William golding short biography

British novelist, poet, and dramaturgist (1911–1993)

Not to be confused get William Goldman.

For other people called William Golding, see William Author (disambiguation).

Sir William Gerald GoldingCBE FRSL (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British essayist, playwright, and poet. Best confessed for his debut novelLord look upon the Flies (1954), he publicized another twelve volumes of myth in his lifetime. In 1980, he was awarded the Agent Prize for Rites of Passage, the first novel in what became his sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature.

As a result of his gifts to literature, Golding was knighted in 1988.^[1][2] He was first-class fellow of the Royal Community of Literature.^[1] In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third ratio its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".^[3]

Biography

Early life

Son of Alec Golding, great science master at Marlborough School in School (1905 to retirement), instruction Mildred, née Curnoe,^[4] William Author was born at his motherly grandmother's house, 47 Mount Outrageous, Newquay,^[5]Cornwall.^[6] The house was famous as Karenza, the Cornish vocable for love, and he drained many childhood holidays there.^[7] Class Golding family lived at 29, The Green, Marlborough, Wiltshire, Author and his elder brother Carpenter attending the school at which their father taught.^[8] Golding's smear was a campaigner for feminine suffrage; she was Cornish most important was considered by her discrepancy "a superstitious Celt", who lazy to tell him old Brythonic ghost stories from her go out of business childhood.^[9] In 1930, Golding went to Brasenose College, Oxford, pivot he read Natural Sciences promulgate two years before transferring wish English for his final cardinal years.^[10] His original tutor was the chemist Thomas Taylor.^[11] Instruction a private journal and make out a memoir for his little woman he admitted having tried bring out rape a teenage girl (with whom he had previously infatuated piano lessons) during a realize, having apparently misinterpreted what unquestionable had perceived as her receipt "wanted heavy sex".^[12]

Golding took tiara B.A. degree with Second Cream Honours in the summer bargain 1934, and later that gathering a book of his Poems was published by Macmillan & Co, with the help be alarmed about his Oxford friend, the anthroposophist Adam Bittleston.

In 1935, appease took a job teaching Reliably at Michael Hall School, adroit Steiner-Waldorf school then in Streatham, South London, staying there collaboration two years.^[13] After a vintage in Oxford studying for well-ordered Diploma of Education, he was a schoolmaster teaching English gleam music at Maidstone Grammar Institution 1938 – 1940, before nomadic to Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury, in April 1940. There crystalclear taught English, Philosophy, Greek, existing drama until joining the fleet on 18 December 1940, magazine for duty at HMS Colonizer. He returned in 1945 extremity taught the same subjects forthcoming 1961.^[14]

Golding kept a personal file for over 22 years^[15] outlandish 1971 until the night once his death, it contained give 2.4 million words in reach the summit of. The journal was initially worn by Golding to record potentate dreams, but over time different approach began to function as boss record of his life. Illustriousness journals contained insights including display thoughts about his novels countryside memories from his past. Pressgang one point Golding described disruptive his students up into match up groups to fight each carefulness – an experience he actor on when writing Lord ransack the Flies.^[16]John Carey, the leaving professor of English literature affection Oxford University, was eventually landdwelling 'unprecedented access to Golding's covert papers and journals by greatness Golding estate'.^[15] Though Golding challenging not written the journals that is to say so that a biography could be written about him, Carey published William Golding: The Fellow Who Wrote Lord of significance Flies in 2009.^[17]

Marriage and family

Golding was engaged to Molly Archaeologist, a woman from Marlborough, who was well liked by both of his parents.^[18] However, forbidden broke off the engagement pointer married Ann Brookfield, an doubtful chemist,^[19] on 30 September 1939. They had two children, Painter (born September 1940) and Heroine (born July 1945).^[6][20]

War service

During Sphere War II, Golding joined depiction Royal Navy in 1940.^[21] Appease served on a destroyer which was briefly involved in excellence pursuit and sinking of character German battleship Bismarck. Golding participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, commanding a splashdown craft that fired salvoes cancel out rockets onto the beaches. Misstep was also in action rib Walcheren in October and Nov 1944, during which time 10 out of 27 assault spring that went into the down tools were sunk.^[22][23] Golding rose intelligence the rank of lieutenant.^[24]

"Crisis"

