March [ Edited ]

[LizzieAnn]

Great. I don't have a problem with the timing as long as it's on the list to be read. And thank you for the lead time to purchase the book as well as the structure you plan to implement. Since we just finished a Hawthorne book, I don't mind putting off the next one for a while. I'd love to do Little Women after Moby Dick since you're asking!

Message Edited by LizzieAnn on 12-11-200611:36 AM

[donyskiw]

Emerson isn't a problem. Already on my shelves!

I like planning!!

Denise

[fanuzzir]

Thanks again everyone for weighing in. You'll see in another post that Alcott was the consensus choice for post-Moby Dick novel discussion. My only question right now is whether to run Emerson concurrently with the novel as an alternative non-fiction thread for people so inclined or to do things sequentially. The latter might preserve our sense of community but put off the Emerson discussion until later than what you would like. I do know this: that the Moby Dick discussion and then the Jungle featured discussion (where I do a more professor-like gig) will be all I can manage, so Moby Dick would have to end for me to consider starting another thread.

[pmath]

Bob, having only one new American classics discussion start each month might work well. We discussed The House of the Seven Gables here in November, the discussion of Moby Dick started in December, and the discussion of The Jungle is starting in January, so a discussion of Little Women could start in February, and a discussion of Emerson's work could start in March: we can wait!

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fanuzzir wrote:
You'll see in another post that Alcott was the consensus choice for post-Moby Dick novel discussion. My only question right now is whether to run Emerson concurrently with the novel as an alternative non-fiction thread for people so inclined or to do things sequentially.

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Message Edited by pmath on 12-13-200610:30 PM

[donyskiw]

That sounds like something I can handle. Especially if British Classics and Shakespeare does the same thing.

Denise

[Everyman]

At some point in these BN groups we always get into the question "what is a classic?" I am, frankly, a bit amused at some of the books that people here consider classics. But then, I'm often easily amused.

[Laurel]

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Everyman wrote:
At some point in these BN groups we always get into the question "what is a classic?" I am, frankly, a bit amused at some of the books that people here consider classics. But then, I'm often easily amused.

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Which ones amuse you?

[Everyman]

I prefer not to say. Don't want to offend anybody.

[Jo6353]

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pmath wrote:
Denise, I'm very glad to hear you're also interested in discussing works by both authors! I understand Washington Irving was a mentor of Nathaniel Hawthorne, among others.



He was also a close friend of Poe

[Choisya]

Mark Twain wrote: 'A classic is a book that people praise by don't read'. The British playwright Alan Bennett wrote that it is 'a definition of a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.' I rather like 'A classic is a book which has never finished saying what it has to say (Calvino).

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Laurel wrote:

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Everyman wrote:
At some point in these BN groups we always get into the question "what is a classic?" I am, frankly, a bit amused at some of the books that people here consider classics. But then, I'm often easily amused.

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Which ones amuse you?

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[fanuzzir]

I like them all, but the cynic in me sees the truth of the last two.

[LizzieAnn]

Submitting another possible definition of a classic, one that I particularly like ~~

The author Somerset Maugham commented on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and stated: "What makes a classic is not that it is praised by critics, expounded by professors and studied in college classes, but that the great mass of readers, generation after generation, have found pleasure and spiritual profit in reading it."

Message Edited by LizzieAnn on 12-19-200605:48 PM

[Laurel]

Good quote, Liz. I would change it to say not the masses but the passionate few, as Arnold Bennett writes:

"Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few. Even when a first-class author has enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, the majority have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated second-rate men. He has always been reinforced by the ardor of the passionate few. And in the case of an author who has emerged into glory after his death the happy sequel has been due solely to the obstinate perseverance of the few. They could not leave him alone; they would not. They kept on savoring him, and talking about him, and buying him, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the majority grew accustomed to the sound of his name and placidly agreed to the proposition that he was a genius; the majority really did not care very much either way."

I think he's talking about us!

Here's his essay:

http://angolsuli.education.directnic.com/5_2.htm

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LizzieAnn wrote:
Submitting another possible definition of a classic, one that I particularly like ~~

The author Somerset Maugham commented on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and stated: "What makes a classic is not that it is praised by critics, expounded by professors and studied in college classes, but that the great mass of readers, generation after generation, have found pleasure and spiritual profit in reading it."

Message Edited by LizzieAnn on 12-19-200605:48 PM

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[Everyman]

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LizzieAnn wrote:
Submitting another possible definition of a classic, one that I particularly like ~~

The author Somerset Maugham commented on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and stated: "What makes a classic is not that it is praised by critics, expounded by professors and studied in college classes, but that the great mass of readers, generation after generation, have found pleasure and spiritual profit in reading it."

Message Edited by LizzieAnn on 12-19-200605:48 PM

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Much better than the earlier offerings. They were cynical; yours is appropriate. Both the pleasure and the spiritual profit aspects are essential to a true classic.

[Everyman]

Laurel quoted Bennett: ""Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few."

Uh, Bennett doesn't know his history. Shakespeare's popularity was very much a matter of the man in the street going to and paying precious pennies to go to the Globe and his other theaters to see his plays. And in this country, Shakespeare was kept alive much of the time by rustics in small Midwest towns putting on his plays to pass the long, cold winter nights. Even today there are Shakespeare festivals all over the country attended by far more than a passionate few.

