William Langland

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  Guillaume de Lorris

  Guillaume de Lorris (fl. 1230) was a French scholar and poet, and was the author of the first section of the Romance of the Rose. Little is known about him, other than that he wrote the earlier section of the poem around 1230, and that the work was completed forty years later by Jean de Meun.
  
  From Wikipedia

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  Margery Kempe

  The following biography information provides basic facts and information about the life and history of Margery Kempe, a famous Medieval character:
  
  Nationality: English
  
  Lifespan: c1373 - c1438
  
  Time Reference: Lived during the reign of the English kings Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV
  
  Date of Birth: She was born Margery Brunham at King's Lynn, Norfolk (then called Bishop's Lynn) in approximately 1373
  
  Family connections : She was the daughter of John Brunham, a wealthy merchant in King's Lynn who was involved in local politics and achieved the position of mayor and Member of Parliament
  
  Education: Margery Kempe was unable to read or write but had people read to her. She dictated her memoirs which were transcribed as 'The Book of Margery Kempe'
  
  Ma

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  Augustine of Hippo

  Early church father and philosopher Saint Augustine served from 396 as the bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria and through such writings as the autobiographical Confessions in 397 and the voluminous City of God from 413 to 426 profoundly influenced Christianity, argued against Manichaeism and Donatism, and helped to establish the doctrine of original sin.
  
  An Augustinian follows the principles and doctrines of Saint Augustine.
  
  People also know Aurelius Augustinus in English of Regius (Annaba). From the Africa province of the Roman Empire, people generally consider this Latin theologian of the greatest thinkers of all times. He very developed the west. According to Jerome, a contemporary, Augustine renewed "the ancient Faith."
  
  The

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  Boethius

  Roman mathematician Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, imprisoned on charges of treason, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy , his greatest work, an investigation of destiny and free will, while awaiting his execution.
  
  His ancient and prominent noble family of Anicia included many consuls and Petronius Maximus and Olybrius, emperors. After Odoacer deposed the last western emperor, Flavius Manlius Boethius, his father, served as consul in 487.
  
  Boethius entered public life at a young age and served already as a senator before the age of 25 years in 504. Boethius served as consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths.
  
  In 522, Boethius saw his two sons serve as consuls. Theodoric the Great, king, suspected Boethius of conspiring with the

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  Pierre Abélard

  Nominalist application of French theologian, philosopher, and composer Peter Abelard or Pierre Abélard of the principles of ancient Greek logic to the doctrines of the medieval Catholic Church led to charges of heresy; after his pupil Héloise, his pupil and the object of his lust affair, bore him a child, he secretly married her, whose angered family castrated him, after which he served as a monk.
  
  Saint Bernard of Clairvaux instrumentally condemned him.
  
  
  The equally famous preeminent and perhaps the greatest of the Middle Ages during his life as a poet perhaps also ranked of his day, his ideas earned more converts and less condemnation. In all areas, brilliant, innovative, and controversial Abélard, a genius, knew and made no apologies. His

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  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.
  
  She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mi

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  John Mandeville

  "Jehan de Mandeville", translated as "Sir John Mandeville", is the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of supposed travels, written in Anglo-Norman French, and published between 1357 and 1371.
  
  By aid of translations into many other languages it acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference — Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier Il Milione (Adams 53).

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  Julian of Norwich

  Julian of Norwich was the most important English mystic of the 14th century. Her spirituality is strongly Trinitarian and basically Neoplatonic.
  
  In her Revelations of Divine Love Julian relates that in May 1373, when she was 30 years old, she suffered a serious illness. After she had been administered extreme unction, she received 16 revelations within the span of a few hours. When she wrote her Revelations, she was a recluse at Norwich, supported by the Benedictine convent of Carrow. Anchorite seclusion was a rather common form of life in 14th-century England among Christians with high spiritual aspirations. A woman of little formal education - she calls herself "unlettered" - Julian writes in a beautifully simple style and shows a solid gr

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  Thomas à Kempis

  Thomas Hammerken (or Hammerlein -- both mean "little hammer") / Thomas de Kempis / Thomas Hamerken von Kempen was born at Kempen (hence the "A Kempis") in the duchy of Cleves in Germany around 1380. He was educated by a religious order called the Brethren of the Common Life, and in due course joined the order, was ordained a priest, became sub-prior of his house (in the low Countries), and died 25 July 1471 (his feast is observed a day early to avoid conflict with that of James bar-Zebedee the Apostle).
  
