(Part 2) Best british & irish literary criticism books according to redditors
We found 65 Reddit comments discussing the best british & irish literary criticism books. We ranked the 41 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Good question. At the time it was written it was heavily criticized for being wicked and an attack on morality. Which is interesting because not too much happens throughout the story that could be considered outright wicked or amoral and the heart of the story is basically a morality tale.
For a really interesting look at the story find a book titled "Is Heathcliff A Murderer?" http://www.amazon.com/Is-Heathcliff-Murderer-Nineteenth-Century-Classics/dp/019282516X.
The writer examines several stories and considers what it is that makes them interesting or what has been left unsaid that feeds the narrative. Great stuff. TPODG is examined in one of the chapters and the reasons the author finds to support his take on why the story has the effect it does/did is really interesting.
So... I'd say yes, I believe TPODG is indeed a horror story, though certainly not what you'd expect, and it's definitely not a pulp style horror like 'Murders In The Rue Morgue' or a continual mood piece like 'Mask of the Red Death'... It's a wierd little tale, slowly building to the final moment of fantastic horror, which is lovely.
As for the films, I haven't seen any of them so I can't comment on that part.
The two resources already mentioned, (Crystal and Millward), are both too vague to help I think. I'm not sure about the Crystal one, but the Millward treats Old English as a uniform standard (that's not a criticism of the book).
What you want is something like Campbell's Old English Grammar. There is a detailed description of the various sound changes that occurred just prior to and during Old English, and in the grammar section, after recording the West Saxon norms, it gives the dialectal alternatives as well as chronological changes.
The book is old, but still the standard. More recent and excellent are this one and this one, but it's been a few years since I've read through them so I can't give more details.
Other than those, much of what you are asking for is found scattered through various books and articles, but they are all for specialists (as are the ones I give above), so they might be tough to get through depending on your knowledge of the field.
It’s a great little book, Mark Atherton is a brilliant scholar of Old English (and his work on Tolkien is equally good, if you’re a fan). It starts very easy, then works up through real texts and cultural context. The same is true of Hough & Corbett’s Beginning Old English– lots of original sections of prose and poetry, starting with basics and building enjoyment alongside the language.
If you want something that’s more academic from the start, I’d recommend Peter Baker’s Introduction, which contains a good grounding in grammar more generally, or the more linguistics-based one by the late Richard Hogg. The best overall textbook is undeniably Mitchell & Robinson’s Guide – but it is dense and (despite what the authors claim) not easy to use in independent study. Their sections on syntax are vast and comprehensive, however, so that might be what you’re looking for.
The Luddites are the most famous example I can think of off the top of my head. Terribly misunderstood, they were often highly skilled workers whose abilities were being replaced by machines. "Luddite" now means someone backwards and resistant to change, but the original Luddites had valid economic reasons for their machine-breaking.
Great book on that that assembles a lot of their own original statements: https://www.amazon.com/Writings-Luddites-Kevin-Binfield/dp/1421416964
The Penguin version is not bad by any means and Declan Kiberd's introduction is excellent as well (I highly recommend his book Ulysses and Us).
But the best edition by far is the Oxford World's Classics edition. Johnson's intro and annotations are brilliant.
If you're ordering it from the US it might be easier to get it from the Book Depository
Hello. A lot of people are telling you to "read." If that seems like a no-brainer, here are some suggestions as to what you might want to read. if you're really really dedicated, you can self-study into a college-like education (based on my experience as a current student of English).
I hope that helps. I think that's as solid and specific advice as I can give. Although, I didn't list any specific works. If you have any questions or would like suggestions, please ask.
Maybe try:
Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades & Horrible Blunders by Josephine Ross and Henrietta Webb
What might work (depending on the size, if it works for you) is an AP Literature study guide. Some are available on Kindles, etc, so that might be an even better choice (the paperwhite lasts 30 days without charging). Here's an example. The Praxis (I assume 5038?) encompasses more than just literature - there are a lot of pedagogy and technique questions, too, but I found a lot of them to be common sense. Actually, most of the questions on there are common sense, if you're able to narrow down some of the answers. It's by no means a comprehensive exam.
