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Im seeing a lot of tv/celeb threads here, which is okay, but I thought I'd inject something different into these more recent threads: Classic Literature.
I like: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Romantic Era poetry by William Blake, Wordsworth, John Clare, John Keats, Other eras of poetry: W B Yeats and Ted Hughes
Thoughts?
I am in love with Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I think The Brothers Karamazov is probably the greatest novel ever written. Crime & Punishment isn't far behind.
I really liked the Picture of Dorian Gray, personally
Yay, the English Lit student is relevant! Classic literature is totally my thing!
I've been reading LOTS of seventeenth and eighteenth century literature recently. Women writers or GTTO (Get the Trout Out). I just finished a 4000 word essay on how Penelope Aubin totally owned Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe with her far more entertaining The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and his Family, in which she satirised the hell out of Defoe's dissenting religious viewpoint. Defoe then responded with Moll Flanders, in which he was totally imitating and inverting the female voice which Aubin presented in Vinevil.
And don't even get me started on Samuel Richardson's Pamela. Original, my arse: Margaret Cavendish presented a version of Pamela's rags-to-riches narrative decades earlier though the character of Bridget Greasy in The Matrimonial Trouble.
A couple of months ago I did a classics month. I read:
O Pioneers! (loved)
My Antonia (eh)
The Picture of Dorian Grey (I like it, but it was missing whatever would've made me really enjoy it)
Brave New World (trout)
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (even worse trout)
Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (possibly the worst trout of all)
Madame Bovary (Loved, loved it. Easily my favorite book I read that month.)
Rebecca (Wowee zowee, this book was incredible and intense.)
Some other classics I enjoy and have read previously:
Lolita
Jane Eyre
Little Women (one of my two favorite books of all time)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Great Gatsby
Hey, I loved Brave New World!
And Gatsby is love.
Gatsby is indeed love, and I had the opportunity to study that in English. Along with Catcher in the Rye and The Bloody Chamber (a collection of short stories, inspired by fairytales, made gothic)
I like to re-read Gatsby and Catcher, and I'll have to check out some of the books in this thread as I havent read in years.
Classics, huh? Does WoT count? Or LOTR?
If you mean the ones hundreds of years old, then no. It's not that they're bad, but I like to read fast. And it takes waaaay too long for me to decipher the subtle meanings in the articulate vocabulary utilized in these illustrious works.
Epic fantasy over that lot anyday.
David Copperfield is my favorite classic book. I also like Grapes of Wrath, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Catch-22, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Catcher in the Rye, Little Women, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Three Musketeers.
Can I put Oedipus Rex here or is that too old? I do love me some Greek tragedies.
There's no such thing as too old when it comes to literature!Quote:
Originally Posted by Fynn
Give Penelope Aubin a try! Where else could you read about a fourteen year old girl ripping a goat in half with her bare hands?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aerith's Knight
Gatsby is a good'un, definitely. I give it my seal of approval.
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I'm also partial to a bit of Brave New World, although he could have sprinkled his exposition a bit more, rather than clumping it all in at the beginning.
I'll always remember Catcher for the hilariously bad American accents we all insisted on putting on when we read the book out in class, but the book itself really doesn't do it for me. Salinger's a good writer, but... I don't know. For me, there's something missing.
I do love Dorian Gray, and I thoroughly recommend reading as much Oscar Wilde as possible.
Dostoevsky is someone I've always found a bit of a slog, to be honest. As far as Russian authors go, I prefer Anton Chekhov. He's always much more to the point. Maybe I'll give Crime and Punishment another go, though, one of these days.
Finally, Madam Bovary is indeed a marvelous novel, but I simply must disagree with you in regard to the good Miss Moll Flanders. Defoe may have been imitating Aubin, but by golly, what an imitation. Moll's life of crime is deliciously delivered: Defoe's finest novel, in my view.
Mr Carnelian, I am the English Lit Graduate made useful (joint honours with creative writing that is) :-)
yes of course Greek Tragedies are Classics, they just arent my field of expertise. I focused on Victorian Lit
Aerith's Knight, Lord of the Rings counts as a fantasy classic but what does WoT stand for?
Im reminded I also like Jude the Obscure (shocking but brilliant) Tess of the D'urbervilles (another good tragedy from Hardy) and as a few of you suggested, Dorian Grey too.
Fair enough. I'm not too petty to try something different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. CarnelianGive Penelope Aubin a try! Where else could you read about a fourteen year old girl ripping a goat in half with her bare hands?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aerith's Knight
Wheel of Time. Epic fantasy series spanning 14 books starting from 1990. I had a hard time defining classics, so I threw in a 75 year old book and a 25 year old one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Midgar Mist
I actually had English Literarure, American Literature and more literature related subjects on my faculty. Comes with the territory - in Poland we have English "philology" that gives us a general idea of both linguistics and literature :monster:
I resent the implication that us Single Honours English Lit people aren't useful. :argh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Midgar Mist
The Eighteenth Century is my thing, with my main area of interest being women writers. I always found Victorian stuff to be too up itself. I'm sure you'll disagree on that, of course. :p
I've read a lot of other classics that I forgot about. I liked the first half of Wuthering Heights, but the second half was so bad.
RE: Moll Flanders
I mean, the content of the story was fine and made for an interesting novel. The writing style was abysmal. I'm willing to give it credit (and a pass) since it's one of the first English novels in existence, but that doesn't mean it's good. Ultimately, just not a book for me.
Actually, it's totally not. Novels had been around for decades beforehand. I'm talking at least fifty years. Hundreds and hundreds of novels had already been written by the time Moll Flanders was published. A lot of the earlier novels were ignored by academics until relatively recently, often because they were written by women, and so were written off without examination as not being "proper novels".Quote:
Originally Posted by Jar Jar Jinks
So, Moll Flanders doesn't even have that going for it. :p Plus, like I said earlier, he totally ripped off Penelope Aubin.
Based on Fynns post, I'm really interested to know what other American lit novels are "important" enough to study in the European classroom. Besides Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby, I mean :)