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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 19, 2014 20:22:05 GMT -5
I'm reading Gulliver's Travels. I read quite a bit of it years ago when I had a Norton English Lit anthology that I found in the hallway in my old apartment building. But it didn't have the whole thing in the anthology and I've always wanted to read all of it.
I don't believe I've ever read any Washington Irving, so I might put that on the list as something to consider to read this year. (I'm also considering Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry VIII and Coriolanus. And I was also reading all the works of the Bronte sisters until I got sidetracked. I read Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey, Jane Eyre and The Professor. All I have left is Shirley and Villette. Might get back to that project this year.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2014 0:37:37 GMT -5
Starting in on some of the earliest works of Poe, which are poems. I read the first, and it is essentially his earliest published work, coming in 1827, but it is amazing prescient of the course his life and work would take. To wit...
The versions I am reading are from The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe published in 1983. The first stanza is sometime omitted in other versions of the poem I have in other collections.
Dark visions, lost joy, broken-hearted, no dream, no nightmare but the ruin that much of his life took, and the dark path he took pursuing the truth of his vision, his art. Pretty much a synopsis of he life and career written just as he was embarking on that career.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2014 0:45:32 GMT -5
By the by, I will be keeping a running tally of what I am reading and what I have read in the first post of this thread...
-M
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 20, 2014 8:17:58 GMT -5
FYI, although Irving did write a biography of George Washington, it was an earlier bio by Parson Weems that introduced the cherry tree myth, as well as the "throwing the dollar across the Potomac" story, not Irving's. He has his faults as a historian (like the Columbus stuff) but this isn't one of them.
Cei-U!
I point the finger!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2014 15:25:28 GMT -5
Irving's main concern as a historian seems to have been to give the new nation a body of myth and folklore that could ground like the myths and folklore of the Old World did for the European powers. Whether he created or discovered those types of stories was all the same to him, but he did codify a lot of them and became the standard reference turned to by creators of texts and curriculum for American school children. I wouldn't be surprised to find most of the stories Irving related had their roots elsewhere.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2014 0:15:27 GMT -5
SO read The Elves by Ludwig Tieck. It was originally written in 1812, but not translated into English until 1827/1828 by Thomas Carlyle. The version I have was collected in an anthology called Tales before Tolkien, which is a collection of fantasy tales that predate Tolkien and he may/may not have been familiar with, but many explore tropes Tolkien discussed on his essay on fairy stories.
The Elves itself was a pretty standard story of faerie, anyone familiar with Tam Lin or Thomas the Rhymer would have recognized. A young peasant girl wanders into a forest, ends up in the fey realm, eats, spends a night there and returns to find seven years had passed, and then has trouble adjusting to the mortal realm. The twist here is when she eventually marries, she has a daughter who also befriends the fey folk and examines the repercussions of that. That said, it is still pretty standard 19th century fare for stories of its type, which is why it may be collected so often since it is so prototypical of the genre and hits all the standard beats needed to see the blueprint for those types of stories. Sadly it is more interesting as a blueprint than as a story itself as none of the characters or conflicts were particularly well-developed by Tieck, or if they were, such was lost in the translation by Carlyle.
-M
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Post by berkley on Jul 22, 2014 16:56:29 GMT -5
I think that fairy stories, including literary creations like Tieck's The Elves, aren't the place to look for character development. The characters are usually just brief sketches, enough to let the reader know what kind of role they play in the scheme of the story.
I read this a couple years ago and was impressed by its deadpan treatment of such strange goings-on, and also by the sense of fatedness that surrounds Elfrida, the daughter of the first woman, Mary, who had spent seven years with the elves. One passage in particular stood out to me: the girl's mother and grandmother are discussing her, concerned about how she prefers to spend her time alone rather than playing with other children and how strangely intelligent she is for her young years, and the grandmother says, "The child is beautiful beyond nature and will never find its proper place in this world."