(Though I do remember like 6 questions on Ozymandias from when I took the test last year...:) )
Hope that helps!
These are 13 short prose pieces written around the same time as Godot. The best place to find them is probably in The Complete Short Prose which is often carried by Borders. Here's a recording of Text 8 to give you a taste. If you like the style, his "Trilogy" is in the same vein.
This is a very good book, the movie hardly does it justice. The main idea is historiography.
Ah...wait, might this be "Studies in Words"?
Positive: I just got a batch of books from my museum's annual book sale! Relevant to here are: The Stolen Prince, Hugh Barnes; Women in an Industrializing Society: England 1750-1880, Jane Rendall (1990); Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850, Dianne Dugaw (1989); To Ornament Their Minds: Sara Pierce's Litchfield Female Academy 1792-1833, Litchfield Historical Society (1993); Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home, 1760-1860, Jane C. Nylander (1993); and Women's Life & Work in the Southern Colonies, Julia Cherry Spruill (1938, but reprinted in 1977 and it seems to be good scholarship). Good deals on a few of those! It would be more handy to have them as ebooks but at 50c-$1, you can't beat the price. I fully intend to read them soon but read Rachel Dratch's memoir first and am now on the complete short stories of Dorothy Parker. It was a good sale.
Negative: It's an awful sale. We got an insane number of books donated this year and I was run ragged setting it all up with only a couple of volunteers, only one able to really do anything physical. Very few books have sold, and we're going to be left with a still-insane number to get rid of. All the local libraries are having their sales this weekend so nobody wants the remainder. What are we going to do??
If you want to just know buzzwords to throw around, spend a bunch of time clicking around on Wikipedia, and watch stuff like Crash Course on YouTube. It's easy to absorb, and you'll learn stuff, even if it's biased, but at least you'll be learning.
If you want to become SMARTER, one of my biggest pieces of advice is to either carry a notebook with you, or find a good note taking app you like on your phone. When someone makes a statement you don't understand, write it down and parse it up.
So for instance, write down "Social Democracy", and write down "The New Deal", and go look them up on simple.wikipedia.com (Put's all of it in simplest language possible), it's a great starting point for learning about any topic, and provides you a jumping board to look more deeply into it.
If you are really curious about starting an education, and you absolutely aren't a reader, some good books to start on are probably:
"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe
"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
"Philosophy 101" by Paul Kleinman, in fact the ____ 101 books are all pretty good "starter" books for people that want an overview of a topic they are unfamiliar with.
"The World's Religions" by Huston Smith
"An Incomplete Education" by Judy Jones and Will Wilson
Those are all good jumping off points, but great books that I think everyone should read... "A History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, "Western Canon" by Harold Bloom, "Education For Freedom" by Robert Hutchins, The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Major Authors, The Bible.
Read anything you find critically, don't just swallow what someone else says, read into it and find out what their sources were, otherwise you'll find yourself quoting from Howard Zinn verbatim and thinking you're clever and original when you're just an asshole.
The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had a great impact on how I see the world and my life.
Flesh in the Age of Reason by Roy Porter. A great overview of the evolution of philosophy since the beginning of the Enlightenment. A surprisingly engaging, easy read.
And, I can't believe no one has said this yet - How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's a classic for a reason, and nowhere near as Machiavellian as it sounds :P
If what you are looking for is a general survey, then what quite a few posters online seem to recommend is [Michael Alexander's History of English Literature] (http://www.amazon.com/History-English-Literature-Palgrave-Foundations/dp/023036831X). While I have not personally read it, online reviews seem to deem it a succinct, crisply-written and reasonably updated text.
However, if you want a comprehensive guide to English Literature along with a sound discussion of the historical and cultural contexts of English society and how literature and social life evolved in England, I'd urge you to look at [Adams's The Land and Literature of England: A Historical Account] (http://www.amazon.com/Land-Literature-England-Historical-Account/dp/0393303438) or alternatively, [Poplawski's English Literature in Context] (http://www.amazon.com/English-Literature-Context-Paul-Poplawski/dp/0521839920).
