Profesionales y Técnicos

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth,England,on 7 February 1812.One of the greatest living writers of the Vietorian Era,as his fume and talent is still recognised and celebrated to this day.A master of social commentary,his work touched every aspect and shade of the world and reality that surrounded him.

His style was complex and poetic,with a strong comedie touch, and his satire about the British Aristocracy was, and still is,very popular. 

His short stories and novels are filled with sorne of the most memorable and original characters in aH of English Literature,transcending their own stories and pages ro beco me primordial in Western culture and tradition.Such is the case of Ebenezer Scrooge and Oliver Twist;characters that became the perfect archetype for greed and humiliry,respectively. 

Many of his works are the perfect historieal document of a time of great change,innovation and social inequaliry,fiHed with hope for a better tomorrow through science and human achievement. 

Great Expectations (1854) is considered one of rhe author\'s greatest and more sophisticated works.The novel narrates the story of Phillip Pirrip,an orphan blacksmith apprentiee whose life aspiration is to become a gentleman and part of the nobility.

Dubliners is a collection of short stories written by Irish author James yoice (1882-1941) and published in 1914.Dubliners was conceived during do very complex time for Ireland and Irish nationalism,when the British Empire and the Catholic Church completely dominated the fate of the country. 

Joyce used these 15 stories to stage a sort of moral chapter of Ireland\'s history as a way of proposing change, by subverting the stagnation of his countrymen.He saw Dublin as the epicentre of the paralysis and chose to set all the stories in that city,even though he had not lived there several years. 

Critics were not so kind to Dubliners upon publication,but time gave anorher opportunity ro this collection of short stories.Especially after the rame and impact that joyce achieved with his magnum opus,Ulysses (1922).

 

Today rhis collection remains an important part of Joyce\'s legacy,a unique erploration of style and form amongst his novels,and an immortal slice of the of Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. 

The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in 1850.The story takes place in the Puritan Boston of the mid 17th century and revolves around a woman named Hester Prynne,who conceived a child out of wedlock and was forced to wear a scarlet letter \'A\' (Adulreress) which condemns her to alife of struggle and humiliation. 

The novel deals with the social and moral themes typical of the time and geographical setting.Puritanism was a way of life in rhose days especially in Massachusettsand many women and men faced trials and punishrnenr for their "sins" and "misconducrs".The story centres on Hester and her daughter and how she deals with her morherhood as a social outcast,but the author rakes every chance he gets to comment on morality,human nature,legality and guilt. 

Tbe Scarlet Letter was received well by critics,with the obligatory outcry from religious leaders for the risqué subject matter of the story, but nevertheless enjoyed a resounding commercial success amongst readers.Ir was one of the first mass-produced books in America,rapidly becoming a symbol of the renaissance of American literature in the 19th century.

 

Nathaniel Hawthorne\'s work has endured the test of time for the human appeal of his stories and the deep psychological complexity of his characters. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray was written by lrish author Osear Wilde (1854-1900).The novel was first published in 1890 in the July issue of Lippincotts Monthly Magazíne, and later in a longer and revised book form in 1891. 

Basil Hallward is an artist looking for inspiration when he meets Dorian Gray,and impressed by his beauty he decides to make me young man the subject of a full portrait.A friendship rapidly blossoms and through Basil,Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton,an hedonistic aristoerat living only for sensual fulfillment.Young Dorian is swayed by mis philosophy and begins to live the life of a libertine in the eonstant seareh for pleasure. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray eaused outrage in British reviewers and readers alike for its alleged immorality and indeeeney,and sparked in Osear Wilde a furious defenee of the ereative proeess and the importanee of freedom in artistic expression.

 

Nevertheless,me book suffered so me eensorship in its first release,bur later was revised and expanded by the author ro fix this issue. 

Pride and Prejudice is the second published novel of English writer Jane Austen (1775-1817).Originally entitled First Impressions,the first draft of the novel was completed between 1796 and 1797,and later revised and expanded between 1811 and 1812.Ir was renamed Pride and Prejudice and published in 1813,by Thomas Egerton. 