I found all that quite chilling, and still do as I type out the words now. I don't think it would have been nearly as impressive if Tieck had expanded on these brief lines and spent a couple of pages developing the idea. Its very brevity and straightforwardness are what make it so effective, amd this I think is true of most of the best fairy tales, traditional or literary.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 22, 2014 17:04:04 GMT -5
I think that fairy stories, including literary creations like Tieck's The Elves, aren't the place to look for character development. The characters are usually just brief sketches, enough to let the reader know what kind of role they play in the scheme of the story. I read this a couple years ago and was impressed by its deadpan treatment of such strange goings-on, and also by the sense of fatedness that surrounds Elfrida, the daughter of the first woman, Mary, who had spent seven years with the elves. One passage in particular stood out to me: the girl's mother and grandmother are discussing her, concerned about how she prefers to spend her time alone rather than playing with other children and how strangely intelligent she is for her young years, and the grandmother says, "The child is beautiful beyond nature and will never find its proper place in this world." I found all that quite chilling, and still do as I type out the words now. I don't think it would have been nearly as impressive if Tieck had expanded on these brief lines and spent a couple of pages developing the idea. Its very brevity and straightforwardness are what make it so effective, amd this I think is true of most of the best fairy tales, traditional or literary. Well put. Pulling apart fairy tales and myths like that is akin to dissecting a butterfly to see how it works and then expecting to be able to put it back together to watch it fly away. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2014 22:20:31 GMT -5
I think I have just been spoiled by modern approaches to fairy stories, probably typified in comics by Neil Gaiman's handling of the Faerie in things like Stardust and in Sandman, and a lot of the Charles Vess adaptations of folk songs in the Books of Ballads and Sagas. There's a whole sub-genre of modern fantasy that uses these type of fairy stories that are telling vast, rich and deep character dramas. I also look at stuff that is direct descendants of this type of story, the Lord Dunsanys (things like King of Elfland's Daughter) and Tolikiens (some of the early Silmarillion tales) of the world who still manage to evoke the sense of wonder in a straightforward manner like Tieck but still provide a richer tapestry of characters and places while doing so. Perhaps I am am jaded a bit, Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer are two of my favorite folk tales and I have read so many different versions of them that I have rather different expectations of fairy stories than an audience in the early 19th century did.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2014 1:39:59 GMT -5
So have now read the bulk of Poe's earliest poems comprising the two volumes he self-published in 1827 and 1829 (at age 18 and 20). The first volume was published anonymously as being by " A Bostonian" and it wasn't until after these two volumes were published (and failed military career at West Point) that Poe decided to devote himself to writing.
Some of the poems are longer works, not quite narrative in the epic poem mold, but focused on classical themes and mythical or historical accounts (Al Aaraaf and Tamerlane foremost among these), some are laments about lost loves or unattainable beauties (not surprising for an 18 year old writing poetry even then), but some begin to touch on the themes and ideas that would characterize Poe's more well known stories and poems form later in his career.
I have one more early poetry collection to get through (published in 1831 after he ended his enlistment in the army early but before he went to West Point) that was again self-published but which he collected donations form his fellow soldiers to finance the publishing (and to whom he dedicated the volume) before I get the beginning of his prose work, which I am looking forward to. I read a lot of Poe in high school for a Psychology in Literature class and had a second flirtation with his oeuvre between undergrad and grad school , but aside from the Corben adaptations from Dark Horse I haven't read much Poe in a long time.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2014 16:36:31 GMT -5
Finished the earliest poems of Poe and moved on into the early tales, reading his first published short story from January of 1832, Metzengerstein: A Tale in the Imitation of the German. A lot of classic Poe elements, particularly a long rivalry with a grudge and a descent into madness characterize this tale.
An adolescent of a noble family inherits his father's position and engages in three days of debauchery that culminate in the stables of a rival family being set ablaze. As he watches the blaze he sees ad becomes obsessed with a demonic horse in a tapestry depicting an early conflict between the two families and the when he looks away the horse disappears from the tapestry and his servants bring word they have found a wild horse on the estate. It is the spitting image of the horse on the tapestry and the young baron becomes obsessed with riding and trying to break the horse to the detriment of all other activities, until one night the horse takes him on a wild ride and as it departs the chateau of the family burns to the ground and the horse returns with a broken body in tow.
Not the best story of Poe's I've read, but it is apparent quite early on his penchant for the macabre is well in place and his bent towards the psychological aspects of horror is the focus even when more supernatural elements are present.
