A super-special 19th century lit thread for BiBunny

[Lord_Steve]

You have asked, and I have provided.

Here is a controversial opinion to get us started: In my opinion, most British and American literature in the 19th century was pretty bad. I have an especial hateboner for Tennyson, but jingoistic/nationalistic/highly repressed poetry and lit doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Of course, there are some shining exceptions. Lord Byron and Joseph Conrad were incredible for very different reasons and I would love to discuss either of them.

Byron especially is a wonderful continuation of the transgressive/hedonistic poetic tradition that can be traced back through Lord Rochester to Lucian and Catullus and finally to Aristophanes. Although admittedly none of those comparisons is a perfect fit, tracing English literary influences back to their sources in Antiquity is a favorite pastime of mine so I wouldn't mind defending my choices to any interested parties.

Finally, it is my opinion that 19th century Russian literature is astonishing and bold and should be talked about by everyone ever. So as you can see I'm pretty unbiased.

I'm a bit sick at the moment so forgive any grammar errors or redundancies that would otherwise n'er 'scape my fever'd brain.

 

[Cattypuss]

Finally, it is my opinion that 19th century Russian literature is astonishing and bold and should be talked about by everyone.

 

[Cattypuss]

I'm with you on Tennyson though. I think he would have been employed by Hallmark if he'd been around in the mid-late 20th century.

 

[YourCaptor]

Is that really controversial? That sounds right on what the professors kept saying. Except for nonfiction, like Frederick Douglass.

PS. Conrad was not American English... ? I though he only learned English for writing purposes.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

....In my opinion, most British and American literature in the 19th century was pretty bad. I have an especial hateboner for Tennyson, but jingoistic/nationalistic/highly repressed poetry and lit doesn't do a whole lot for me.

Of course, there are some shining exceptions. Lord Byron and Joseph Conrad were incredible for very different reasons and I would love to discuss either of them.

Byron especially is a wonderful continuation of the transgressive/hedonistic poetic tradition that can be traced back through Lord Rochester to Lucian and Catullus and finally to Aristophanes. Although admittedly none of those comparisons is a perfect fit, tracing English literary influences back to their sources in Antiquity is a favorite pastime of mine so I wouldn't mind defending my choices to any interested parties.

....it is my opinion that 19th century Russian literature is astonishing and bold and should be talked about by everyone ever. So as you can see I'm pretty unbiased.

I'm a bit sick at the moment so forgive any grammar errors or redundancies that would otherwise n'er 'scape my fever'd brain.

I'm with you on Tennyson though. I think he would have been employed by Hallmark if he'd been around in the mid-late 20th century.

I'm going to have to take exception to your initial statement regarding Brit/Am Lit of the 19th, even with your excision of Byron and Conrad from that assessment. Twain? Poe? (Henry) James? O.Henry? Dreiser? Wharton? Stephen Crane? And those come off the top of my head... there are more.

As to 19th c. Russian Lit, I kind of have to agree with both you and CP. Astonishing and bold in many ways, yet sadly prone to the perennial failing of most Russian writing: over-verbosity. They simply write everything to freakin' death! However, in the long run, Chekov, Turgenev, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are worth reading - and re-reading after a few months or years - because they provide so much insight into the psyche of a people.

Nice thread... I hope I have the time, energy, and wit to keep up with it and the bright minds who will populate it.

 

[Lord_Steve]

why i oughtta

Is that really controversial? That sounds right on what the professors kept saying. Except for nonfiction, like Frederick Douglass.

PS. Conrad was not American English... ? I though he only learned English for writing purposes.

well, I meant controversial in the context of BiBunny requesting a thread on 19th century english literature. she mentioned she wanted to talk about victorians and romantics so i figured i would kick things off by giving her a chance to defend her choices! you know. lovingly.

also there are a surprising number of New Historicists and so forth who remain interested in and argue for the merit of 19th century english lit, even beyond the obvious stand-outs like Shelley and Byron. my grandfather, for one. it ain't like all we "english-doer-dudes" (official title) are in lockstep about the relative merits of the various literary movements.

also fair point about Conrad but his work is undoubtedly part of the english canon, just as I consider those novels Nabokov wrote in english to be part of the english canon.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

PS. Conrad was not American English... ? I though he only learned English for writing purposes.

