Famous writers' types

[Into It]

This is a thread devoted to your opinions on the probable types of authors whose books you have read. This will be easiest to do with philosophers or those with autobiographies. For the others, we will just have to extrapolate from their style. Here are some authors and philosophers whose work I have read recently and the types that have come into my mind. Correct me if you have other opinions on these and please offer your own.


Mark Twain - ENTP
Machiavelli - ENTP
Nietzsche - INTJ
Ayn Rand - INTJ
Kant - INTP
Carl Jung - INTJ (?)
Sylvia Plath - INFJ
Franz Kafka - INTP (?)
Sigmund Freud - INFJ
Kurt Vonnegut - INFJ
Socrates - INTP
Poe - INFP

 

[ragashree]

On a first brief glance:

Machiavelli and Kafka *kafka more definitely* both strike me as INTP.

Poe's tendency to favour an intellectual approach *particularly his own* doesn't strike me as typically INFP, nor does his focus on sensory experience and situation above character, though INFP remains a possibility. I'd go with INTP or INxP at a guess. Regardless, he does seem to have a particularly strong Si in his vivid depiction of sensory experience. This goes for some extent for Kafka too.

Jung seems very INFJ. He's certainly analytical, but I seem to remember quite a few appeals to emotion over reason.

I'd slightly favour ENFJ for Freud, but I don't knpw enough to make that a strong statement. His intuitive bias seems to have been quite strong.

And now a contribution of my own: Will Shakespeare = ENFP. Heretical I know

 

[Into It]

Jung seems very INFJ. He's certainly analytical, but I seem to remember quite a few appeals to emotion over reason.

I'd slightly favour ENFJ for Freud, but I don't knpw enough to make that a strong statement. His intuitive bias seems to have been quite strong.

And now a contribution of my own: Will Shakespeare = ENFP. Heretical I know ;)

Yeah, Jung I was going to type INxJ but I tried to give everyone a concrete type. You might be right about Machiavelli. All I read was The Prince, and it was very systematic, but it seemed like a brief note on many categories (Ne dominance over Ti) and contained a lot of "ways to gain power" and other typical ENTP junk.


Dang, you think that Billy Shakenbake was an ENFP? I have only read a little, and when I read it I wasn't old enough or exposed to enough literature to really appreciate it. I would guess INFP, if only because of the massive amount of alone time that I imagine going into his work.

Lots of people think Shakespeare was actually a pen name for a collective group of writers. Do you know anything about this?

Please elaborate on your thoughts for thinking he is an ENFP.

Somewhere I read that Tolstoy was an ENFP. When 125 of the worlds leading authors were each asked to compile a list of the 10 greatest books, the average put two of Tolstoys works in the list (#1 Anna Karenina, #4 War and Peace). He was the only author who appeared twice. It would seem unusual to me for the worlds two best writers (according to popular opinion, of course) to be extroverted, but if I had to choose what extroverted type they would be based on what I know of the types, I would guess ENFP because ENFPs appear to possess very scattered talents.

 

[Sniffles]

I think there's already a thread for this:
http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/popular-culture-type/13672-dn-s-author-type-list-iii.html

 

[Thalassa]

I agree Poe was probably an INFP. I think that F.Scott Fitzgerald was probably an ISFP.
I wonder about Evelyn Waugh,_ NTJ...maybe _STJ. I think Agatha Christie was probably an INFJ.

 

[OrangeAppled]

I think Poe is INTP also. Of course, it could be the drugs that made him so weird, haha.

Shakespeare....I've always been surprised to see him as INFP, but we do supposedly have great rhythm and a talent for wordplay.

I would put Tolstoy down as INFP also. In Anna Karenina, Levin is often said to be Tolstoy's voice, and he is soooo INFP. I just don't see an extrovert...

 

[the state i am in]

i see more infp for tolstoy than infj as well.

vonnegut seems up in the air to me between infj and intp. i lean towards intp.

 

[edcoaching]

I just saw a BBC interview of Jung and he pretty much described himself as dominant Ti, talking about how his preferences developed over time. So INTP.

Freud...I think Jung considered him ENTJ...somewhere in all his writings there's something about it.

For someone completely different...
Laura Ingalls Wilder ISFJ. You have enough info to make cheese yourself after reading Little House on the Prairie

 

[Salomé]

I just saw a BBC interview of Jung and he pretty much described himself as dominant Ti, talking about how his preferences developed over time. So INTP.

link/name of programme?

Freud...I think Jung considered him ENTJ...somewhere in all his writings there's something about it.

Not likely. Since the 4 letter designation didn't exist yet . He might have thought him an 'Extraverted Thinking' type.

I've seen him typed ENTP. Works for me.

 

[edcoaching]

I'll email the panel facilitator who used the film to get the reference.

You got me on the 4-letter code. Jung (to paraphrase) said "Well I was using thinking at a very early age. And the imagination..." the way he ended the interview made it sound like he could have pictured himself as Ti or Ne but he started with this clear reference to Ti....

 

[edcoaching]

link/name of programme?

It was from "Matters of Heart," a DVD available at amazon which has teh 1959 BBC interview and the unfinished Jerome Hill documentary. There's also a film of Richard Evans interviews, available from Penn State media sales.

 

[Silly_Siren]

I always thought of Twain as a disillusioned ENFP, but I don't have much to back that up safe a gut reaction.



Hemingway: ENTJ
Fitzgerald: ISFP
Hesse: INFP
Swift: ENTP
Dickens: INFJ

 

[Hands Mechanical]

Fyodor Dostoevsky - INFJ
Nikolai Gogol - INFP