NationStates Jolt Archive

So a thread for poems, novels, short stories etc and which you think are masterpieces. They don't have to be books people have heard of but give us reasons of why you think it is a masterpiece.

I have to say Paradise Lost by John Milton is a true masterpiece. It is an epic poem written in the 17th Century about the fall of man. I'm not a religious person and when we had to read this for my course I was a bit skeptical but it is amazing.

Milton wrote this to try and show us the error of our ways however throughout the whole poem it is Satan who is the true and deepest character and at many points you will take his side because his speeches are so motivating. I would recommend it to anyone.

The Doom Comic.

There are lots, but here's a poem most of you might not know:

"Rush Hour" by Elaine Terranova

Odd, the baby's scabbed face peeking over
the woman's shoulder. The little girl
at her side with her arm in a cast,
wearing a plain taffeta party dress.
The woman herself who is in shorts and sunglasses
among commuters in the underground station. Her body
that sags and tenses at the same time.

The little girl has not once moved
to touch her or be touched.
Even on the train, she never turns and says
"Mommy." Sunlight bobs over her blond head
inclining toward the window. The baby
is excited now. "Loo, loo, loo, loo,"
he calls, a wet crescendo. "He's pulling
my hair," the little girl at last cries out.

A kind man comes up the aisle to see
the baby. He stares at those rosettes of blood
and wants to know what's wrong with him.
The woman says a dog bit him. "It must have been
a big dog, then." "Oh, no. A neighbor's little dog."
The man says, "I hope they put that dog to sleep."
The woman is nearly pleading. "It was an accident. He didn't
mean to do it." The conductor, taking tickets

asks the little girl how she broke her arm.
But the child looks out to the big, shaded houses.
The woman says "She doesn't like to talk
about that." No one has seen what is behind
her own dark glasses. She pulls the children to her.
Maybe she is thinking of the arm raised over them,
its motion that would begin like a blessing.

I'd say Xīyóu-jì / Journey to the West is one of the literary masterpieces. It was published during Ming Dynasty China circa 15th century, and has been considered by many to be one the 4 Chinese Literary Classics.

Plus, it's inspired more manga and anime plotlines than you can shake a stick at. The entire first arc of the Dragon Ball manga is a loose adaption of Journey to the West.

Anything by Keats or Donne, Great Expectations, Count of Monte Cristo, A Modest Proposal, Much Ado About Nothing, Pagoda Skull & Samurai...

I could go on and on and on ^-^

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(Yes, I did actually just pick up the first thing I found on my desk. For reference, it was next to works by Isaac Asimov, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoyevski, Wolfgang A. Mozart, Arthur C. Clarke, and God.)

The Last Question, by Isaac Asimov. A beautifully constructed short story and a masterwork of the SF genre. http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Also, When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer, by Walt Whitman.

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Les Miserables paints the most beautiful portrait of life I've ever read. I've never been more transfixed in a piece of literature than I was when I read Les Mis.

Also, East of Eden by John Stienbeck is a masterpiece for its philosophical and moral consequences, and his ability to keep true to the story of Cain and Abel.

Les Miserables paints the most beautiful portrait of life I've ever read. I've never been more transfixed in a piece of literature than I was when I read Les Mis.


Did you read it in French?

I'd say almost anything by Conrad. The man was a literary genius.

I'd say Xīyóu-jì / Journey to the West is one of the literary masterpieces. It was published during Ming Dynasty China circa 15th century, and has been considered by many to be one the 4 Chinese Literary Classics.

Plus, it's inspired more manga and anime plotlines than you can shake a stick at. The entire first arc of the Dragon Ball manga is a loose adaption of Journey to the West.

I've always wanted to read Journey to the West. It's inspired lots of anime and manga, in addition to Dragon Ball.

Did you read it in French?

I'd say almost anything by Conrad. The man was a literary genius.

I still need to read Heart of Darkness, especially considering I'm a Congo history buff.

I've had my favorite parts read to me in French, just so I could get a sense of the flow of the language, but I don't read or speak more than a few words of French.

Also, another masterpiece is Gabriel Garcia Maquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude because it is cleaver and has a fairly powerful message.

Some masterpieces (in my opinion):

The Catcher in the Rye
The Outsiders
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Moby Dick
The Scarlet Letter
Dracula
Frankenstein
Any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories

The Conqueror Worm, by Edgar Allan Poe.

LO! 't is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years.
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible Woe.

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot;
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude:
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And over each quivering form
In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

No reasons need be stated.

Some masterpieces (in my opinion):

The Catcher in the Rye
The Outsiders
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Moby Dick
The Scarlet Letter
Dracula
Frankenstein
Any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories

Can't forget the Holmes stories, heaven's no! I can't believe those weren't the first ones to pop into my head.

Can't forget the Holmes stories, heaven's no! I can't believe those weren't the first ones to pop into my head."Heavens no"? You are from Montana. :p

To Kill a Mockingbird
A Prayer for Owen Meany

As for poems--

Plath, "Lady Lazarus"
Wilde, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"
Whitman, "O Captain! My Captain!"
Auden, "Stop All the Clocks"
Yeats, "When You Are Old"
Sexton, "Wanting to Die"
Lorde, "A Litany for Survival"
cummings, "humanity i love you" (and a great number of others, but this is the first that comes to mind)

"Heavens no"? You are from Montana. :p

:D

To Kill a Mockingbird

Damn, how could I have missed that one? :headbang:

The Holmes stories, yes, but not all of them. "The Lion's Mane" and "The Mazarin Stone" could be left behind.

