These are not in order of preference and I can't find my Norton's since the majority of my life is packed away in boxes. And I don't remember what I put in which ones, so finding any one item is hopeless.
Christopher Marlowe (plays)
"Hero and Leander" was enough to make me want to know more of his writing other than that he wasn't as good as Shakespeare which is all I knew previously.
Robert Browning
I think I like everything about him: philosophy, style, subject matter, his life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
My second favorite drunk 20th century American. But I have only read two of his novels and would like to read the rest of him.
Ted Hughes
Somehow I find him more accessible than Sylvia. (The "Daffodils" poem was amazing.) Which doesn't fit with my whole American/British idea, but that's ok. I like contradicting myself.
Dorthy Wordsworth (journals)
Interesting view of the Romantic movement, and I only got to read a few paragraphs for class.
Christiana Rossetti
A strong woman who wasn't shrill and hyper-feminist angry. Very intriguing. (BTW, I'm on an anti-feminist kick. Does that get me out of the level of hell I got put into on the white board diagram? Or do I get stay down there with Travis for being anti-feminist?)
Yeats
Even though it was already said. How could one not?
Henry James
I've yet to read a novel, only short stories. I like his theory, now to see if I like his practice.
Robert Penn Warren
I missed the mass reading of All the King's Men, but the poem I recited for class ("After the Dinner Party") is my current favorite for the 20th century.
Robert Hayden
I know I did a paper on him, but I liked "Those Winter Sundays" from Poetry class. Interesting use of form.
---------APPENDIX 1-----------
My Cheating Appendix
or
The people I really like and have already talked about enough that I didn't want to use up my top ten on them but still intend to read more of.
John Donne (thank you, Lord Peter)
Christopher Smart (thank you to Hirsch)
Shakespeare (as in the remaining plays... actually I'd like to make it a goal to see them all)
Robert Frost
Hemingway (I'm still as devoted, and I don't think I agree with anything substantial that he ever says, and I think he's lying the whole time, and really he has an awful view of women, and I wish I could write like that. ...sigh...)
Hopkins
----------APPENDIX 2----------
Currently reading: James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time. And last night I read the whole of Ella Enchanted in one sitting. I guess I can never be entirely intellectual, but it was fun and I have nowhere to be today. And there is nothing very wrong with children's books at 21.
(Funny note: I don't have to decide whether a proper name ending in an S gets another S when it's possessive. Apparently the male members of the blue room are in conflict on this point.)
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2 comments:
We all know that it is arbitray anyway. My use of the single "S" is for purely aesthetic reasons. Two "S"s look silly.
Em, fantastic choices! You have enriched my life today. If you are on a Hughes kick, try his work of children's poems called The Iron Wolf (the one I mentioned in my last post) ... each poem is about a single animal. Some are even profound ;-)
Thanks for reminding me about Dorothy Wordsworth; she was interesting indeed.
I didn't realize you all like Yeats so much. Maybe I should try to accept my destiny (as announced by my Pychonesque Floridian roomfellow) and reincarnate myself as the Yeats he says I am. Ha!
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