[Laurence Olivier]] in the title role, ''Luther'' (1961), ''Inadmissible Evidence'' (1965), and ''A Patriot for Me'' (1965) were also largely successful and controversial. Set against the backdrop of the Suez-crisis, ''The Entertainer'', was the first play to question the monarchy on one of England's major stages. ''A Patriot for Me'', a play about the Austro-Hungarian officer Redl openly addresses male homosexuality and sparked off a debate on theater censorship leading to its eventual abolition in 1968.

In the decades following Osborne authored several more plays the more prominent being ''A Sense of Detachment'' (1972), ''The Hotel in Amsterdam'' (1968) and ''West of Suez'' (1971), ''Watch it Come Down'' (1975) and ''Déjàvu'' (1992), as well as the screen plays for ''Look Back in Anger'' and ''The Entertainer''. He also tried himself as screen writer, although many of his scripts, apart from ''Tom Jones'' (1962), for which he won the Oscar, could not live up to earlier successes.

Until he death in 1994, Osborne had written 25 full-length plays, two autobiographies and countless essays and screenplays.

'''Works Cited'''

Molino, Michael R. "Osborne, John". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature''. Ed. David Scott Kastan. 2005. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxford-britishliterature.com/entry?entry=t198.e0357>

Klotz, Günther. ''Britische Dramatiker der Gegenwart'' . Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1982.

Ratcliffe, Michael. “Osborne, John James (1929–1994)”.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55236>

John Osborne

2012-06-15T17:42:30Z

Kordzl:

(1929-1994) was a British playwright. He started as actor and founded his reputation as one of the innovators of British theatre and drama with ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956). His plays typically feature strong, idiosyncratic and nonconformist protagonists, who struggle against a repressive social system and conventions.

Osborne was born in the London suburb of Fulham into a lower working-class family. Until he was expelled at the age of 16 he attend a minor public school in Barnstaple, Devon. For several month Osborne worked as a journalist before joining a local theatre as an amateur actor. He started to take lessons at a London drama school and was recommended by its director to a minor theater company about to tour England in 1947. He stayed with the company until 1955, when his first play ''Look Back in Anger'' was accepted by the newly established English Stage Company.

The play premiered on 8 March 1956 in The Royal Court Theater and was praised by The Obsever as “the best young play of its decade” (cited in Molino). It transformed British theater and its protagonist Jimmy Porter become the very symbol of the dissatisfied generation of young male authors and playwrights, termed the 'Angry Young Men'. Like many others counting themselves to this 'movement' Osborne was influenced by socialist ideas and an anti-Establishment spirit. His plays betray the deep dissatisfaction with the status quo and his disillusion with the post-war welfare state.

Osborne's following plays written in the late 1950s and 60s, ''The Entertainer'' (1957),starring [[Laurence Olivier]] in the title role, ''Luther'' (1961), ''Inadmissible Evidence'' (1965), and ''A Patriot for Me'' (1965) were also largely successful and controversial. Set against the backdrop of the Suez-crisis, ''The Entertainer'', was the first play to question the monarchy on one of England's major stages. ''A Patriot for Me'', a play about the Austro-Hungarian officer Redl openly addresses male homosexuality and sparked off a debate on theater censorship leading to its eventual abolition in 1968.

In the decades following Osborne authored several more plays the more prominent being ''A Sense of Detachment'' (1972), ''The Hotel in Amsterdam'' (1968) and ''West of Suez'' (1971), ''Watch it Come Down'' (1975) and ''Déjàvu'' (1992), as well as the screen plays for ''Look Back in Anger'' and ''The Entertainer''. He also tried himself as screen writer, although many of his scripts, apart from ''Tom Jones'' (1962), for which he won the Oscar, could not live up to earlier successes.

Until he death in 1994, Osborne had written 25 full-length plays, two autobiographies and countless essays and screenplays.

'''Works Cited'''

Molino, Michael R. "Osborne, John". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature''. Ed. David Scott Kastan. 2005. Oxford University Press. 12 June 2012 <http://www.oxford-britishliterature.com/entry?entry=t198.e0357>

Klotz, Günther. ''Britische Dramatiker der Gegenwart'' . Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1982.

Ratcliffe, Michael. “Osborne, John James (1929–1994)”.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Oxford University Press <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55236, accessed 12 June 2012>

Dorothy Richardson

2011-12-05T21:23:26Z

Kordzl:

17 May 1873 - 17 June 1957. British journalist and author. Full name Dorothy Miller Richardson.

'''Biography'''

Dorothy Miller Richardson was born on the 17th of May 1873 in Abindgon, Bershire. There she also spend her early childhood until her family moved to London. Due to her father's financial problems, she had to leave school and took on a position as governess in Hanover in 1890/91. After six month she returned to England taking up several other governessing jobs and nursing her mentally ill mother until after her death in 1896, Richardson moved to Bloomsbury, London, working as a receptionist.
After having lived several years in the capital, where she came in contact with various radical political groups such as the anarchists, as well as writers as H.G. Wells, she moved to the countryside in 1908. She stayed on a Quaker farm in Sussex for three years until eventually moving to Cornwall in 1912. Having already published some articles and sketches, Richardson, in the same year, began working on ''Pointed Roof'', the first part of her ''Pilgrimage'' series, which would become her life's work.
In 1917 she married the artist Alan Odle and they lived in London and Cornwall, supported by her work as translator and journalist, until Odle's death in 1948. Richardson continued writing until 1954 and died three years later in a nursing home.'' March Moonlight'', the last novel in her oeuvre was never finished and published posthumously in 1967.

'''Writing'''

Her main work, ''Pilgrimage'', consisting of 13 novels published between 1915 and 1967, traces the experiences of the autobiographically-based female protagonist Miriam Henderson between the 1890s and the first World War. The series is an exploration of contemporary themes such as the struggle for female identity in a rapidly changing world, the experience of metropolitan and urban space and the effect of modernity on female life in general. Her literary significance is also due to the narrative style in ''Pilgrimage'', which first introduced the “stream of consciousness” technique to the English novel.
Apart from ''Pilgrimage'' and her journalistic activity, Richardson also published two non-fictional works as well as several reviews, short stories and a few poems.

Dettmar, Kevin J. “Dorothy Richardson”. ''Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature'' Vol. 3. ed. David S. Kastan. Oxford: UP, 2005, 361-364.

Fromm, Gloria G. ''Dorothy Richardson. A Biography.'' Urbana et. al.: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

Rosenberg, John. ''Dorothy Richardson. The Genius They Forgot. A Critical Biography.'' London: Gerald Duckworth, 1973.

Watts, Carol. ''Dorothy Richardson.'' Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers, 1995.

Dorothy Richardson

2011-12-03T16:05:12Z

Kordzl: Created page with 'Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 - 17 June 1957), British journalist and author.'

Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 - 17 June 1957), British journalist and author.