Anthony Burgess (Englnd, 1917-93)


Figure 1.--

Anthony Burgess was a muti-talented phenomenon, composer, crtic, linguist, novelist, poet, playwright, teacher, and translator. His birth name was Burgess Wilson and he was born in Harpurhey, Manchester (1917). He came from aheatrical family. His parents were Elizabeth Burgess andJoseph Wilson. His mother was a talented singer and dancer on the music-hall stage in Glasgow and Manchester. His father played the piano in music halls and silent cinemas, but finally began working as a cashier at Swift’s beef market in Manchester. His childhood was spent in Harpurhey and Moss Side. He attended school in Rusholme and then studied at Manchester University. He lived acros the workd in Malaya, Malta, Monaco, Italy and the United States. He is of course best known for his novel, A Clockwork Orange. Burgess lent heavily on George Orwell's Nineteen Eight-Four but focused more on youth culture. He and Orwell along with Aldous Huxley were important dystopianohn authors. Burgess was one of the most prodigious authors in hitory. wroye an amazing 32 other novels s well as 25 non-ficion works and countless journalistic pieces, but it is Clockworl Orange (1962) that had the greatest impact. And if his written works were not enough he composed three symphonies, more than 150 other musical works. It is difficult to neatly catehorize Clockwork Orange, It can be viewed a as a horific critique of youth clture as well as insightful survey of social justice anf governmental control. Stanley Kubrick's film (1971) turns the Birgess novel into an uninspiring crime film and only touches on Burgess' complex philosophical pardoxes. The story is told by Alex, 'Your Humble Narrator'. His droogs trrorize what has become London's nimarish near future. Alex tells us about his life of britvas (razors) and twenty-to-one (funn/gang vilence) in Nadsat, the new language created by the unlikely fusing of Cockney rhyming slang and corrupted Russian.







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Created: 5:39 AM 5/29/2005
Last updated: 5:40 AM 5/29/2005