Famous Characters in English Literature

Absolute, Sir Anthony: A famous character in Sheridan’s The Rivals. He is an old gentleman with a warm heart. He is one of the most popular characters in English Comedy.

Abraham Slender: A foolish suitor to Anne, and a kinsman of Shallow, in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Abraham, a Montague servant: Fights Sampson and Gregory in the first scene of Romeo and Juliet. Sometimes spelled “Abram”.

Adam: A kindly old servant, rumoured to have been played by Shakespeare himself, in As You Like It.

Adams, Parson: A village parson in Fielding’s Joseph Andrews. He is a very pious and simple-hearted fellow. He is utterly ignorant of the ways of the world. He is the chief source of humour in the novel.

Adrian: A lord, a follower of Alonso, in The Tempest.

Amelia: Aemelia is an abbess in “The Comedy of Errors”. She proves to be the long-lost wife of Egeon, and the long-lost mother of the Antipholus twins.

Agamemnon: Agamemnon (myth) is the general leader of the Greek forces, in Troilus and Cressida.

Agnes: The daughter of Mr. Wickfield, the lawyer, in Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” After Dora’s death she becomes David Copperfield’s wife.

Agrippa: Agrippa (hist), a follower of Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra, proposes that the widowed Antony should marry Octavia.

Alice: A little girl in Lewis Carols’s “Alice in Wonderlan”d and Through the Looking Glass.

Allworthy: A charitable gentleman in Fielding’s “Tom Jones.” He brings Tom Jones up and discovers later on that he is the son of his sister.

Alonso: Alonso is the King of Naples, an enemy to Prospero, in “The Tempest.” He mourns for his son, Ferdinand, who he believes is drowned.

Almayer: Almayer is the hero of Joseph Canrad’s novel “Almayer’s Folly.” He is an English man in Malaya.

Amelia: The heroine of Fielding’s novel of the same title. She is also a character in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Ancient Mariner: The hero of Coleridge’s famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” He brings a curse upon himself and his ship-mates by killing an Albatross He possesses a hypnotizing personality.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek: He is a foolish knight, and suitor to Olivia, in “Twelfth Night.”

Andrews, Joseph: The hero of Fielding’s novel “Joseph Andrews.”

Angelo: A goldsmith who has been commissioned to make a chain by Antipholus of Ephesus, which he delivers to Antipholus of Syracuse in error. Antipholus of Ephesus later refuses to pay for it, causing much consternation, in “The Comedy of Errors.”

Antigonus: A courtier of Leontes in “The Winter’s Tale,” who takes the infant Perdita to Bohemia. He famously exits, pursued by a bear, which eats him.

Antonio: The merchant in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” He stands a trial for ‘a pound of flesh’ demanded by Shylock.

Archidamus: A Bohemian lord in “The Winter’s Tale.”

Ariel: A spirit, controlled (but eventually freed) by Prospero in “The Tempest.”

Arden, Enoch: The hero of Tennyson’s famous poem of the same title. He returns home after a long absence on sea voyages and finds his wife happily married to another person. He keeps the secret in his heart and dies broken-hearted.