You're sort of right. He learned English because he was sailing on ships from English ports and essentially living in England at the time, and needed some degree of fluency to continue living and working at a more than subsistence level. He didn't begin writing - or at least publishing - until 1895, the year after he retired as a merchant sailor.

 

[Lord_Steve]

I'm going to have to take exception to your initial statement regarding Brit/Am Lit of the 19th, even with your excision of Byron and Conrad from that assessment. Twain? Poe? (Henry) James? O.Henry? Dreiser? Wharton? Stephen Crane? And those come off the top of my head... there are more.

As to 19th c. Russian Lit, I kind of have to agree with both you and CP. Astonishing and bold in many ways, yet sadly prone to the perennial failing of most Russian writing: over-verbosity. They simply write everything to freakin' death! However, in the long run, Chekov, Turgenev, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are worth reading - and re-reading after a few months or years - because they provide so much insight into the psyche of a people.

Nice thread... I hope I have the time, energy, and wit to keep up with it and the bright minds who will populate it.

I'll give you Twain, but Poe? Dreary and shallow. James? We should remember that "influential and important" is not the same as "good". O. Henry? Iconic, but not interesting. Etc etc.

However, I did completely forget to give props to Melville. Mea culpa.

Remember, of course, that these are all my personal opinions and my tastes run either to Antiquity or towards the Moderns and Post-Moderns. As I admitted in BiBunny's thread, this isn't my field and I don't pretend to be an authority on the subject.

In other words, your mileage may vary.

 

[Cattypuss]

also fair point about Conrad but his work is undoubtedly part of the english canon, just as I consider those novels Nabokov wrote in english to be part of the english canon.

Hell, Nabokov's English writing puts to shame an awful lot of writing by people whose first language is English. The man understands the nuances of the language and knows how to use them to dazzling effect.

 

[YourCaptor]

why i oughtta



well, I meant controversial in the context of BiBunny requesting a thread on 19th century english literature. she mentioned she wanted to talk about victorians and romantics so i figured i would kick things off by giving her a chance to defend her choices! you know. lovingly.

also there are a surprising number of New Historicists and so forth who remain interested in and argue for the merit of 19th century english lit, even beyond the obvious stand-outs like Shelley and Byron. my grandfather, for one. it ain't like all we "english-doer-dudes" (official title) are in lockstep about the relative merits of the various literary movements.

also fair point about Conrad but his work is undoubtedly part of the english canon, just as I consider those novels Nabokov wrote in english to be part of the english canon.

I've never purposefully studied literature so I don't really know the organization and what not. My sister is really into it though so I hear the talk and end up with weird books. I must confess though, I don't have the patients at all for the Russian guys.

English stuff I like, Alice in Wonderland and The Origin of Species.

 

[Lord_Steve]

Hell, Nabokov's English writing puts to shame an awful lot of writing by people whose first language is English. The man understands the nuances of the language and knows how to use them to dazzling effect.

I am in complete agreement. Pale Fire and Lolita especially are true masterpieces.

I must confess though, I don't have the patients at all for the Russian guys.

like a doctor that lost his license/ i ain't got no patients

-method man

 

[Cattypuss]

Oh all right. SW has reminded me that I quite like Gogol. Not as much as I like Chekhov, but he's good all the same. Their Slavic arses shall have no need of KY Jelly.

 

[Lord_Steve]

Oh all right. SW has reminded me that I quite like Gogol. Not as much as I like Chekhov, but he's good all the same. Their Slavic arses shall have no need of KY Jelly.

I haven't read Gogol and I feel all sorts of bad about it. Chekhov is fantastic though.

 

[graceanne]

Louisa May Alcott

And just remember, there will be no cookies for anyone who annoys me.

