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what’s to go in it?
If you had to reduce a required reading list of literature to exactly 10 authors whose work was in English (any world variety), whom would you choose?
This question was sparked by Avy’s comments about a global conversation, with some thoughts rattling round my brainpan that I would be interested to compare with others’.
My list might be this, for example:
Geoffrey Chaucer
John Donne
William Shakespeare
Sam Coleridge
Oscar Wilde
Thomas Hardy
TS Eliot
George Orwell
Arthur Miller
Dylan Thomas
Some of the above names have to have an almost totemic function – perhaps you might prefer Jane Austen in the discursive novel slot in which I have put Thomas Hardy?
This is not my ‘list of favourites’ – it hurts to miss out all kinds of names, from Keats to Frost, from O. Henry to John Steinbeck, from Swift and Fielding to Austen and Brontë. Rather, it’s a list of those crucial authors without whose work I could not have my current understanding of the language I know and love.
Please take at least a few minutes’ reflection time if you want to join this game, because I am asking a very specific question:
Which 10 authors should be representative of the canon of English literature, consistent with your formative experience?
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Maverick: It seems to me inevitable that if everybody picks their ten, chaos necessarily will result, no two lists would be the same.. How about modifying the selection process to all of us agreeing on number one, then debating who should be number two, and so on. For instance, we might all agree to make Shakespeare number one, but who would be as overwhelmingly number two?
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On the assumption (not unwarranted, I think) that this list is supposed to be personal and not, as some may believe, a must read list for the serious student of the English language, I would have to include Walt Kelly in any list of formative influences of my experience with the language. I would probably not include Willy Shaksper.
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Well Dr Bill, I guess I was actually looking for a whole range of answers, so bring on the chaos if you want!
And Faldage, yes, I think you have my intention pretty closely, although I might try and shape it as a combination - sort of 'the must read list as viewed from your experience', which as Bill says will likely vary.
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Which 10 authors should be representative of the canon of English literature, consistent with your formative experience?
Sweet mav, your words formative experience sent my mind back to school. I'd have to say Chaucer--he was the first.
Also S.T. Coleridge, for Kubla Khan if nothing else. William Blake. Shirley Jackson--in junior high school, I had never, ever come across anything like "The Lottery"--it shook me to the core. Arthur Miller. Mary Shelley--nothing like Dr. Frankenstein had ever appeared, either, I don't think. Beatrix Potter, who showed the way to what good children's literature could be. Charles Dickens.
Robert Frost. T.H. White, for The Once and Future King:
that description of the "duel" between those two inept knights nearly got me tossed out of the library for laughing!
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Dear Faldage: I should be most interested to hear your reasons for not including Shakespeare. I cannot think of anyone who so demonstrably influenced our vocabulary.
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addict
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addict
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I'm somewhat hesitant to post my list, as I imagine some of the entries will be met with a fair bit of derision, but I want to answer Mav's question (as I understand it) honestly. These are not the best authors I have ever read, but they are the ones whose work has influenced me and my understanding of the language the most. Keep in mind that I am among the younger Board members, and I went to a high school (and colleges) that largely frowned upon reading only "the canon." In no particular order:
William Shakespeare
Arthur Miller
Ray Bradbury
Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)
Emily Dickinson
John Steinbeck
J. D. Salinger
Stephen King
Toni Morrison
Douglas Coupland
Near misses include Twain, Frost, Asimov, Shirley Jackson, and Philip K. Dick.
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It seems to me that many of the choices reflect the tastes of the contributors, with little clues as to the reasons for putting them on a required list, which it seems to me to demand intellectual merits, not entertainment merits.
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, I've been wrackin' me brain about this, and I'm still not quite sure, but here's my list:
William Shakespeare
John Donne
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
John Keats
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Jane Austen
Walt Whitman
James Joyce
John Steinbeck
Ayn Rand
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Separating the objective from the subjective on lists like this is always a chore...I've been on the Top 100 music lists discussion boards at VH1 for quite some time, and I've learned that 1. you always leave somebody out; 2. you can never quite detach yourself from your passion no matter how fair-minded you're striving to be; and 3. there is NEVER a general consensus! All that being said, here are my author picks: Walt Whitman and Eugene O'Neill (well, of course!...who else?)  H.G. Wells Ray Bradbury Edgar Allan Poe Joseph Conrad Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost Dylan Thomas tie: Alistair MacLean - James Thurber - Ogden Nash (Major runners-up: Jack London, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., John Steinbeck, William Shakespeare, Robert A. Heinlein)...Herman Hesse, Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov and others were translated into English and so miss the criterion. (honorable mentions a must!: Pearl S. Buck, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tennessee Williams, William Blake, Woody Allen, E.B. White (for "Charlotte's Web"), William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, Sean O'Casey, Mark Twain, Ernie Pyle, John Keats, and Delmore Schwartz) And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the lyrics of many singer/songwriter/poets including Harry Chapin, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Jonathan Edwards, Bernie Taupin (w Elton John), Carole King, Dan Fogelberg, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Tom Waits, Guy Clark, two guys named Lennon and McCartney, and, of course, Bob Dylan) And, now, I'l release this, stand back and take a look, remember important names I've missed, hone it down to a truer Top Ten, and then post a revision...it's a never-ending process...  
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