In all reality, it would seem that the best literary diet would consist of both old and newer literature. However, I've noticed that some people hold vehemently to one or the other, myself notwithstanding. It'd be interesting to see if anyone could turn this into an interesting discussion.
I feel that to make this topic effective, you would have to establish what counts as contemporary vs. what counts as classic. What decade establishes something as "new." It could be argued that Lord of the Rings is reaching the point of "Classic" as it came out in 1954. But it is still beloved as a contemporary piece of literature (due, in part, to the films). – Jemarc Axinto9 years ago
Who are the "some people?" Academics? Why does this matter who holds on to what? A potential author will have to include this. – Cmandra9 years ago
I also agree with Jemarc. I am very interested in seeing how someone takes this topic, great idea! – emilyinmannyc9 years ago
If by old you mean: "classic" and by new you mean: "modern" this could be a very interesting topic! Something else to consider is that different generations could lean more towards one or the other; it all depends on the target reading audience in question. On a side note: verses in the topic title needs an "s". But the title itself is a little confusing, I would consider rewording it to maybe something shorter. – Megan Finsel9 years ago
"Classic" is a very arbitrary term, and can often be problematic. This idea of separation between classic literature and modern literature oftentimes fails to acknowledge the value of modern writers and what they do for the future of writing and literature. To make this topic work, I would agree with Jemarc in saying that you would have to establish clear boundaries between what is classic and what is modern, and you'd have to do this in a more concrete manner than taste. The generational aspect is also important to consider, but I think the most important thing to note would be what inherently separates the "classics" from modern literature as a body. For instance, what does "The Great Gatsby" have as far as qualities that "The Hunger Games" does not? Beyond time period and subject matter, is there something inherently different in the quality or form of the writing? Just my thoughts on the subject. It's a good topic, and one that I've certainly heard and thought a lot about. – Farrow9 years ago
I think there is also an implication that "classic" literature carries weight and MEANING where "modern" literature may be thought of as entertaining and for consumption. – MELSEY9 years ago
Analyze Humanities' future as a discipline in our current economy. It would be beneficial to have some cross-cultural analysis as well. However, I'm concerned with what entering this discipline means for our futures, especially those of us who are working on Masters or PhDs. Does time, money, and effort sufficiently contribute to a future career? Or, is our unsure future after Humanities worth the experience?
I think when it comes to college, the thing everyone needs to consider is "Will this get me a job." That is the point of college. Especially in this day and age where skills are necessary and information is so available. I'm not saying give up on your hobbies. I'm not saying don't take an interest in humanities. Do it, but don't spend college amounts of money on it. A lot of college classes are filmed and on the internet. A lot of info in general is on the internet. Learn it for free as a hobby and apply it to your life where you can. Go to college with a job and end goal in mind and pick a major that suits it. – Tatijana9 years ago
Although I would encourage individuals to take Humanities courses and even degrees, I agree with the revision that says this is not an appropriate topic for the film category. It's the wrong venue for an important issue. – awestcot9 years ago
I think this is a worthwhile topic to explore. I would note that in your research of this topic, I think you will find, at least in the United States, that you will delve into political and economic circumstances and realities. This may become a distraction if you focus on it too much. Just make sure that you keep the eye on the ball, and you should be fine. – JDJankowski9 years ago
Take a specific case, such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: one of the most popular of the classic novels, it has been subject to various reinterpretations which of course include the occasional modernization. But updating such a novel comes with a hefty set of challenges, not the least being this: is there anything Lydia could do in our time which would ruin her sisters prospects as completely? That is, the social norms and stigmas from Austen's time to ours are so different, is it possible to construct a modern analog for this novel? Is it worth it?
I think this topic could also be written contrary to your title, as one could make the argument that there is always a way to update the classics, maybe even essential to update the classics in order to make them accessible. I LOVE the way the new BBC Sherlock Holmes updates Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's stories. I think the change from pipe to nicotine patches and the updates to Dr Watson being a soldier in Afghanistan in the 21st century instead of in the 19th century are some examples of great updates that lead audiences to want to revisit the classics while still enjoying the new interpretations. – Kevin8 years ago
The Lizzie Bennett Diaries (youtube series) did a good job of updating the story, including Lydia's story line. I think as long as people feel like women should be shamed for their sexuality, people will use it against them. – chrischan8 years ago
This is a very interesting topic. If I was to write it, though, more time would be spent probably on the "why things shouldn't be 'modernized'" in the first place. I've seen Much Ado about Nothing set in 1940s Argentina performed in the West End of London- even David Tennant and Katherine Tate couldn't save that one. Even locally here, we've had Cabaret set in a Kabuki Theatre because Nazi Germany is too offensive, and not to forget the all-white version of The Wiz. I believe great art, whether movie, TV, theatre, or what have you, should be left alone. There's a reason it's known as great art, or classics. Sorry for the rant, but as you can see this is something near and dear to my heart. Cheers! – NoDakJack8 years ago
Many people say that they've "read" Tolstoy or Camus (or any host of other writers). But if the reader in question is a monolingual anglophone, how can they have "read" a Russian author? or a French-speaking one? When someone has "seen the movie" of something (like one of the Harry Potter series), they don't generally get credited with also having "read the book" even though the one is adapted from the other much as a translation is worked from the original. What's the difference? Why do popular ideas about translation allow for almost seamless "knowledge" of the "original work" while ideas about adaptation do not?
