Required Reading

[sethp]

Contemplating a BA in Creative Writing and Lit. What "required" Ready would you suggest to get me in the correct mode...?

 

[sr71plt]

For my part, I gave you an extensive list a couple of days ago. When you arrive at the courses, though, they'll have lists of readings for you to do that go with what they'll be teaching.

 

[oggbashan]

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (familiarly known as "Q":
On the Art of Writing
On the Art of Reading
Studies in Literature Series 1,2 and 3

Sir Ernest Gowers:
The Complete Plain Words

Og

 

[jomar]

I did not know they offered a major in Literotica. Sweet.

 

[sethp]

They do

A BA in Literotica...it's awesome!

Course description

1. Swing clubs 101
2. Disection of the Story of O
3. Ron Jeremy and the Histroy of the world
4. Penthouse letter writing 101

it goes on but i'll spare you the details.

Thanks guys.. I do appreciate it.

I was thinking more along the lines of Classic Literature so Like
Madame Bovery, Dante's Inferno, the Hobbit, Moby Dick, Shakespeare, War and Peace, Dickens..where should I start and who is most important?

sethp

 

[oggbashan]

I was thinking more along the lines of Classic Literature so Like
Madame Bovery, Dante's Inferno, the Hobbit, Moby Dick, Shakespeare, War and Peace, Dickens..where should I start and who is most important?

sethp

It depends whether it is World Literature or ENGLISH Literature.

If English, forget Madame Bovary, Dante's Inferno and War and Peace. Buy or borrow the Oxford Companion to English Literature and read that.

If World, start with Homer and Virgil.

Og

 

[elsol]

Contemplating a BA in Creative Writing and Lit. What "required" Ready would you suggest to get me in the correct mode...?

As I myself have one them... I can address from a position of experience.

Read anything that talks about patience.

Especially patience with that girl who had her heartbroken by her last boyfriend and has to write about it in EVERY class assignment! You'll want to kill her, but you can't... so deep breathing and yoga.... or you'll do what I did and write something from HIS perpective about why he dumped her.

*bad juju*

--------

Other than that, nothing really 'helps' with the classes at least in my school... the good professors make you write & write & write and then write some more.

On the Lit side... they'll tell you what to read... I like old british writers so I had done most of the reading before my lit classes. I hated the modern author classes with a passion... the professors worshipped the ground these people walked on, especially the living authors.

 

[rgraham666]

The second someone says 'required reading' my eyes glaze over.

'Required reading' is always something dull beyond belief in my opinion.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Good luck to you.

Most students take the required courses first. I did it ass backwards.

I took every course that interested me. I used all my electives. I took every writing course they had.

Northeastern University only required their English majors to take 5 writing courses. I took them all, 32. I was shocked to watch English majors hemming and hawwing through writing classes, especially when the teacher gave a written asignment. I mean, what else is there in a writing class, but reading and writing.

I discovered that by the time I had completed all my writing classes and was ready to take the required courses, I knew how to write much better than those who did not yet take any writing classes. By the high grades I earn every time I turned in a paper, my strategy worked to my benefit.

Good luck to you.

 

[sethp]

Thanks guys.. I really am looking into a creative writing/Lit degree. so any input is appreciated bad or good.

 

[BlackShanglan]

On writing, I adore Adam Sexton's Master Class in Creative Fiction - which has the benefit of also incorporating some excellent works of English literature, including Joyce, Austen, Conrad, and Nabakov.

For fiction, here are some that I admire:

(1) Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. She has a brilliant narrative voice. If you're trying to open out your repertoire of point-of-view writing, she can show you the real delights of a voiced third-person omniscient narration, which is something of a rare bird.

(2) Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange. He's a great counterbalance to Ms. Austen, as he takes the first person point of view to amazing new frontiers. His narrator is sickeningly cruel, a thug, a rapist, and a murderer - and yet he keeps you reading, because that voice is so damned fascinating.

(3) Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, or Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean. Very few people dare, any more, to be flatly and gorgeously beautiful in their writing. They do. I think that we badly need that challenge thrown out again in a world in which political diatribes and the vivisection of repulsive lives have reached such dominant positions in literature.

(4) James Joyce: "Araby" (a short story). This offers some of the best of a lean, spare modern style, a good contrast to Wilde's more florid moments and also a beautiful study in the art of subtle communication of emotion. It's got immense power packed into it through a restraint so taut that it hums with tension.

(5) Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. For heaven's sake, don't watch the movie, or you'll lose the really remarkable thing about this book. It's wonderfully funny reading for most of the book, but the ending turns savagely on you and lays the world raw open. It's a great study in the uses of comedy and satire once you recognize the parallels to the North and South of the author's time period.

