I'm getting ready to choose a novel for the final paper of my senior capstone class and I'm having a hard time choosing which novel to read!! Knowing that Hatrack is quite literary and smart I thought I'd ask -
What is your favorite 18th or 19th century British Literature and why?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*blink* That's a period of two hundred years. I mean, it literally covers everything from the Augustans through the Gothics and Victorians to the beginning of the modern era.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Heck. Even detective novels and science fiction and fantasy. My favorites would probably be Jane Eyre or Tale of Two Cities but those are sort of obvious. As is Wuthering Heights though in any of those there would be an awful lot to write about. I wouldn't recommend Austen unless you are very fond as the thematic fruit doesn't hang quite so low. Or you could do something like Alice which would be a bit different. So many choices!
[ September 30, 2012, 12:50 AM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
A particular novel that you might find interesting is Varney the Vampire, which also served as the primary source for most of our modern day vampire interpretations (the vampire in this novel had two fangs, left marks on the neck, hypnotized people, etc), so it might make for an interesting paper if you need one. It was also written several decades before Dracula, which is interesting.
There's also Frankenstein, which is a true classic.
You've also got the entirety of Jane Austen's work. I wouldn't recommend any of it. It's dreadfully boring, unless you enjoy reading about rich people falling in and out of love. The more interesting story is Austen herself, who died at the age of 41 and had only published four novels (each of which you most certainly have heard of). The fact that she is still a household name and each published book has seen dozens of adaptations is really impressive. Still, I must say I find them absolutely boring (*raises monocle*).
Hope that helps!
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
It would have to be something by George Eliot. The competition is not even close. Probably Middlemarch. It's a saga where every piece fits perfectly into the whole. And what an inspiring, virtuous, yet believable female protagonist Dorothea is. Daniel Deronda is also excellent, but Middlemarch...
Have to disagree about Austin. I've only read P&P, but it is a delight.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What is your capstone project? How long does it have to be? Can it be about ANYTHING, as long as it touches on the summer of British letters?
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
Pride and Prejudice. Romance done well.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
The only thing I've read by Jane Austen is Persuasion, and I was surprised by how long I liked it. I normally HATE this period of British literature, I just find all of it incredibly dull, boring, uninteresting, you name it. But I've managed to find a couple that are more than tolerable. Austen is witty and funny.
Heart of Darkness is probably my favorite of the 19th century though. I latched onto it in high school and I've never really let go.
I didn't even read a Dickens novel until a few years ago for a British literature class, I think we read Oliver Twist, and I was surprised by how good that was as well. After reading a couple of Dickens' novels, I'm convinced he was reincarnated as Stephen Colbert.
quote:You've also got the entirety of Jane Austen's work. I wouldn't recommend any of it. It's dreadfully boring, unless you enjoy reading about rich people falling in and out of love.
This seems a more apt description of an Edith Wharton novel.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
I, as a non native, simply loved Great Expectations. Not that I read much more... In English, that is.
Ah, and why. I like the humor very much. And I learned what wittles are.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Or is?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Jsou kolektivní plurálu. Are.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
A, skoro tak, to dobra. Bo myślałem, że wittles jak victuals, ale w sumie po polsku też jest wiktuały w liczbie mnogiej. Głupi jestem.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you know what wittles is?"
"Yes, sir."
That's why I hesitated.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
The poor grammar (and pronunciation) is deliberate on the part of the author. Not so much on the part of the character. Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
That's why I hesitated. But now I know, as I explained. Don't you speak west slavic languages ?!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Some days, I barely speak English.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Because of speaking too much or having no wish to speak at all? Or other reason.
Last night me and my fiancee wondered how to spell "we had" in Polish. "Mieliśmy" or "mięliśmy". Apparently the second form means "we crimped". So, I really barely speak Polish some days...
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: Because of speaking too much or having no wish to speak at all?
I was kidding. So no actual reason was implied.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Bildungsroman?
Posted by Dr Strangelove (Member # 8331) on :
For me, the answer is always going to be Tale of Two Cities, but I also am slightly biased as my field of study is Britain and France during the 1790's. Dickens in general though is hard to trump, and I think that's one of the more accessible of his works (as in not 100000 pages long).
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Szymon: A, skoro tak, to dobra. Bo myślałem, że wittles jak victuals, ale w sumie po polsku też jest wiktuały w liczbie mnogiej. Głupi jestem.
No jo, samrozřeme v obecnou starou angličtině používali singulárni příjmemu např: they is, ale co se týká písemni akorát are je lepší.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
No lepszy, lepszy. Tylko Dickens właśnie mieszał ten pisemny z mówionym ile wlezie.
A tak na marginesie, czy polski dla Czechów też jest taki śmieszny jak czeski dla Polaków? Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
You can see my difficulty in choosing Tom! I was originally leaning toward Tale of Two Cities and may approach it from a historical perspective or maybe a feminist one.
There is just SO much during this time period and we aren't supposed to pick something we've done before which rules out Frankenstein, several Jane Austen, Great Expectations and a few others not coming to mind right away.
I hadn't thought of Alice in Wonderland. That would be interesting. This instructor also teaches a Literature in Film class that I took and enjoyed thoroughly. Alice would give quite a bit of material from a film standpoint as well as a literary one.
I'm not very good at narrowing down my choices and coming up with topics on my own. Other than a list of major authors of the time period we are left entirely to our own in deciding a topic. The official instructions say "Your paper should be on a topic from the approved list of nineteenth and twentieth century authors, focused so that it can be developed in a paper of eight to ten pages."
To stay on track for graduation I need to get something decided by Weds and my prospectus finished by Monday so I can get the paper written and submitted by the first week in Nov. Eek!
