Главная / Рефераты / Рефераты и топики по иностранным языкам

Реферат: J. B. Priestley

Notice: Undefined variable: ref_img in /home/area7ru/area7.ru/docs/referat.php on line 323

J. B. Priestley

Career

Priestley was born in what he described as an "ultra-respectable" suburb of Bradford. His father was a teacher and his mother died young. On leaving grammar school Priestley worked in the wool trade of his native city, but had ambitions to become a writer. He was to draw on memories of Bradford in many of the works he wrote after he had moved south. As an old man he deplored the destruction by developers of Victorian buildings such as the Swan Arcade in Bradford where he had his first job.
Priestley served during the First World War in the 10th battalion, the Duke of Wellingtons Regiment. He was wounded in 1916 by mortar fire. After his military service Priestley received a university education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. By the age of 30 he had established a reputation as a humorous writer and critic. His 1927 novel Benighted was adapted into the James Whale film The Old Dark House in 1932. His first major success came with a novel, The Good Companions (1929) which earned him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and made him a national figure. His next novel Angel Pavement (1930) further established him as a successful novelist. However, some critics were less than complimentary about his work, and Priestley began legal action against Graham Greene for what he took to be a defamatory portrait in Stamboul Train.
He moved into a new genre and became as well known as a dramatist. Dangerous Corner began a run of plays that enthralled West End theatre audiences. His best-known play is An Inspector Calls (1946), later made into a film starring Alastair Sim in 1954. His plays are more varied in tone than the novels, several being influenced by J.W. Dunnes theory of time, which plays a part in the plots of Dangerous Corner (1932) and Time and the Conways (1937).
Many of his works have a political aspect. For example, An Inspector Calls, as well as being a "Time Play", contains many references to socialism — the inspector was arguably an alter ego through which Priestley could express his views [1]. During World War II he was a regular broadcaster on the BBC. The Sunday night Postscript broadcasts through 1940 and again in 1941 drew audiences of up to 16 million; only Churchill was more popular with listeners. But his talks were cancelled, apparently a...

ВНИМАНИЕ!
Текст просматриваемого вами реферата (доклада, курсовой) урезан на треть (33%)!

Чтобы просматривать этот и другие рефераты полностью, авторизуйтесь на сайте:

Простая ссылка на эту работу:

Ссылка для размещения на форуме:

HTML-гиперссылка:

Добавлено: 2010.10.21
Просмотров: 1523

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/area7ru/area7.ru/docs/linkmanager/links.php on line 21

При использовании материалов сайта, активная ссылка на AREA7.RU обязательная!