Go through their table of contents and a few introductory pages. Get a cursory feel for the mode of narration and pick whatever you deem fit for your needs.
There are a few I can recall that may allow for some variety to your presentation, and, hopefully, new sources of information. The Sound and the Fury is the greatest example, in my opinion, of incest in literature, so you're on the right track.
Also, this may help: Family Likeness: Sex, Marriage, and Incest from Jane Austen to Virginia Woolf It's a bit pricey, but could prove helpful. Excerpts may be available somewhere online.
There is a third edition out now. I personally have the second edition as well, but this is the link to the most up to date version.
He wrote in English so pick based on your desire for hardcover, paperback, etc.
I like this one just because it's part of the collected works.
There really isn't a papertrail for Marlowe - no library, no manuscripts (produce one and I will swoon) and no extant letters. This is not really all that uncommon - the loss of material is one of the biggest impediments to study, and it is hardly surprising considering the length of time which has elapsed. It is certainly not suspicious.
De Vere has far more surviving material by virtue of being an aristocrat, not by virtue of having written Shakespeare's work (things are much more easily kept when you have a large ancestral home).
As for pronunciation - David Crystal has done some really quite interesting work on 'restoring' Shakespeare's accent to his work, I thoroughly recommend you take a look.
I don't find anonymity to be particularly surprising for this period - authorship is not usually the first concern of the early modern reader, unless the author had become known 'in real life' so to speak. Broad examination of frontispieces to printed plays in this period suggests that information like the acting company or theatre where the play was performed took precedence over the author's name in many cases. For example, the first edition of Marlowe's Tamburlaine has no author identified. Especially considering that it is unlikely that the writer themselves who brought the work to print, anonymity is almost expected.
Also: travel writing was totally a thing in early modern England.
>Luther rarely encountered Jews during his life, but his attitudes reflected a theological and cultural tradition which saw Jews as a rejected people guilty of the murder of Christ, and he lived within a local community that had expelled Jews some ninety years earlier. He considered the Jews blasphemers and liars because they rejected the divinity of Jesus, whereas Christians believed Jesus was the Messiah.
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>Luther argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people": he referred to them with violent, vile language. Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "poisonous envenomed worms" would be forced into labour or expelled "for all time". In Robert Michael's view, Luther's words "We are at fault in not slaying them" amounted to a sanction for murder. Luther's "recommendations" for how to treat the Jews was a clear reference to the "sharp mercy" of Deuteronomy 13, the punishments prescribed by Moses for those who led others to "false gods".
Source: Martin Luther
[Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England](
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199297053?ie=UTF8&tag=bgnrddt-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0199297053) by Anthony Julius also
discusses Luther's anti-semitism.
>The belief in a Jewish conspiracy was also an aspect of Luther's
hostility to the Jews; they perpetrated their perfidies under a mantle
of secrecy, he was convinced.
Pages 54-55
>Esther was not much admired in the Christian tradition, and the
commemorative Jewish festival of Purim, even less so. Luther commented
that the Jews 'love the book of Esther, which so well fits their
bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous greed and hope'.
Page 72
Lord Byron:
There are notable examples of the Byronic hero in the verse tale The Giaour, also notable for one of the first descriptions of vampirism in English literature, and the drama Manfred. Beppo is a short humorous later work that in tone and form could be considered a prototype for his masterpiece Don Juan. I also recommend the end of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, starting from Canto IV's stanza CLXXV, which is some of his best poetry.
As for a specific physical book, I like this volume because it has his complete works in a compact form, with Byron's original footnotes. The big drawback is that uses two column formatting and small print to cram everything in. The Oxford World's Classics volume Lord Byron: The Major Works looks like a good selection, that includes all the pieces I recommended, and it will be more readable because it uses one column and larger print.