  Thomas is known almost entirely for composing or compiling a manual of spiritual advice known as The Imitation of Christ, in which he urges the reader to seek to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to be conformed in all things to His will

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  Marie de France

  Marie de France ("Mary of France", around 1135-1200) was a poet evidently born in France and living in England during the late 12th century. Virtually nothing is known of her early life, though she wrote a form of continental French[citation needed:] that was copied by Anglo-Norman scribes. Therefore, most of the manuscripts of her work bear Anglo-Norman traits. She also translated some Latin literature and produced an influential version of Aesop's Fables.

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  Jon Fosse

  Jon Olav Fosse was born in Haugesund, Norway and currently lives in Bergen. He debuted in 1983 with the novel Raudt, svart (Red, black). His first play, Og aldri skal vi skiljast, was performed and published in 1994. Jon Fosse has written novels, short stories, poetry, children's books, essays and plays. His works have been translated into more than forty languages. He is widely considered as one of the world's greatest contemporary playwrights. Fosse was made a chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007. Fosse also has been ranked number 83 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph.
  
  He was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayabl

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• 

  Margery Kempe

  The following biography information provides basic facts and information about the life and history of Margery Kempe, a famous Medieval character:
  
  Nationality: English
  
  Lifespan: c1373 - c1438
  
  Time Reference: Lived during the reign of the English kings Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV
  
  Date of Birth: She was born Margery Brunham at King's Lynn, Norfolk (then called Bishop's Lynn) in approximately 1373
  
  Family connections : She was the daughter of John Brunham, a wealthy merchant in King's Lynn who was involved in local politics and achieved the position of mayor and Member of Parliament
  
  Education: Margery Kempe was unable to read or write but had people read to her. She dictated her memoirs which were transcribed as 'The Book of Margery Kempe'
  
  Ma

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  Thomas Malory

  From French sources, Sir Thomas Malory, English writer in floruit in 1470, adapted Le Morte d'Arthur , a collection of romances, which William Caxton published in 1485.
  
  From original tales such as the Vulgate Cycle , Sir Thomas Malory, an imprisoned knight in the fifteenth century, meanwhile compiled and translated the tales, which we know as the legend of king.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...
  

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  Christine de Pizan

  Christine de Pizan (also seen as de Pisan) (1363–c.1434) was a writer and analyst of the medieval era who strongly challenged misogyny and stereotypes that were prevalent in the male-dominated realm of the arts. De Pizan completed forty-one pieces during her thirty-year career (1399–1429). She earned her accolade as Europe’s first professional woman writer (Redfern 74). Her success stems from a wide range of innovative writing and rhetorical techniques that critically challenged renowned male writers such as Jean de Meun who, to Pizan’s dismay, incorporated misogynist beliefs within their literary works.
  
  In recent decades, de Pizan's work has been returned to prominence by the efforts of scholars such as Charity Cannon Willard and Earl Jeffr

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  William Blake

  William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake's work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.
  
  Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the language". His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he only once travelled any further than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself".
  
  Once considered mad for his i

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  Evelyn Waugh

  Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”
  
  In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an appren

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  Edmund Spenser

  Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 - 1599) was an important English poet and Poet Laureate best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
  
  Though he is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, Spenser is also a controversial figure due to his zeal for the destruction of Irish culture and colonisation of Ireland.
  

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  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
  Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial i

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  Jane Austen

  Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her deft use of social commentary, realism and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.
  
  The anonymously published Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), were a modest success but br

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  William Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
  Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, W

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  Pythagoras

  Pythagoras, one of the most famous and controversial ancient Greek philosophers, lived from ca. 570 to ca. 490 BCE. He spent his early years on the island of Samos, off the coast of modern Turkey. At the age of forty, however, he emigrated to the city of Croton in southern Italy and most of his philosophical activity occurred there. Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts of his thought written by contemporaries. By the first centuries BCE, moreover, it became fashionable to present Pythagoras in a largely unhistorical fashion as a semi-divine figure, who originated all that was true in the Greek philosophical tradition, including many of Plato's and Aristotle's mature ideas. A number of treatises were forged in the n

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  Hannah More

  Hannah More was an English religious writer and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a clever verse-writer and witty talker in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects on the Puritanic side, and as a practical philanthropist.

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  Joseph R. Strayer

  Joseph Reese Strayer taught at Princeton University for many decades, starting in the 1930s. He was chair of the history department (1941–1961) and president of the American Historical Association in 1971. Strayer has been credited with training a large percentage of the American medievalists profession; many of his students are still teaching and active. Notable students include Teofilo Ruiz, William Chester Jordan, and Richard W. Kaeuper. Norman F. Cantor often highlighted his status as a student of Strayer's, but several of Strayer's other pupils - who wish to remain anonymous for personal and professional reasons - have expressed their doubt that Strayer ever acknowledged Cantor as his student or that Cantor had any formal affiliation w

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