Like many of you, I'm a literature freak, and I'm dedicating this board to classical tales that have revolutionized the world.

War of the Worlds

White Fang

The Call of the Wild

Sherlock Holmes

And that's just to name a few. Yeah, what do ya think? Okay, feel free to make your own posts here.

K, later!

But I still vote for Eragon/Eldest!!!

(And Scrat for president!)

Later!

My year 6 reading professor was big on latin roots.

Treasure Island (I'm not quite done yet)

Nicholas Nickelby

Heidi

The Secret Garden

Sherlock Holmes (of course)

Charlotte's Web (can't wait for the movie!)

Anne of Green Gables

Edgar Allan Poe (esp. "The Black Cat" and "The Masque of the Red Death")

Arthurian legends

The Great Gatsby

The Scarlet Letter

I liked the book Farinheit 451. That is classed as classic, no? And Huck Finn, and a number of other Twain books.

My top three favorite books would have to be

1.) Notre-Dame De Paris

2.) Les Miserables

3.) A Midsummer's Night's Dream.

I also sort of like epic poetry, like The Divine Comedy and BeaoWolf.(SP?) But I'm mainly into the romantic period.

My top three favorite books would have to be

1.) Notre-Dame De Paris

2.) Les Miserables

3.) A Midsummer's Night's Dream.

I also sort of like epic poetry, like The Divine Comedy and BeaoWolf.(SP?) But I'm mainly into the romantic period.

I find Notre-Dame De Paris to be a very humorous book.

I haven't read that much, either, but I plan to change that soon... xD Prize for my favorite Shakespeare play goes to Hamlet right now.

Oh, and Hamlet is in my top 5 favorite Shakespearean plays. I kind of like macbeth, but mainly because I had to memorize a line from the play. And if you haven't read it alread, Julius Caeser is a good one.

As for Romeo and Juliet, I thought it was funny actually, because all the characters are so incredibly stupid. As my 9th grade teacher said, the play isn't really about love at all, it's actually about passion and what happens when people let their passions for anything get out of control. So...naturally, a lot of the characters don't think about their actions--and I thought it was hilarious, although kinda sad, that they were acting so dumb. And the "biting your thumb" thing...my teacher actually explained what that meant, along w/ all the other vulgarities mentioned in the first scene. And he's a Christian Brother and I go to a Catholic school...xP

The same teacher made us memorize lines from Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar and we had to recite them in class. Everybody freaked out about that. XD

As for other literature that I like, I absolutely love Poe and Hawthorne. I'm a sucker for gothic lit...although I also like stuff completely opposite from that.

But then shortly after that I got really into singing and in 9th grade chorus I learned a song from the musical Les Miserables and decided to read the book to get a better sense of what the song was about. I really liked the book, so I decided to read a few other works by Hugo. Right not my favorite book is Notre-Dame De Paris. The first time I read it I didn't really understand it, because I knew nothing about Catholicism. but after re-reading dozens of times I started looking at it from a humorous perspective because there is a lot of dark comedy in the book very much like in Shakespeare's works. Plus I love irony and sarcasm and all the neat symbolism.

My favorite part of Hamlet though is when they're all watching the play and Hamlet is saying all these inuendos to Ophellia. My friends and I couldn't read that part without laughing!

Oh dear...I have the same facination too...XP

Another few classics I recently read is Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Jennifer

Neh, Miss Pooka, isn't Beowulf in Old English?

Is Call of the Wild good, would you say?

My reading of classics has really petered out recently, because the only thing people ever really think to say is 'It's a classic' and those three words on their own sound so dry and dull. They don't convey anything of the plot or mood. After all, To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet are both classics, and have very little in common.

By the way, based on the trailer, the upcoming Beowulf movie looks NOTHING like the poem. Just to put that out there. If you want the real story, I recommend reading the poem first. The movie is just...I dunno, but my genius of an English teacher (he really IS a genius, I kid you not...it's kinda scary...) has already made some negative judgments based on the trailer alone.

