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Thread: Classic Literature

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    Default Classic Literature

    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?

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    Happiness Hurricane!! Pike's Avatar
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    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.

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    Yes homo Mr. Carnelian's Avatar
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    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.

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    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
    Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
    Jinx you are absolutely smurfing insane. Never change.

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    get mad Zeldy's Avatar
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    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.

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    I'm selling these fine leather jackets Aerith's Knight's Avatar
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    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.


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    Feel the Bern Administrator Del Murder's Avatar
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    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.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    Can I put Oedipus Rex here or is that too old? I do love me some Greek tragedies.

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    Yes homo Mr. Carnelian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
    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 Aerith's Knight View Post
    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.
    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?

    Gatsby i
    s a good'un, definitely. I give it my seal of approval.

    Attachment 66084

    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.
    Last edited by Mr. Carnelian; 12-21-2015 at 06:15 PM.

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    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.

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    I'm selling these fine leather jackets Aerith's Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Carnelian View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Aerith's Knight View Post
    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.
    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?
    Fair enough. I'm not too petty to try something different.

    Quote Originally Posted by Midgar Mist View Post
    Aerith's Knight, Lord of the Rings counts as a fantasy classic but what does WoT stand for?
    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.


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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    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

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    Quote Originally Posted by Midgar Mist View Post
    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
    I resent the implication that us Single Honours English Lit people aren't useful.

    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.

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