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window and The Long Goodbye, plus his essay "The Simple Art of Murder".

Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man.

Gore Vidal's Julian.

Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God.

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Breakfast At Tiffany's.

All I can think of for the moment.

Okay, I have to preface this by telling you that I am addicted to epic poetry. Thankfully, there's a nearly endless supply. I particularly enjoyed Beowulf since it is actually readable in the original English (but I did take Latin for 5 years, which I feel helped). I also have read and enjoyed Ovid's Metamorphoses, and I can identify the epic hero: love. Love is the only theme present in every myth presented. Brilliant, really.

Playboy is the greatest publication ever! Nothing can match it's perfection on every level.

I have to say Paradise Lost by John Milton is a true masterpiece. It is an epic poem written in the 17th Century about the fall of man. I'm not a religious person and when we had to read this for my course I was a bit skeptical but it is amazing.

Milton wrote this to try and show us the error of our ways however throughout the whole poem it is Satan who is the true and deepest character and at many points you will take his side because his speeches are so motivating. I would recommend it to anyone.

I love Paradise Lost. Not only is God the boring, flat character with Satan being the compelling one, but Satan uses precisely the same circular logic and rhetoric of the Church.

As for my choices, besides this one, I have several.

Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
A modern classic, and has particular resonance with boys for some reason.

Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
Made all the more powerful when you suddenly realize what the allegory is

The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Great story, great allegory.

Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
A bitch to read the first time, and I thought I hated it at first. Then, the more I thought about it and wrote on it, the more I came to love it.

The Hollow Men - T.S. Eliot
Amazing piece of existentialism

Nature - Emerson
What can I say? I like transcendentalism.

London - William Blake
great descriptions of urban slum life.

Oread - H.D.
I just kinda like it.

The Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy:
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Dragons of Winter Night
Dragons of Spring Dawning

all by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

The Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are masterpieces, as is Dune by Frank Herbert (the later ones and the prequels, not so much).

One thing that has bothered me about literature is the emphasis on the "classics" and the exclusion of almost anything written after World War II (the only post-WW2 novel I can remember reading in English class was "Night" by Elie Wiesel). Why is the old stuff better?

The Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are masterpieces, as is Dune by Frank Herbert (the later ones and the prequels, not so much).

One thing that has bothered me about literature is the emphasis on the "classics" and the exclusion of almost anything written after World War II (the only post-WW2 novel I can remember reading in English class was "Night" by Elie Wiesel). Why is the old stuff better?

It rarely has much to do with it being better. There are a few reasons.

These books are well known and part of our cultural literacy.
These books fit the curriculum
Older books tend to not swear as much or have questionable passages, therefore removing many parental complaints
New books cost money. at $20 a pop, with a need for say, 30 minimum, often book choices are entirely directed by what the school has in stock.

Hmmm, I'll probably forget a few.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom of the Opera. (And for sweet-nonexistent-God's sake, see it LIVE. Do not, under any circumstances, watch the movie.)

1984
Animal Farm
Life of Pi(I know, surprising, given my generally anti-religious views, isn't it?)
Le Petit Prince (read it in French if you can)
So far, I've only read a bit of it, but I rather like the Bhagavad Gita.
Pretty much all of Shakespeare, but especially Hamlet and MacBeth.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the rest of the 5-book trilogy.
Frankenstein
Beowulf
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn especially one moment, when he declares "Fine! Then I'll go to hell."
The Count of Monte Cristo I'd like to read it in French some day, but the English version I read was great.

As for poems(including a song or two):
"Ozymandias" by Percy Byssche Shelly
"Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas
"The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Tennyson
"Imagine" by John Lennon

This list is by no means exhaustive, but merely what I thought of off the top of my head.

If I was to learn another language in order to read a book, it would have to be Russian.
(I see a lot of French recommendations, which is why I'm saying this.)

I still need to read Heart of Darkness, especially considering I'm a Congo history buff.Congo, eh? Perhaps you also enjoy --Kinshasa?

The Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are masterpieces

I never thought I'd meet anyone with my same opinion on the Foundation.:fluffle:

The Foundation novels by Isaac Asimov are masterpieces

I never thought I'd meet anyone with my same opinion on the Foundation.:fluffle:

I also like Siddhartha, Lord of the Flies, and the Crucible. And Hamlet.

The Prophet (http://www.kahlil.org/prophet.html) by Kahlil Gibran. Nearest thing to spiritual truth I've ever found.

The First Circle by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse's

Cien Anos de Soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I thought of a couple more...

Death be not proud, by John Donne

DEATH, be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go—
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

QFE (Quoted for Excellence)

Also, Donne's Meditation XVII. Read it, and understand it. It's really quite beautiful.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz...

Howl (http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Ramble/howl.shtml)

Hmm...

White Fang by Jack London
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

Just about anything by Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolken

I guess that's a fairly good list.