Chapter I organizing teaching listening games

Actuality of the theme. English literature is a component part of the world literature. Its best national traditions have played an important role in enriching and development of the world literature. English literature consists of poetry, prose and drama written in the English language.
The 20^th century English literature is remarkable for a great diversity of artistic values and artistic methods. The theme of the present qualification paper deals with literary activity of a famous English novelist, playwright and short story writer William Somerset Maugham.
The name of S.Maugham is connected with critical realism in English literature of the first decades of the 20^th century.
S.Maugham was the master of the short, concise novel and he could convey relationships and ambition with a starting reality.
He possessed a keen and observant eye and in his best works he ridiculed philistinism, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, self-interest, utilitarian approach to art.
The writer’s materialistic view and criticism of human weaknesses is as actual nowadays as it was in the previous century.
Investigation of the problem. The problem is investigated by many literary critics. English scientists Arnold Kettle, Thomas Jackson, Walter Allen, Ivor Evans Russian scientists I.V.Arnold, N.Ya,Dyakonova, M.A.Gritchuk and V.V.Ivashyova are among them. But his literary career as a short story writer hasn’t been researched sufficiently.
The aim of the course paper. To study literary activity of a well known English novelist and short story writer William Somerset Maugham and analyze characteristic features of his style. To achieve this goal a number of short stories and best novels of the author are read. His contribution to English literature is investigated as well.
By the nineteen-thirties after having for many years been either despised or ignored by intellectuals S.Maugham had moved unobtrusively to a high place both as a dramatist and a writer of fiction.