 

[Keroin]

I like to read the Russians when I'm feeling too happy and positive about life.

 

[Cattypuss]

I haven't read Gogol and I feel all sorts of bad about it. Chekhov is fantastic though.

The odd thing about Gogol is that he sorta reminds me of PG Wodehouse at times (which is A Good Thing, given PGW would probably be my desert-island author). For me, Gogol is pretty funny in a very wry and surprising, 20th-century kind of way.

 

[BiBunny]

OMG, I love you all so much right now.

Ok, my opinions: The Romantics really did suck balls. I *can* talk about them....It's just never very nice what I say about them, LOL. Victorian poetry also makes my head hurt. I agree with everyone's assessment of Tennyson. No...just...no. Also, William Blake. He, in particular, makes me want to stab things. Byron? Yes, please.

Victorian novels on the other hand, I generally like. Charlotte and Anne Bronte are among my favorite writers, period, not just of this time period. And though it's heresy, I really hated the fuck out of Wuthering Heights, so Emily is totally not included in my Bronte sisters love.

I generally enjoy Dickens (some books more than others) and Wilkie Collins (yes, that's embarrassing to admit). I enjoyed Vanity Fair, even though it did go on for far too long, but I just can't get into any of Thackeray's other novels.

As for the Americans, I deplore the Transcendentalists. As in, I hate them so badly I once named a character in a story I was writing "Ralph Waldo" so that I could then have him brutally murdered in an extremely satisfying manner. Some of the Dark Romantics are nice, particularly Hawthorne. His short stories are better than his novels, though. The Scarlet Letter is still one of my favorite books, but it also suffers from that whole "going on far too long" problem that so many writers from that era fell prey to....

Also, I worship at the altar of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for all the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, though he would hate my saying so.

As for the Russians, they do love beating their dead horses, don't they? I've only so far read Anna Karenina, Ivanov, The Brothers Karamazov, Turgenov's Diary of a Superfluous Man short story collection, and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head. I'm slogging through War and Peace right now. It started off interesting, but now I'd just like to get to the end already, kthanxbi.

In other news, I would like to give my most profound thanks to all of you for indulging me this thread and especially to Lord Steve for making it for me.

Also, I would like to take a moment mourn my Kindle. I stepped on it last night like a dumbass and cracked the screen. Now it doesn't work. (I might've cried.) Thank God chaoticDeviance is here and is letting me borrow hers, and thank God for the book-lending feature on Kindle, or I might never get to read any more of my Russians. *Sob*

Feel free to dissect any of my choices, for I will defend them to the death! Or until I get bored. Whichever comes first. I also wanna talk about everyone else's choices, but I'm starving, so I shall first feed my fat self and then return for more mental masturbation.

 

[Dianthus]

I'm going to have to take exception to your initial statement regarding Brit/Am Lit of the 19th, even with your excision of Byron and Conrad from that assessment. Twain? Poe? (Henry) James? O.Henry? Dreiser? Wharton? Stephen Crane? And those come off the top of my head... there are more.

As to 19th c. Russian Lit, I kind of have to agree with both you and CP. Astonishing and bold in many ways, yet sadly prone to the perennial failing of most Russian writing: over-verbosity. They simply write everything to freakin' death! However, in the long run, Chekov, Turgenev, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are worth reading - and re-reading after a few months or years - because they provide so much insight into the psyche of a people.

Nice thread... I hope I have the time, energy, and wit to keep up with it and the bright minds who will populate it.

Yes. Yes!

Mark Twain is all sorts of goodness, from homespun to satire to fantasy.

O. Henry is sweet and gentle. James is clear. Even if I don't always like the subject matter, the prose is laudable.

Louisa May Alcott

And just remember, there will be no cookies for anyone who annoys me.

She wrote vivid characters.

And, umm, Jane Austen.

 

[YourCaptor]

I'm going to have to take exception to your initial statement regarding Brit/Am Lit of the 19th, even with your excision of Byron and Conrad from that assessment. Twain? Poe? (Henry) James? O.Henry? Dreiser? Wharton? Stephen Crane? And those come off the top of my head... there are more.