(6) Oscar Wilde: "The Decay of Lying" (an essay). First, it's the only essay on aesthetic theory I've ever read that makes you laugh out loud. Second, it's Wilde's flashing wit and wordplay at its absolute best. Third, it's a theory about what art and literature should be that, whether you agree or not, pushes you to a delightful extreme of perspective and really urges you to consider what you think you ought to be attempting to do. It's worth it just to see him cane poor M. Zola.

 

[oggbashan]

One of my nephews did an English Literature degree.

I lent him one thousand books from my personal library, and then five hundred more when he wanted to concentrate on Victorian novelists.

He read the lot. He returned them in good condition when he had his Master's.

I'd filled the space on my shelves.

Og

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

In No Particular Order, read the following:

Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast

Henry James Portrait of a Lady

William Shakespeare The Complete Works

Marguerite Duras The Lover

Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar

 

[meg1]

One of my nephews did an English Literature degree.

I lent him one thousand books from my personal library, and then five hundred more when he wanted to concentrate on Victorian novelists.

He read the lot. He returned them in good condition when he had his Master's.

I'd filled the space on my shelves.

Og

you still have them? i have books in every room of my house, overflowing on the floors and stuck in boxes....i'll still take your books

 

[sethp]

One of my nephews did an English Literature degree.

I lent him one thousand books from my personal library, and then five hundred more when he wanted to concentrate on Victorian novelists.

He read the lot. He returned them in good condition when he had his Master's.

I'd filled the space on my shelves.

Og

how can you have that many books! you have more than my local library! amazing!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The second someone says 'required reading' my eyes glaze over.

'Required reading' is always something dull beyond belief in my opinion.

I concur! With the exception of Shakespeare, every fictional work I was ever required to read was deadly. Didn't matter whether the author was alive, dead, British, American or what. If it was required, it sucked!

 

[Emperor_Nero]

I concur! With the exception of Shakespeare, every fictional work I was ever required to read was deadly. Didn't matter whether the author was alive, dead, British, American or what. If it was required, it sucked!

Actually, I discovered one of my favorite books from "required" reading for an American Literature class. It was "The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham" by William Dean Howells. He was a contemporary of Twain and the story is a study of class conflict that I think still holds up well today. The story just drew me in and I ended up reading it cover to cover in one sitting. I bought a copy for my daughter, who is also majoring in Literature and Rhetoric and she loved it as well.

 

[TE999]

Most 'required reading' in my experience was (and is) deadly dull and boring.

The crap I had to wade through to earn a BA in English Ed. was astounding.

All 'prof's have their 'favorites' as well. Which they will discuss in excruciating detail until you are ready to beat them to death with their copy of said tome.

Just read what's assigned, regurgitate it for the tests and block it from your mind thereafter.

 

[sweetness6280]

Most 'required reading' in my experience was (and is) deadly dull and boring.

The crap I had to wade through to earn a BA in English Ed. was astounding.

All 'prof's have their 'favorites' as well. Which they will discuss in excruciating detail until you are ready to beat them to death with their copy of said tome.

Just read what's assigned, regurgitate it for the tests and block it from your mind thereafter.

I have found just the opposite to be true. I have rarely had a required piece that I did not enjoy, in some way. Although the classic "canon" is still very much alive and well, there are so many other pieces included now in lit classes.

Another nice change is the fact that NONE of my profs wanted regurgitated facts on the tests. There were the requisite passage identifications, but even those required thoughtful analysis. All of my tests beyond freshman courses were between 50% and 100% essay. The questions were not easy, and required more than a cursory knowledge of the book.

Required reading will depend heavily upon your professors. For most programs, you will take 2 British Lit courses (one preRenaissance, one post), at least one American Lit, and possibly a World Lit. Most programs now require a Writing about Lit course, which will include everything from Aristotle and Plato to Achebe and Barth. You will encounter Kate Chopin, Sylvia Plath, and Allen Ginsberg in addition to Shakespeare, Joyce, and Emerson. There will most likely be contemporary lit as well, including Mary Gaitskill, Sherman Alexie, Nathan Englander, Mary Robison and many others known as the "hyphenated authors" -- Jewish-American, African-American, Native American... etc.

If you want to find out what is being taught in universities today, go to the Norton site. Their anthologies are heavily used, and include most of the current "canon". You can also go to the sites of some of the profs at the school you will be attending. Look at their book lists. Another place to look is the bookstore for your school. You can see what profs required for courses and if you look up for fall, you will get an idea of what you need to read for your courses.