-M
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Post by berkley on Jul 28, 2014 1:49:32 GMT -5
I'm reading Gulliver's Travels. I read quite a bit of it years ago when I had a Norton English Lit anthology that I found in the hallway in my old apartment building. But it didn't have the whole thing in the anthology and I've always wanted to read all of it. I don't believe I've ever read any Washington Irving, so I might put that on the list as something to consider to read this year. (I'm also considering Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry VIII and Coriolanus. And I was also reading all the works of the Bronte sisters until I got sidetracked. I read Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Agnes Grey, Jane Eyre and The Professor. All I have left is Shirley and Villette. Might get back to that project this year.) How do you like Gulliver's Travels? Swift is one of my favourite writers - the biting wit and satire have rarely been equalled. The Battle of the Books and Tale of a Tub are worth reading as well, if you like his style. There's something about 18th century English prose that rubs me the right way, something about the rhythm and the way they turn their phrases. I read a lot of the Brontës' stuff a year or two ago - all the novels, except for Agnes Grey and The Professor, plus a collection of the juvenilia (mostly Charlotte's and Bramwell's, since almost all of Anne's and Emily's was lost). The three big novels - I rate Anne's Tenant of Wildfell Hall up there with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights - are amongst the most powerful reading experiences I've ever had, and I found both Shirley and Villette intensely involving - to the point where perhaps I should talk about a Big Five rather than a Big Three. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on them - you don't see those two talked about as much as JE, unfairly, I think. There are scenes in all these books that will live in my brain forever. BTW, I have to recommend reading Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë after you've finished the last two novels. It's been superceded by more recent bios enjoying the advantage of all the research of the subsequent 150 years, but Gaskell was a first-rate writer and novelist herself who knew Charlotte personally and was able to speak or correspond with some of the closest friends of her childhood. It's one of the most memorable books I've read the last few years. |
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Post by berkley on Jul 28, 2014 2:07:07 GMT -5
Finished the earliest poems of Poe and moved on into the early tales, reading his first published short story from January of 1832, Metzengerstein: A Tale in the Imitation of the German. A lot of classic Poe elements, particularly a long rivalry with a grudge and a descent into madness characterize this tale. An adolescent of a noble family inherits his father's position and engages in three days of debauchery that culminate in the stables of a rival family being set ablaze. As he watches the blaze he sees ad becomes obsessed with a demonic horse in a tapestry depicting an early conflict between the two families and the when he looks away the horse disappears from the tapestry and his servants bring word they have found a wild horse on the estate. It is the spitting image of the horse on the tapestry and the young baron becomes obsessed with riding and trying to break the horse to the detriment of all other activities, until one night the horse takes him on a wild ride and as it departs the chateau of the family burns to the ground and the horse returns with a broken body in tow. Not the best story of Poe's I've read, but it is apparent quite early on his penchant for the macabre is well in place and his bent towards the psychological aspects of horror is the focus even when more supernatural elements are present. -M I have a fondness for this story, for some reason, even though I agree that it isn't one of Poe's very best. It was adapted in the European Poe anthology-film Spirits of the Dead (Histoires Extraordinares), which made an impression on me when I saw it on tv as a kid, can't remember now whether I had read the story before then or not. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2014 2:10:37 GMT -5
I just read Loss of Breath, which is hysterically funny, bordering on slapstick. I never thought reading Poe would put me in mind of Peter Sellers playing Inspector Clousseau, but a slightly more corpulent Sellers is how I pictured the poor soul of a protagonist in this story, bumbling his way from mishap to mishap before he can catch his breath. Still, lots of forerunners to classic Poe themes and imagery herein.
-M
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Post by berkley on Jul 28, 2014 22:11:26 GMT -5
Pulling apart fairy tales and myths like that is akin to dissecting a butterfly to see how it works and then expecting to be able to put it back together to watch it fly away. There's a bit near the beginning of Egil's Saga that often comes to mind when I think about the distinction between literary fiction and some kinds of traditional narratives. The story begins with an account of Egil's ancestors, and after giving a short description of Ulf the Fearless, aka Kveld-Ulf (i.e. Night Wolf), it says "His companion [on his Viking raids and expeditions] was Kari from Berle, a man of high birth who had the strength and courage to perform great deeds. Kari was a berserk." And then it goes on to describe how they settled down on their separate farms after giving up the Viking raids and how their children intermarried, etc, etc. I'm pretty sure that if this part of the story was told in a modern literary fiction, the writer would feel called upon to expand that succinct description of Kari into a more detailed account of how fearsome he was in battle, perhaps recounting a few anecdotes about how he did this and that on various Viking raids, and so on, because that<s what would be expected by the audience for contemporary fantasy fiction - and I don't deny that that kind of thing can provide a certain sort of satisfaction to the reader. But by doing all that, you'd lose what to me is the extremely powerful effect of making that brief, simple, almost affectless statement: "Kari was a berserk.", and then just moving on to other things. The sagas are full of moments like that - in fact, there's another one in the very next paragraph about Kveld-Ulf - and I don't think I've ever come across a modern writer who's managed to reproduce the impression left by them. The one exception I can think of is a short story by Frank Norris called Grettir at Thorhall-stead, and that's only because Norris had the sense to simply recount the corresponding episode from Grettir's Saga with almost no changes. In general, I agree that one shouldn't look for the same kind of psychological analysis of individual characters in legends, myths, and folk tales that you'd find in literary fiction (partly because in many of those stories the characters represent the various drives or concepts that you might analyse an individual human psyche into). |
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