 

The novel tells me srory of how the arrival of two rich and eligible achelors,Mr.Bingley and Mr.Darcy,affects the lives of the five married Bennet sisters,especially Jane and Elizabeth,the main roragonists . 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh,Scotland.He went to a private school at 9 years old,thanks to the support of a rich un de after a poor childhood caused by his father\'s alcoholismo He started studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1876 and during that period ofhis life he also began writing fiction.By 1879 he managed to publish sorne of his stories in various literary magazines of the Scottish capital. 

After serving as a doctor for sorne merchant ships in voyages to Greenland and Africa,he studied ophthalmology in Vienna and later established in London,where he opened a private practice.He continued writing specially while waiting for his patients. 

His most famous literary creation,the detective Sherlock Holmes, saw the public light for the first time in 1886 thanks to the novel A Study in Scarlet.From that moment on,Arthur Conan Doyle would write many stories for the fictitious detective and his inseparable partner,Dr.John Watson.The author also explored many other themes,characters and literary styles,but his fame was earned mainly for the thrilling adventures of Holmes and Watson. 

 

He died in 1930,in his East Sussex house,after a long and prolific literary career. 

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) was the pseudonym of English mathematician and writer Charles Lutwidge Dogson.His fragile health and intellectual curiosity led him to develop a shy and withdrawn personality that clashed with the adults around him,although he always felt at ease amongst children. 

His most famous works are Alice in Wonderland (1865) and its continuation,through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871),both filled with magic and fantasy and written especially for kids.The author achieved great commercial success with his noveIs and became one of the most quoted English writers,after Shakespeare. 

In Alice in Wonderland, the world of the adults,the incomprehensible real world,boring and complex for children,quickly makes way for a more interesting and colourfullandscape,full with strange characters and amazing adventures for Alice and her readers.

 

Carroll was a master of literary nonsense,as a way of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning,creating a very thin line between humour and surrealism to emphasize the whimsical nature of his fantasy.Paradoxes and word play are a staple of the author\'s work,captivating children and adults alike and all over the world. 

The work of American writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is vast and varied.His short stories represent the majority of his bibliography and cover every dark theme imaginable,with his characteristic and bombastic sryle.Lovecraft\'s approach to horror was ahead of its time and still resonates with modern readers because it was based in thernes that transcended the human race,in situations that made man insignificant in the cosmic scale of things. 

He was deeply influenced by the gothic horror of Edgar Allan Poe and the mysticism of Arthur Machen,but later expanded on those themes with the perils of superstition and scientific progress,the morbid obsession of forbidden knowledge,the unavoidable fate of death and destruction,and the existence of cosmic deities and monsters that once ruled the Earth,and will eventually rule again after the destruction or enslavement of the human race. 

This mixture of ingredients and the language he used to express his ideas rnade Lovecraft\'s style a success among lovers of the macabre and me mysterious. 

The Metamorphosis is arguably Franz Kafka\'s most recognized literary work. Published in Germany in 1915 as Die Verwandlung,this dark short novel or novella,has made its way as one of the most important works of literary fiction of the 20th Century. 

Gregor Samsa,a traveling salesman living with his family in Prague-part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time,wakes up one day to find himself transformed, without rhyme or reason,into an indescribable creature.Understandably,Gregor Samsa\'s life changes abruptly and dramatically and the novel focuses in how this change affects the mind of the protagonist and the ones around him. 

This situation is very taxing on Gregor and his family,but is handled by the author and the characters very naturally,very stoically,as if there\'s nothing to do about it but to move on and make the best of it.This way of handling life and the impossible situations it brings is very particular of Kafka and his narrative.

 

He often explored the mundanity through tragedy and insurmountable odds-many times to the point of absurdity as a way of exposing human nature and commenting on society and the surrounding world.