Strategies for reading the classics?

[DMB]

How are you on the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets, in particular Wyatt. Surrey, Raleigh and Donne? (I assume you know Shakespeare's sonnets.) There are, of course, loads of others, but for me these three stand out. Moving on a bit through the seventeenth century, I think Marvell is interesting. And then, of course, there is Milton, thought by many to be the greatest English poet. When I was at Oxford (I did not read English), Milton was a big compulsory chunk of the first-year English syllabus. I suppose that if you want to be au fait with the classics Milton is inescapable.

Did you do any poets of the Restoration period? How about Rochester? I'm a bit surprised you found the Restoration boring. Was it the conventions and artificiality? The thing with Restoration plays is that you really need to see them done, and done well, in the theatre. I have seen two excellent productions of Wycherley's The Country Wife, one starring Jeremy Northam at the Royal Shakespeare and the other starring Toby Stephens in the West End of London. When you think that this was the first period when women played on the English stage, you can see how exciting it must have been at the time to see them in these risqué plays. A couple of interesting films about the Restoration period are The Libertine and Stage Beauty.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Barty

Kind of boggles my mind that people can NOT like Austen.

It's like not liking ice cream. Really?

I don't like ice cream, either...

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I don't like ice cream, either...

No problem, I volunteer to eat yours

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

No problem, I volunteer to eat yours

No ice cream for the bat! Sugar keeps them up all day.

[Poppaea]

Damn!

[ficbot]

Hi DMB

I so appreciate your thoughtful responses! To address a few of your points:

>>>How are you on the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets, in particular Wyatt. Surrey, Raleigh and Donne? (I assume you know Shakespeare's sonnets.) >>>

Those names all ring bells, and I'm sure I've read them, but I can't say they made particular impressions. Most of these authors probably came up in various anthologies I've read "The Palgrave collection, for instance, and several from the Norton people purchased for courses over the years, and which I still have. I don't think I have ever sat down and made a concerted effort with any one author's complete works...

And yes, I have read Shakespeare's sonnets I enjoyed all the Shakespeare I read except for the histories. With the histories, I found it too hard to keep track of who was who since they all had such similar names (Henry, Richard and John for everyone).

>>>I think Marvell is interesting. And then, of course, there is Milton, thought by many to be the greatest English poet. >>>

I had not considered Marvel, that's a good idea. And of course, Milton is on my to-read list

>>>Did you do any poets of the Restoration period? How about Rochester? I'm a bit surprised you found the Restoration boring. >>>

I enjoyed Pope, and I think Swift was part of that course too, and he wasn't bad. Mostly, what I didn't like was how dated and self-referential everything seemed. Pope would write a poem that was secretly making fun of Swift, and then Swift would write a poem making fun of Pope, and so on. It would be like writing a 500-verse epic poem about Hilary Clinton. It might be interesting to a niche audience now, but in a couple hundred years, you're going to need a lot of footnotes.

I also remember reading Dryden's prefaces and they were all about how if you didn't like the poems, it was because you were too stupid or uneducated or unrefined to properly appreciate them. He just seemed so pompous and arrogant. And I suppose, given what I said above, that they all kind of struck me this way Plus, we had a super-dull professor and a textbook that had not been updated for 40 years...

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I like to read books too, but I understand that everything is derivative all the way back to before the nothingness. Just knowing that the classics are there, either stored locally on my SD card or somewhere in the cloud is usually enough. The ideas presented in the classics have replicated on down to everyone, virus like, as is the word's way. We don't really have to "read" the classics to understand them.

Is that why everyone is so bright, witty, interesting these days as opposed to crackheads sleeping all day on the sofa after a night long worth of downloading pirate music, games, movies and books and free porn?

It's really not true. The real deal is to sleep with a book under the pillow all night so its fluids can enter your brain through the ears.

[Namekuseijin]

BTW, this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

is an incredibly outdated list. Just take a look at Modern English Drama. Not a hint of most 19th century novels anywhere, because they, well, were basically sitcoms of the day and did not deserve such praise as to appear in student classes back in 1910 when the collection was first published. Thus, they were no classics.