That is a really interesting question. Personally I find a great difference between the original text and its translation (I know English,Bulgarian,French and a bit of German and Russian). Reading the original Les Misérables or Ана Каренина (Anna Karenina) can't be compared to anything else, simply because however good a translation may be, the author precisely chose which words and phrases to use and sometimes they can't be translated in any other language with the same effect and meaning. That doesn't mean we must first learn another language in order to read a book, but the experiences may be different. – Kaya8 years ago
The point of an adaptation is to allow people who do not speak that language to enjoy it equally. Not all words translate perfectly into other languages but the reader is still able to read the story and picture it in their head almost the same as a person of another language. Comparing this to books and their movies may not be the best comparison. Often times a movie will simply base its plot around a book and not follow the whole story. Movies often must skip chunks of a story so as not to have a ridiculously long movie. A translated story does not tear out chunks or just base itself around the plot and steal the title. A translation is meant to be equally written for people who speak another language. I enjoy this topic very much. It would be very interesting to read the opinion of others on this. – SoodleSavvy8 years ago
SoodleSavvy, the reason I make the comparison is because translation often DO tear out chunks, add others, and rearrange things—but present themselves as if they don't. – pjoshualaskey8 years ago
pjoshualaskey, I think that would be another wonderful topic asking why some translators choose to tear out chunks and rearrange things. In this case, however, I feel that a true translation or adaptation is not meant to be changed and people who rearrange works from how they are written have not done their job correctly. This may also be a question that has no right answer because of how many ways opinions may vary. – SoodleSavvy8 years ago
To me, the question is both tricky and simple at the same time. I agree that movies based on books and translations of books are two quite different ways of 'remaking' a book. A movie director sometimes wants to develop a book plot into something new, to extend it or make it shorter just so the main idea could be conveyed, or even change the genre - options are infinite here. Also, the obvious difference between books and movies is that while reading, you direct your own movie in your head, and it doesn't work vice versa. A translation of a book is still the book. The mechanism through which your mind perceives it is not like the one you use to perceive movies. However, the relationship between a book and its translation may be pretty much like the relationship between that book and the movie based on it in regards of the unavoidable alterations that happen in the process of both translating and turning the book into a script with further filming. The result will always differ from the original act of reading the original book, no matter if the director wants to keep the plot just as it was written or not, and no matter how hard the translator tries to stick to the original. Well, if the translator transforms the words and expressions way too much and clads the book in their own style, then it's an entirely different book, of course. The fact is that it's impossible to make the translation accurate enough; after all, we're talking about pieces of art here, not scientific articles or medical documentation - translating novels and translating that kind of stuff are too drastically different fields of work, we know that. Each language obviously has its own semantic colouring to one and the same notion, especially in the realm of epithets, metaphors, idioms, leave alone puns and culturally motivated lexis.
So, in both cases - with a translation and a movie - the book cannot really be interpreted to remain as it originally was, in my opinion. And the difference and the similarity of a translation or filmmaking in relation to a book are viewed through disparate aspects: the mechanism of perception, the impossibility of conveying the unique nuances of one language by the means of the other, the way a director or a translator wants to transform the original story etc.