 

[TE999]

I have found just the opposite to be true. I have rarely had a required piece that I did not enjoy, in some way. Although the classic "canon" is still very much alive and well, there are so many other pieces included now in lit classes.

Another nice change is the fact that NONE of my profs wanted regurgitated facts on the tests. There were the requisite passage identifications, but even those required thoughtful analysis. All of my tests beyond freshman courses were between 50% and 100% essay. The questions were not easy, and required more than a cursory knowledge of the book.

Required reading will depend heavily upon your professors. For most programs, you will take 2 British Lit courses (one preRenaissance, one post), at least one American Lit, and possibly a World Lit. Most programs now require a Writing about Lit course, which will include everything from Aristotle and Plato to Achebe and Barth. You will encounter Kate Chopin, Sylvia Plath, and Allen Ginsberg in addition to Shakespeare, Joyce, and Emerson. There will most likely be contemporary lit as well, including Mary Gaitskill, Sherman Alexie, Nathan Englander, Mary Robison and many others known as the "hyphenated authors" -- Jewish-American, African-American, Native American... etc.

If you want to find out what is being taught in universities today, go to the Norton site. Their anthologies are heavily used, and include most of the current "canon". You can also go to the sites of some of the profs at the school you will be attending. Look at their book lists. Another place to look is the bookstore for your school. You can see what profs required for courses and if you look up for fall, you will get an idea of what you need to read for your courses.

Reading that , I'm sorry I didn't attend your college--or maybe I'm just a clodpoll at heart.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Perhaps my dislike of literature came from an unwillingness to suspend disbelief. Everything required seemed to be about idiots stuck in quagmires of their own ineptitude. While I might acknowledge that such sad folk exist, I don't know any and can't see any reason for wanting to dwell on their suffering. Serious literature? Bah!

Back to my history, science, anthropology and art.

However, that's just ol' Asperger's V_M. Don't mind my raving, I just don't understand.

 

[amicus]

[

QUOTE=sethp;26340323]Contemplating a BA in Creative Writing and Lit. What "required" Ready would you suggest to get me in the correct mode...?

[/QUOTE]

~~~

Really depends on what you want from the BA and where you will take it.

Where do your personal interests lie?

What do you want to learn, want to read, explore, or is it just the degree you want?

And do you want to write...if so, what, prose, poetry, fiction, non fiction, commercial writing, technical writing....endless choices and opportunities..

For modern writers, that long after the fact, I still recall, Hemingway and Steinbeck left lasting impressions.

Heinlein and Asimov in science fiction.

Of course all the other world and Eng Lit suggestions are worthwhile. Read everything is the real answer.

And because everyone who knows my taste expects it, Ayn Rand and "Atlas Shrugged". so you can at least know why she is the most hated modern author with the most read book in the latter half of the 20th century.

Good luck and happy reading and writing...and I hear from my young college friends, that 'Poetry Slams' continue to be the trendy thing for budding creative writing majors to participate in.

amicus...

 

[oggbashan]

how can you have that many books! you have more than my local library! amazing!

I've had to downsize the library when I moved house but at its maximum my library was 20,000 books.

My wife had another 3,000 mainly French and German classics in the original and translations.

Each of my three daughters had a couple of thousand reflecting their personal preferences.

When I retired from owning a secondhand bookshop I gave 7 tonnes of books to a local charity to sell. They are still selling them four years later. Those 7 tonnes were NOT from my personal library.

Og

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I've had to downsize the library when I moved house but at its maximum my library was 20,000 books.

My wife had another 3,000 mainly French and German classics in the original and translations.

Each of my three daughters had a couple of thousand reflecting their personal preferences.

When I retired from owning a secondhand bookshop I gave 7 tonnes of books to a local charity to sell. They are still selling them four years later. Those 7 tonnes were NOT from my personal library.

Og

Spoken like a true bibliophile. Some years ago, my son and I were watching a PBS special on the great houses of the US. Yes, we have some though not on par with the UK. One of the builders, back in the '20's I think but perhaps a bit before, was very proud of his library, boasting at the time that he had over 2000 volumes. The library, BTW, was a work of art itself. The heir and I sat up straight, offended. Merely 2,000? Piker! We immediately went through the house (which is small) and started counting. At the time I remember there being about 2300 and that wasn't counting the boxes he had out in the garage-of-the-time. That was a number of years ago. I've added builtin bookshelf after bookshelf, fancy bookends on top of random other kinds of furniture, given no longer desired volumes to my local library, etc. The house bulges at the seams with books. I can't ever hope to match Ogg at his current level, let alone his maximum, but if all the money that went into books had gone into IBM or Microsoft stock instead, I'd be a rich man. Instead, I'm a autodidact.