Evelyn Waugh - a satirist, prone to the hyperbolization of the evil, to the grotesque concentration of the especially repugnant features of life and human characters.

Born in Hampstead in 1903, Evelyn Waugh was the son of Arthur Waugh, a writer and publisher, and the brother of Alexander Waugh, a novelist. He was educated at Lancing College and Hertford Col­lege, Oxford, where he studied Modern History. After a brief period of teaching career he abandoned it for writing.

In 1927 Waugh published his first literary Work, a study of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in 1928 his first novel Decline and Fall appeared.

In the 1930s Waugh traveled much in Europe, Africa the Near East, the West Indies, and in Mexico. He wrote records of his trav­els which later were collected in a one-volume edition When the Going Was Good (1946). His second novel Vile Bodies appeared in 1930 and brought him fame. This was followed by Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934), Scoop, (1938), Put Out More Flags (1942). They established Evelyn Waugh among the most distinguished satirical writers of the day. He places his memorable comic characters in a world devoid of law and order, and through a constant use of satire, sometimes mild and sometimes scathing, of uproarious comedy and pure farce, transforms sociologically ob­served reality into complex ironic structures.

During World War II Waugh served with the Royal Marines in the Middle East, and in 1944 was a member of the British Military Mission in Yugoslavia. This experience laid the basis for his war trilogy Men at Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955), and Unconditional Surrender (1961).

In his post-war novels Brideshead Revisited (1945), The Loved One (1948), Love Among Ruins (1953) he expressed his disapproval of modern civilization. His next novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinford (1957) is an autobiographical study of a middle-aged writer who suffers a nervous break-down.

Evelyn Waugh was fruitfully endowed with great satiric gift. His creativity was penetrated with striking contradictions, moods, doubts, hesitations and prejudices which were characteristic of oth­er writers of the time such as Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) and Rich­ard Aldington. These were well-educated people, brought up in the spirit of the old imperial traditions. Aldous Huxley received an upper class education, achieved first class honours in Englisli Language and Literature at Oxford's famous Balliol College. Many of his works deal with the conflict between the interests of the individ­ual and society. His Brave New World raises some difficult ques­tions about the nature of moral choices. The brave new world isn't an evil world because of the development of science, but because power hungry individuals misuse it. His other works include: Eye­less in Gaza (1936), Ape and Essence (1948), The Genius and the Godess_, Point Counter Point, Island, Antic Hay, non-fictional work Perennial Philosophy.

The outlook of these writers was strictly circumscribed by the distinct system of moral standards and rules. They were absolutely sincere in their convictions that the British Empire, mode of life and state order were advantageous.

But in the period between the two world wars their beliefs and convictions were smashed. Perhaps, Waugh's harsh critical atti­tude towards the power-that-be can be accounted for these feelings of disillusion and loss.

Waugh was longing to find moral prop in the "merry old Eng­land", where traditions and such moral principles as kindness, hones­ty and modesty, were sacredly worshiped. Waugh described the life mostly of those layers of the English society which he perfectly knew and to which he was striving to belong: the English land aristocracy. But the description is transfused with satirical elements and deepest contempt to the modern society. He contemplates the XXth-century society with ruthless, precise and quick eye, devoid of illusions. At times Waugh’s mockery is exceedingly acrid, his observations arccute, and his irony is mortal. Waugh is a satirist, who is prone to the hyperbolization of the evil, to the grotesque concentration of the especially repugnant features of life and human characters.

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