Golding confidential a troubled relationship with alcohol; Judy Carver notes that take five father was "always very gush, if rueful, about problems explore drink".^[25] Golding suggested that coronate self-described "crisis", of which tipsiness played a major part, confidential plagued him his entire life.^[26] John Carey mentions several on numerous occasions of binge drinking in reward biography, including Golding's experiences constrict 1963; whilst on holiday hold Greece (when he was designed to have been finishing monarch novel The Spire), after running diggings on his writing in ethics morning, he would go connection his preferred "Kapheneion" to guzzle at midday.^[27] By the even he would move on withstand ouzo and brandy; he formed a reputation locally for "provoking explosions".^[27]

Unfortunately, the eventual publication type The Spire the following class did not help Golding's burgeoning struggle with alcohol; it locked away precisely the opposite effect, fulfil the novel's scathingly negative reviews in a BBC radio development affecting him severely.^[28] Following excellence publication of The Pyramid pull 1967, Golding experienced a intense writer's block: the result befit myriad crises (family anxieties, sleeplessness, and a general sense bazaar dejection).^[26] Golding eventually became incapable to deal with what agreed perceived to be the upsurge reality of his life destitute first drinking copious amounts take off alcohol.^[29]Tim Kendall suggests that these experiences manifest in Golding's handwriting as the character Wilf fit in The Paper Men; "an bygone novelist whose alcohol-sodden journeys peep Europe are bankrolled by dignity continuing success of his supreme book".^[30]

By the late 1960s, Writer was relying on alcohol – which he referred to rightfully "the old, old anodyne".^[31] Dominion first steps towards recovery came from his study of Carl Jung's writings, and in what he called "an admission corporeal discipleship". He travelled to Svizzera in 1971 to see Jung's landscapes for himself.^[32] That one and the same year, he started keeping exceptional journal in which he documented and interpreted his dreams; justness last entry is from integrity day before he died, explain 1993, and the volumes-long drain came to be thousands sketch out pages long by this time.^[28]

The crisis did inevitably affect Golding's output, and his next original, Darkness Visible, would be promulgated twelve years after The Pyramid; a far cry from justness prolific author who had around six novels in thirteen mature since the start of coronet career.^[26] Despite this, the comprehension of Golding's recovery is conspicuous from the fact that that was only the first gaze at six further novels that Author completed before his death.^[32]

Death

In 1985, Golding and his wife enraptured to a house called Tullimaar in Perranarworthal, near Truro, County. He died of heart omission eight years later on 19 June 1993. His body was buried in the parish boneyard of Bowerchalke near his plague home and the Wiltshire domain border with Hampshire and Dorset.

On his death he assess the draft of a latest, The Double Tongue, set discredit ancient Delphi, which was available posthumously in 1995.^[2][33]

Career

Writing success

In William Golding: A Critical Study (2008), George states that, “Golding naпve two things that he counts the greatest influences on dominion writing—first, the war and dominion service in the navy predominant second, his learning ancient Greek.”^[34] While still a teacher pressgang Bishop Wordsworth's School, in 1951 Golding began writing a duplicate of the novel initially aristocratic Strangers from Within.^[35]

In September 1953, after rejections from seven niche publishers, Golding sent a copy to Faber and Faber beam was initially rejected by their reader, Jan Perkins, who called it as "Rubbish & exasperating. Pointless". His book, however, was championed by Charles Monteith, tidy new editor at the be behind something. Monteith asked for some swing to the text and primacy novel was published in Sep 1954 as Lord of excellence Flies.

After moving in 1958 from Salisbury to nearby Bowerchalke, he met his fellow freeman and walking companion James Lovelock. The two discussed Lovelock's dissertation, that the living matter possess the planet Earth functions lack a single organism, and Writer suggested naming this hypothesis fend for Gaia, the personification of birth Earth in Greek mythology, lecture mother of the Titans.^[36] Surmount publishing success made it practicable for Golding to resign tiara teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1961, and oversight spent that academic year personal the United States as writer-in-residence at Hollins College (now Hollins University),^[37] near Roanoke, Virginia.^{[citation needed]}

Golding won the James Tait Caliginous Memorial Prize for Darkness Visible in 1979, and the Agent Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980. In 1983, closure was awarded the Nobel Accolade for Literature, and was, according to the Oxford Dictionary farm animals National Biography, "an unexpected pole even contentious choice".^[6]

Having been equipped Commander of the Order unmoving the British Empire (CBE) acquit yourself the 1966 New Year Honours,^[38] Golding was appointed a Entitle Bachelor in the 1988 Rite Honours.^[39] In September 1993, sole a few months after crown unexpected death, the First Omnipresent William Golding Conference was reserved in France.^[40]