As to 19th c. Russian Lit, I kind of have to agree with both you and CP. Astonishing and bold in many ways, yet sadly prone to the perennial failing of most Russian writing: over-verbosity. They simply write everything to freakin' death! However, in the long run, Chekov, Turgenev, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are worth reading - and re-reading after a few months or years - because they provide so much insight into the psyche of a people.

Nice thread... I hope I have the time, energy, and wit to keep up with it and the bright minds who will populate it.

Dostoevskys notes from the underground was LOL funny.

 

[graceanne]

OMG, I love you all so much right now.

Ok, my opinions: The Romantics really did suck balls. I *can* talk about them....It's just never very nice what I say about them, LOL. Victorian poetry also makes my head hurt. I agree with everyone's assessment of Tennyson. No...just...no. Also, William Blake. He, in particular, makes me want to stab things. Byron? Yes, please.

I am not so big victorian poetry, although I've read my share cause my grandma loves them. Tennyson wrote some stuff I liked, but overall I found him to be massively boring. My favorite poet is Emily Dickenson, who just happens to be from that time period and was told, at the time, that she couldn't write poetry by people who liked the poetry of the time period.

Morons.

Victorian novels on the other hand, I generally like. Charlotte and Anne Bronte are among my favorite writers, period, not just of this time period. And though it's heresy, I really hated the fuck out of Wuthering Heights, so Emily is totally not included in my Bronte sisters love.

I like Charlotte Bronte, but couldn't stand Wuthering Heights, either. I tried, I really did, because my cousins and my aunt love Wuthering Heights, but I could not get into it.

I generally enjoy Dickens (some books more than others) and Wilkie Collins (yes, that's embarrassing to admit). I enjoyed Vanity Fair, even though it did go on for far too long, but I just can't get into any of Thackeray's other novels.

Dickens is okay, and I massively approve of the social changes that were made because of some of his books.

As for the Americans, I deplore the Transcendentalists. As in, I hate them so badly I once named a character in a story I was writing "Ralph Waldo" so that I could then have him brutally murdered in an extremely satisfying manner. Some of the Dark Romantics are nice, particularly Hawthorne. His short stories are better than his novels, though. The Scarlet Letter is still one of my favorite books, but it also suffers from that whole "going on far too long" problem that so many writers from that era fell prey to....

Yes. Yes!

Mark Twain is all sorts of goodness, from homespun to satire to fantasy.

I love to hear Mark Twain read out loud and hate to read him. I think it goes back to having a second grade teacher (I think it was second grade) make me read Tom Sawyer, and I was so massively bored, that whenever I read Mark Twain it's monotonous. When my mom reads him, outloud, she has me in stitches. Go figure.

O. Henry is sweet and gentle. James is clear. Even if I don't always like the subject matter, the prose is laudable.



She wrote vivid characters.

And, umm, Jane Austen.

Duh! Silly me. I've always struggled to get into Jane Austen, cause she tends to go on and on, and you have to skip to get to the point, but the last time I read anything of hers I was a teenager. Recently I was reading something of hers out loud to my grandma, and thought she was funny, so I've been meaning to try to read her again.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

OMG, I love you all so much right now.

Ok, my opinions: The Romantics really did suck balls. I *can* talk about them....It's just never very nice what I say about them, LOL. Victorian poetry also makes my head hurt. I agree with everyone's assessment of Tennyson. No...just...no. Also, William Blake. He, in particular, makes me want to stab things. Byron? Yes, please.

Yeah, most of the Romantic and Victorian poets spent way too much time sniffing the lotus blossoms, and ended up writing flowery love poems to Grecian funeral urns and shit. Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrringggggg... Byron's cool. I hate to burst your bubble, Bunz, but Blake simply rocks. He was so dark, so filled with stabby goodness. If he had been born as a Baby Boomer, he would never have let Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, et al, get in the business - he'd have monopolized *all* the slasher franchises! And besides... he had a sense of humor to leaven the darkness just enough.