I prefer to just browse the huge gutenberg collection and read at will...

[DMB]

See this article. Quite useful, I would have thought, even if it merely provokes disagreement.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I also remember reading Dryden's prefaces and they were all about how if you didn't like the poems, it was because you were too stupid or uneducated or unrefined to properly appreciate them. He just seemed so pompous and arrogant.

Oh, Dryden. I remember skimming a fairly interesting academic book on changes in the English language throughout the centuries* which had a little chapter-let on poetic contributions to the English language and quotes on the poets' views of language change.

And Dryden did in fact come across as a totally arrogant and pompous twit with no good words for any of his contemporaries, or any of his predecessors save Shakespeare (no standing on the shoulders of giants for him, I see), and had the gall to say of the Canterbury Tales that the stories were charming but overrated and the language was old-fashioned and dated shortly even while it was still being used, or words to that effect.

To which I ahahahaha… what-ted since if you only look at how Dryden's own poetry looks kind of stilted in comparison to works produced less than two centuries later (while Shakespeare remains fresh, so it's hardly a style-of-the-times problem). And when you look stilted next to Victorian poetry…

Also, "$%@%, you don't get to diss Chaucer unless you're $%^&-ing Shakespeare!"

You know that Dryden's the one who came up with that faux-rule about not ending sentences with prepositions and proceeded to edit his own early works to remove the now offending construction, which was based on the formal rules of grammar for Latin and not actual English language usage?

So you can blame him also for manufacturing ammunition for generations of pretentious self-appointed prescriptive grammar police and being totally wrong in the bargain.

But to be fair, he did come up with that pithy aphorism about men who took wives and had children leaving hostages to Fortune, and his poetic version of the Greco-Roman myth cycles are quite an accomplishment, which doesn't hold up too badly these days, stilted language or not. And he did have huge amount of influence and a certain amount of talent.

* I'm pretty sure it's From Old English to Standard English: A Course Book in Language Variation across Time by Dennis Freeborn, from the University of Ottawa Press, but I couldn't swear to it and it may have been something else the library had which was sitting right next to it.

[DMB]

I tend to agree with your views of Dryden. Just compare All for Love with Antony and Cleopatra.

But I have clearly misunderstood ficbot's view of the Restoration. For me, the Restoration period is largely over by about 1685, certainly by 1700, and so I would never include Pope or Swift therein. Rather they belong to the Augustan period. I would place Defoe there too. I notice one of ficbot's favourites is Robinson Crusoe. I wonder, ficbot, whether you have also read Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year. The latter is fiction masquerading as fact, but is historically interesting. Defoe was at base a journalist.

BTW there was a BBC TV serialisation of Moll Flanders, starring Alex Kingston and Daniel Craig (aka James Bond). Should be available on DVD.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by astra

Avoid.

We really need a negative Karma button. Sigh.

I've read lots of classics. I don't read to a system. Usually I try something, and if I like it, I read more of that.

If I don't like it, I may wait a few years and try it again. Tastes change over time and reading is an education in itself.

Taking notes? Buzzkill. Reading everything 3 times - only if I like it, then I'll probably read it more times than that. Otherwise, buzzkill.

There are more classics than you'll ever have time to read in a lifetime - that's actually a good thing. Whatever you choose to read will improve your mind and maybe your soul. Have fun, don't make another job of it.

But you do have to read Jane Austen. THAT'S a given.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

If you've ever wondered what Captain Picard looked like back when he had hair, you need to watch this. <-- Finally, I have a use for this smiley!

He wore a wig.

[DMB]

Originally Posted by khalleron

If I don't like it, I may wait a few years and try it again. Tastes change over time and reading is an education in itself.

Good point.

[encapuchado]

Originally Posted by Barty

Kind of boggles my mind that people can NOT like Austen.

It's like not liking ice cream. Really?

I love statements like "I don't understand how there are people who don't like X". That says a lot about the level of intelligence and empathy of the utterer