Also, later writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien based a lot of their material on themes in Beowulf. It's pretty cool to draw the connections b/t them. Actually, a lot of fantasy stuff somehow relates back to Beowulf...

As for other "classics" I could recommend (I agree about the boring connotations that word has), Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is a great one. We're reading it in AP English right now. James is pretty difficult, though--he likes to use a lot of vague and subtle language to convey themes, so it's often hard to catch what he's trying to say (in fact, he often seems to intend to confuse the readers, or at least make us think till our brains burst). Oh, and he likes to switch among different people's POVs sometimes. (Point of view is a HUGE thing w/ him--you never know whether the main character is really telling the truth or if there's a bias on the part of her b/c of the first-person POV). But once you get what he's saying (or sort of get it)...that book will scare you to death--not really because of the fact that it deals w/ ghosts, but b/c what it will make you realize about yourself that you either never knew or knew but never truly wanted to admit. Trust me, THAT is really scary...O_o

Yeah, I know what old English looks like. And vaugly what it might have sounded like. Keebs wrote a passage on the board in Theatre then read in aloud. Trying to get it through our thick skulls that Shakespeare was in modern English. xD

His best ones are Salamandastron, Redwall, and Mossflower. Gnoff and Balliesto are a refreshing change from his usual stock of characters, (even though I'm certain I spelled Balliesto wrong) and Salamandastron has a bit of a twist on his his usual plot. I think. It's been a while.

We just had to read it for English! It's not my absolute favorite, but I admit it is a very fine book, especially the parts with John Thornton and Buck (eg. the wager)

Hmmm... my favorite classics have to be:

Sherlock Holmes

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Eyre

Any Shakespeare

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

To Kill a Mockingbird

Frankenstein

That's all I got for now

Does Sherlock Holmes count as classic literature? Don't get me wrong, I love the series, particularly back in the beginning when Doyle still liked writing it. I've read all the pre-haitus stories multiple times. But it was a series of detective dramas.

Well, I consider anything a classic that is an older novel that has become a staple in literature. I guess you could say Sherlock Holmes isn't a classic, but the fact that nearly everyone has heard of him and the books have been transformed into so many other media realms, I just think of it as a classic. It doesn't have the writing style of other classics, and it's famous for a different reason, but whatever. It's fine if you don't think of it as a classic. Honestly, if we're going for detective classics, I'd have to say Poe takes the cake.

My favourite classics/sort of classics at the moment are Dracula, Treasure Island, and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. We just finished reading the last one for school and it is AMAZING (although I don't know if it counts as classic literature).

Well, I don't think I've ever heard of it, but that doesn't count for all that much.

I have to add a couple to my list.

Gilgamesh is amazing. The Stephen Mitchell translation is the one I read, and it's really best for a coherent storyline. I'd follow it up with other varied translations that tell you in easily accessible footnotes ambiguous translations, note when a passage is missing, and admit it when a word or passage is incomprehensible. It stimulates the imagination to know what bits have to be filled in, even though no one alive can fill them. The Benjamin R. Foster one is good. The John Gardener and John Meyer version isn't as good, but has great notes. I really like the Maureen Gallery Kovacs translation. It has art to it, but indicates the missing bit and explains shaky translations.

I'm halfway through Dante's Inferno now, and I'm loving it. It's a beautiful and brutal poem, even after it was subjected to translation. ^^ It makes me wish I could understand Italian. I'm just starting the Seventh Circle (canto XIV).

I have been, am, and forever will be a fantatic for Mr. Samuel Clemens. Even given his later more depressing works, he still manages to brighten up an otherwise gray day.

On that note, I'm also quite a fan of G.K Chesterton. If you want something said, say it in paradox.

And of course, the greatest and most world-travelled storyteller of any time, Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen.

I'm halfway through Dante's Inferno now, and I'm loving it.

A personal request. If you're going to read the Inferno, please be certain to cover the entire Divine Comedy. There are far too many people who aren't even aware of the existence of Purgatorio and Paradiso. The overall poem feels much more complete with them involved.

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