Austen, Dickens, Bronte, Trollope, et. al. may perhap[s be kept famous by a passionate few, but Shakespeare is and has always been the playwright of the masses as well as of the scholar.

[Laurel]

I think Bennett knew his history very well. He's talking not about Shakespeare's day but about his day (late 19th, early 20th century). I think that what he says is even closer to the truth today. Go down your street in your mind (unless you live on an island or on a street full of university professors) and name the people who are likely to have read a Shakespeare play in the past five years or seen a Shakespeare play in the past two years.

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Everyman wrote:
Laurel quoted Bennett: ""Do you suppose that if the fame of Shakespeare depended on the man in the street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few."

Uh, Bennett doesn't know his history. Shakespeare's popularity was very much a matter of the man in the street going to and paying precious pennies to go to the Globe and his other theaters to see his plays. And in this country, Shakespeare was kept alive much of the time by rustics in small Midwest towns putting on his plays to pass the long, cold winter nights. Even today there are Shakespeare festivals all over the country attended by far more than a passionate few.

Austen, Dickens, Bronte, Trollope, et. al. may perhap[s be kept famous by a passionate few, but Shakespeare is and has always been the playwright of the masses as well as of the scholar.

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[Everyman]

Go down your street in your mind (unless you live on an island or on a street full of university professors) and name the people who are likely to have read a Shakespeare play in the past five years or seen a Shakespeare play in the past two years.


We have a small, local theater group here on the Island, Stage Left, that puts on several Shakespeare plays each summer, in a makeshift outdoor theater. At least a thousand people attend each play during its run; that's out of a population of about six thousand total. And no, our island is not full of university professors, just ordinary people.

[Choisya]

I seem to remember you posting previously that your island was full of highly educated people who performed mundane local tasks Everyman? As you are cut off from the mainstream your theatrical productions are likely to be well attended because of the lack of an alternative. This would be the same in any isolated community - village productions get a high turnout here, whatever they put on.

Shakespeare is still quite widely read and attended in the UK and there is always one of his plays running in the West End, as well as at the Globe on the South Bank and in Stratford-upon-Avon. An illustration of his continued importance in the UK is that he is still taught in junior schools - my 9 year old commences reading Macbeth next term and her school will put on a production in the summer. He is also a profitable tourist attraction However, if I were to go down my street I would hazard a guess that no-one has seen or read a play since leaving school. This would not be the same if I lived in a University town or in Hampstead or Bloomsbury, where the literati congregate. Or if I lived in a remote island

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Everyman wrote:
Go down your street in your mind (unless you live on an island or on a street full of university professors) and name the people who are likely to have read a Shakespeare play in the past five years or seen a Shakespeare play in the past two years.


We have a small, local theater group here on the Island, Stage Left, that puts on several Shakespeare plays each summer, in a makeshift outdoor theater. At least a thousand people attend each play during its run; that's out of a population of about six thousand total. And no, our island is not full of university professors, just ordinary people.

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[Laurel]

I am indeed considered an oddity in my little chip-off-the masses community, where there are more cows and sheep than people. "You read Shakespeare? Why?" And the people on Everyman's nearby isle are definitely not Everyman. For which the people in my little community are thankful. (I didn't mean that last sentence, and I am now chastising myself severely by eating a piece of dark chocolate.)

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Choisya wrote:
I seem to remember you posting previously that your island was full of highly educated people who performed mundane local tasks Everyman? As you are cut off from the mainstream your theatrical productions are likely to be well attended because of the lack of an alternative. This would be the same in any isolated community - village productions get a high turnout here, whatever they put on.

Shakespeare is still quite widely read and attended in the UK and there is always one of his plays running in the West End, as well as at the Globe on the South Bank and in Stratford-upon-Avon. An illustration of his continued importance in the UK is that he is still taught in junior schools - my 9 year old commences reading Macbeth next term and her school will put on a production in the summer. He is also a profitable tourist attraction However, if I were to go down my street I would hazard a guess that no-one has seen or read a play since leaving school. This would not be the same if I lived in a University town or in Hampstead or Bloomsbury, where the literati congregate. Or if I lived in a remote island

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Everyman wrote:
Go down your street in your mind (unless you live on an island or on a street full of university professors) and name the people who are likely to have read a Shakespeare play in the past five years or seen a Shakespeare play in the past two years.


We have a small, local theater group here on the Island, Stage Left, that puts on several Shakespeare plays each summer, in a makeshift outdoor theater. At least a thousand people attend each play during its run; that's out of a population of about six thousand total. And no, our island is not full of university professors, just ordinary people.

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[Jo6353]

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Everyman wrote:
Go down your street in your mind (unless you live on an island or on a street full of university professors) and name the people who are likely to have read a Shakespeare play in the past five years or seen a Shakespeare play in the past two years.


We have a small, local theater group here on the Island, Stage Left, that puts on several Shakespeare plays each summer, in a makeshift outdoor theater. At least a thousand people attend each play during its run; that's out of a population of about six thousand total. And no, our island is not full of university professors, just ordinary people.

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I attend a number of Renaissance festivals every year and the Shakespeare plays are always well attended by the common folk.