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Szymone, ja bych řekl že je to bylo rozdilně žertovný. Zatímco nejsem čech, vím že pro čechy vlastní je polsky pravopis. U vás, čeština zdá dětinský, a u nas, českych mluvicích, polština vypada jako opily čestina.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Who is on the list of approved authors. That might narrow it down a bit.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Oh and for you lookie-loos who will look up what I said on google translate- it's not going to make much sense. I'm not using a dictionary or anything, so I made a few mistakes, but likely Syzmon gets it because it isn't actually that complicated.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm not even sure what language to look up.
Is that Czech?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
He's using Polish, I'm using Czech. He asked me if Polish was as funny to Czechs as Czech is to the Polish. My answer was that it's differently funny: to Polish people, Czech sounds like babytalk, and to Czechs, Poles sound drunk.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
I actually recently began Jane Eyre in a condensed form. (It was in a Readers Digest Great Reads book I got for the Horatio Hornblower story, and I hate to leave anything unread.) I find it much better than I thought it would be.
However, since the paper is due by the end of the year, consider a seasonal "A Christmas Carol". Just don't talk about the part where Kermit the Frog kisses Ms. Piggy. I think they'll catch on that you didn't quite read the story.
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
Here is the alphabetical list. I don't want something done by a million other undergrad students but I don't want something so obscure its going to be difficult to find resources. I live near the U of A and can utilize their library if needed but online resources are easier for me. There is just too much to choose from!
Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888) Auden, Wystan Hugh (1907-1973) Austen, Jane (1775-1817) Barrie, James Matthew (1860-1937) Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989) Brontë, Emily (1818-1848) Brontë, Charlotte (1816-1855) Brooke, Rupert (1887-1915) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) Browning, Robert (1812-1889) Burnett, Frances (Eliza) Hodgson (1849-1924) Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881) Carroll, Lewis [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832-1898) Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819-1861) Conrad, Joseph (1857-1950) de la Mare, Walter (1873-1956) Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) Dowson, Ernest (1867-1900) Eliot, George (1819-1880) Eliot, Thomas Sterns (1888-1965) Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883) Forster, Edward Morgan (1879-1970) Gilbert, W. S. (1836-1911) Golding, William Gerald (1911-93) Greene, Graham (1904-1991) Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) Henley, William Ernest (1849-1903) Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889) Housman, A. E. (1859-1936) Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895) Joyce, James (1882-1941) Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936) Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930) Lear, Edward (1812-1888) Lessing, Doris (1919-) Lewis, Clive Staples (1898-1963) Mansfield, Katherine (1888-1923) Maugham, William Somerset (1874-1966) Meredith, George (1828-1909) Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873) Morris, William (1834-1860) Newman, John Henry Cardinal (1801-1890) Orwell, George [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903-1940) Owen, Wilford (1893-1918) Pater, Walter (1839-1894) Rossetti, Christina (1830-1894) Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882) Ruskin, John (1819-1900) Sassoon, Siegfried (1886-1937) Shaw, Bernard (1856-1950) Sitwell, Edith (1887-1964) Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894) Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909) Symons, Arthur William (1865-1945) Tennyson, Alfred Lord (1809-1892) Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863) Thomas, Dylan (1914-1953) Thompson, Francis (1859-1907) von Arnim, Elizabeth (1866-1941) Waugh, Evelyn (1903-1967) Wells, Herbert George (1866-1946) Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900) Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941) Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939)
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
DM - but that is my favorite part of the story heehee Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
David Copperfield FTW.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: I actually recently began Jane Eyre in a condensed form. (It was in a Readers Digest Great Reads book I got for the Horatio Hornblower story, and I hate to leave anything unread.) I find it much better than I thought it would be.
I can't stand Jane Eyre.
I prefer the prequel.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
Ori, it's not only baby talk, it's that the words mean almost the same thing, but they change the general... podtext? kontekst? of the sentence. You wrote "pouzivali", and in Polish in means "they made some fun of" (the po- prefix means "some") even though it also means "they used" at the same time. Or "detinsky" (in Polish "dziecinny", "detinsky" sounds like a made-up word) I dunno how to explain it, it's just hilarious. The similarity of meaning and complete difference in context tone is unbelivable.
I understand everything you write, although for me it's impossible to write anything in Czech. Není to?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
It's the same for me with Polish. I can read it, but it's weird. Like "tak na marginiese" makes perfect sense, but it sounds completely made up at the same time.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
By the way, what are the best Czech books and authors, according to you? I only know Kafka and Hasek. What would you recommend?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: I actually recently began Jane Eyre in a condensed form. (It was in a Readers Digest Great Reads book I got for the Horatio Hornblower story, and I hate to leave anything unread.) I find it much better than I thought it would be.
I read that when I was 8 or so. I was sick and stayed up all night. Bertha Rochester had me so disturbed that I read all of My Friend Flicka (in the same volume - was it the green one?) that night, too.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
KM--same volume. Flicka is next. Wendy, you have George Orwell on that list. He's a 20th century author. He was a contemporary of Tolkien.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
There are a bunch of 20th century authors on that list and a bunch that published in both the 19th and 20th centuries. You'd have to go by date published of the book.
Posted by Aros (Member # 4873) on :
French author from that period would either be Dumas (Count of Monte Cristo) or Hugo (Les Miserables).
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What's interesting is that none of those authors are from the 18th century. Are you sure you weren't told to do 19th-20th century authors? Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Since Barrie is on the list, obviously you should do Peter Pan.
Posted by Wendybird (Member # 84) on :
I apologize! It is 19th and 20th century. I should know better than to trust my very faulty memory!
KMB- yes Peter Pan would be the obvious choice
I think I am going to do a few short stories from Katherine Mansfield. Specifically "Miss Brill", "The Garden Party" and "Bliss". Need to do a bit more research and formulate my prospectus.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)