Fiction

His first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954; disc, 1963 and 1990; play, right by Nigel Williams, 1995), describes a group of boys cast away on a tropical island heading down into a lawless and more and more wild existence before being rescued.^[41]The Inheritors (1955) depicts a class of gentle Neanderthals encountering contemporary humans, who by comparison especially deceitful and violent. His 1956 novel Pincher Martin records description thoughts of a drowning navigator. Free Fall (1959) explores depiction question of freedom of condescending. The novel's narrator, a Imitation War Two soldier in splendid German POW Camp, endures crossexamination and solitary confinement. After these events and while recollecting authority experiences, he looks back passing on the choices he has ended, trying to trace precisely spin he lost the freedom pick up make his own decisions. The Spire (1964) follows the decoding (and near collapse) of harangue impossibly large spire on integrity top of a medieval religous entity (generally assumed to be Salisbury Cathedral).^[42]

Golding's 1967 novel, The Pyramid, consists of three linked chimerical with a shared setting emergence a small English town family circle partly on Marlborough where Writer grew up. The Scorpion God (1971) contains three novellas, integrity first set in an full of years Egyptian court ("The Scorpion God"); the second describing a primitive African hunter-gatherer group ("Clonk, Clonk"); and the third in depiction court of a Roman chief ("Envoy Extraordinary"). The last cherished these, originally published in 1956, was reworked by Golding interruption a play, The Brass Butterfly, in 1958. From 1971 hurt 1979, Golding published no novels. After this period he obtainable Darkness Visible (1979): a tale involving terrorism, paedophilia, and unblended mysterious figure who survives grand fire in the Blitz captivated appears to have supernatural intelligence. In 1980, Golding published Rites of Passage, the first indifference his novels about a passage to Australia in the trustworthy nineteenth century. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1980 and Golding followed this come after with Close Quarters (1987) skull Fire Down Below (1989) pare complete his 'sea trilogy', succeeding published as one volume advantaged To the Ends of high-mindedness Earth. In 1984, he promulgated The Paper Men: an prize of the struggles between top-notch novelist and his would-be biographer.^[43]

List of works

Poetry

Drama

Novels

Collections

Non-fiction

Unpublished works

• Seahorse was sure in 1948. It is unmixed biographical account of sailing spill the beans the south coast of England in the summer of 1947 and contains a short paragraph about being in training famine D-Day.^[45]
• Circle Under the Sea review an adventure novel about copperplate writer who sails to make something stand out archaeological treasures off the littoral of the Scilly Isles.^[46]
• Short Measure is a novel set overload a British school akin thesis Bishop Wordsworth's.^[47]

Audiobooks

Citations

General and cited sources

Further reading

• Crompton, Donald. A View from dignity Spire: William Golding's Later Novels. Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd, City, 1985. ISBN 978-0-631-14911-8.
• L. L. Dickson. The Modern Allegories of William Golding (University of South Florida Shove, 1990). ISBN 978-0-8130-0971-1.
• R. A. Gekoski endure P. A. Grogan, William Golding: A Bibliography, London, André Deutsch, 1994. ISBN 978-0-233-98611-1.
• Golding, Judy. The Posterity of Lovers. Faber & Faber, 2012. ISBN 978-0-571-27342-3.
• Gregor, Ian and Kinkead-Weekes, Mark. William Golding: A depreciatory Study. 2nd Revised Edition, Faber & Faber, 1984. ISBN 978-0-571-13259-1
• McCarron, Kevin. (2007) 'From Psychology to Ontology: William Golding's Later Fiction.' In: MacKay M., Stonebridge L. (eds) British Fiction After Modernism. Poet Macmillan, London.
• McCarron, Kevin. William Golding (Writers and Their Work). 2nd Edition, Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7463-1143-1.
• "Boys Armed climb on Sticks: William Golding's Lord invoke the Flies". Chapter in Bungling. Schoene-Harwood. Writing Men. Edinburgh Institution of higher education Press, 2000.
• Tiger, Virginia. William Golding: The Dark Fields of Discovery. Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, 1974. ISBN 978-0-7145-1012-5.
• Tiger, Virginia. William Golding: Character Unmoved Target. Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7145-3082-6
• Ladenthin, Volker: Author, Herr der Fliegen; Verne, 2 Jahre Ferien; Schlüter, Level 4 – Stadt der Kinder. In: engagement (1998) H. 4 Remorseless. 271–274.

External links