Victorian novels on the other hand, I generally like. Charlotte and Anne Bronte are among my favorite writers, period, not just of this time period. And though it's heresy, I really hated the fuck out of Wuthering Heights, so Emily is totally not included in my Bronte sisters love.

I generally enjoy Dickens (some books more than others) and Wilkie Collins (yes, that's embarrassing to admit). I enjoyed Vanity Fair, even though it did go on for far too long, but I just can't get into any of Thackeray's other novels.

Charlotte, yes. Anne, Emily, no. Sorry about Anne... just something in her tone I could never relate to.

As for the Americans, I deplore the Transcendentalists. As in, I hate them so badly I once named a character in a story I was writing "Ralph Waldo" so that I could then have him brutally murdered in an extremely satisfying manner. Some of the Dark Romantics are nice, particularly Hawthorne. His short stories are better than his novels, though. The Scarlet Letter is still one of my favorite books, but it also suffers from that whole "going on far too long" problem that so many writers from that era fell prey to....

LMAO on your RW victim. Kudos! Yeah, Hawthorne is better in shorter doses, because the longer ones (*koff*TSL*koff*) drag on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on... :blink: Oh, sorry. Got a bit Russian there, did I? :blink:

Also, I worship at the altar of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for all the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, though he would hate my saying so.

The Holmes stories/books are the *only* Doyle I ever really liked, and for them alone, he will ever have a place in my heart and in the Authors' Hall of Fame.

As for the Russians, they do love beating their dead horses, don't they? I've only so far read Anna Karenina, Ivanov, The Brothers Karamazov, Turgenov's Diary of a Superfluous Man short story collection, and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head. I'm slogging through War and Peace right now. It started off interesting, but now I'd just like to get to the end already, kthanxbi.

W&P could be shortened by 30 percent and lose not a bit of its necessary information, while gaining at least 20 percent in readability and enjoyability, at least in my unlettered estimation. I sometimes think Ayn Rand modeled her writing style for Atlas Shrugged after W&P.

In other news, I would like to give my most profound thanks to all of you for indulging me this thread and especially to Lord Steve for making it for me.

Indulging you? Not the least bit, at least on my part! This is fun!

Also, I would like to take a moment mourn my Kindle. I stepped on it last night like a dumbass and cracked the screen. Now it doesn't work. (I might've cried.) Thank God chaoticDeviance is here and is letting me borrow hers, and thank God for the book-lending feature on Kindle, or I might never get to read any more of my Russians. *Sob*

Feel free to dissect any of my choices, for I will defend them to the death! Or until I get bored. Whichever comes first. I also wanna talk about everyone else's choices, but I'm starving, so I shall first feed my fat self and then return for more mental masturbation.

:: Lights a candle for Bunny's poor Kindle ::

 

[Lord_Steve]

I sometimes think Ayn Rand modeled her writing style for Atlas Shrugged after W&P.

I sometimes think Ayn Rand modeled her writing style for Atlas Shrugged after the festering pool of babyshit from whose depths she ascended like Venus on a half-shell.

uh, not to derail or anything. I never made it through W+P myself but Crime and Punishment is a favorite. Tolstoy is maybe a better humanist but Dostoyevsky knows how to hit you where it hurts.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

I sometimes think Ayn Rand modeled her writing style for Atlas Shrugged after the festering pool of babyshit from whose depths she ascended like Venus on a half-shell.

uh, not to derail or anything. I never made it through W+P myself but Crime and Punishment is a favorite. Tolstoy is maybe a better humanist but Dostoyevsky knows how to hit you where it hurts.

I think I probably should head for bed. I kinda freaked out when I read that you thought Tolstoy was the better humorist.

 

[Lord_Steve]

I think I probably should head for bed. I kinda freaked out when I read that you thought Tolstoy was the better humorist.

obviously. jumping in front of a train is so much funnier than killing an old lady with an axe.

 

[Cattypuss]

Blake simply rocks.

With you 100% on that.