But the main similarity may be in keeping the originally desired effect, the purpose, the atmosphere. And that, I think, is the most important thing when the question is if you know what the story is about. – funkyfay8 years ago
There are a lot of issues with this topic, many of which have been very well-stated by those above me. I just found it interesting that you happened to choose Tolstoy and Camus as your two examples, given that the both wrote in very clear-cut, didactic, realist prose that left very little up to interpretation of the translator. I could maybe get behind this topic if it were strictly about poetry (and you had used authors like Pushkin and Baudelaire as your examples). The art of poetry is, after all, much more contingent on the specificity of words and the music they make when placed together in a certain way, making it arguably immune to direct translation. With regards to Tolstoy specifically, if you read his works in the Maude translations, you're reading versions that were made under his own watchful supervision at utmost appreciation. He's quoted saying of them, "Better translators, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated could not be invented." He even want as far as to say for some of his essays that the Maude versions were presenting the works "for the first time in its true form" given that the Russian censors would not allow him to publish the works without numerous edits that distorted his meaning. That being the case, it would be fair to say that reading such versions would give you access to the true Tolstoy. Yes, obviously there are bad translations out there (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-pevearsion-of-russian-literature/), but the onus is on the reader to do their research and pick the one that best suits their needs. – ProtoCanon8 years ago
Would this mean that literary translator's work is useless and their profession does not matter? – T. Palomino2 years ago
With so many books out there, why do many people keep going back to the same books and rereading them? Did they simply enjoy the book that much during their first reading, or is there more to it? Perhaps the book is being adapted into a film, and people want to jog their memory and reacquaint themselves with the story and characters. Maybe people love the world so much that they feel a great comfort and familiarity escaping to it when they reread the book. It might be a tradition to reread a particular story at a certain time of year, like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is also possible that the readers did not fully appreciate or understand the book the first time through, or, quite oppositely, fully understood it and want to experience the book again now that they know all the twists and turns the author has to throw at them.
Why do you think people reread books? What value does rereading the same books have when there are so many other new stories out there waiting to be uncovered?
I mean in addition to what you already have. – Tigey8 years ago
I find re-reading book exceptionally beneficial from an academic standpoint. I have NEVER re-read a book and not found a piece of "evidence" or a new idea for a paper or thesis I was working on. As for reading for pleasure..there have only been 3 books I have re-read because they absolutely enraptured me: "Mrs. Dalloway," "The Crying of Lot 49," "The Waves." Regarding the works of Woolf, I just couldn't get over the beauty of her prose, and The Waves became a type of puzzle I was figuring out with all of the different voices. The Crying of Lot 49 was an absolute trip!! It is a complete departure from my genre of study--Medieval Literature, with a concentration of readings in Middle English--but that may be why it fascinated me; the book toys with language and you have to be alert to be "in," on the jokes Pynchon throws at the reader. Sorry for the ramble. – danielle5778 years ago
No need to apologize, Danielle! I agree wholeheartedly. I find it extremely helpful to reread books when I'm approaching them from an academic standpoint. For example, I've read Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury three times, and each time I pick out something new. – KennethC8 years ago
Danielle, good call. I had to reread Mrs. Dalloway to understand it, and then when I unlocked the code, I was "enraptured" and astounded. I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf, but she does make me feel very wee. The necessity of rereading complex works is a necessary aspect of this topic. – Tigey8 years ago
I like to re-read books that I loved partly because I know what to expect, but also because I like to analyze what exactly I liked about the book as a way to inform myself as a writer. – Lauren Mead8 years ago
Much like re-listening to a song over and over for a span of a month when it's new, and then having it find your ears months or years later, it might be that the reader is trying to recapture what they felt when they read it first. For me, this was "Paper Towns" by John Green. The main point of the novel, which isn't a spoiler, is that not everyone is as they seem, and people are more complex than you think. John Green, at one point in his vlogbrothers YouTube channel career, said the quote, "Imagine others complexly." That novel can be summed up like that. For me, it pushed me out of my previously egocentric philosophy of looking at the world. It made me realize, and actually think in words, "That person might be having a bad day. They aren't out to get you. They didn't hold the door open for you because they were thinking about how their cat just died." Etc., etc, etc, you get the idea. So for me, a few years ago, soon after it first was published in paperback, in a short span of a few months, I read "Paper Towns" over and over. Maybe in disbelief that I never realized the complexity of humanity in that way before. Maybe in shock about how words on a page could change my whole view of the world. Much like a meaning that you find in a song and its lyrics, you find yourself wanting to relive the experience of the first time you read it, and what you first thought of the novel. – MaryWright8 years ago
Some books are designed to be read multiple times and in multiple fashions. Prime examples of this are the productions of Vladimir Nabokov, especially his later works. Pale Fire requires multiple readings (or at least a circuitous, repetitious romp throughout the novel's pages) in order to glean a full(er) understanding of the story presented within the interplay of the poem and commentary. Transparent Things initially appears to be a rather convoluted narrative about a book editor's life and death, but opens up so much further once one has reached the conclusion and begins to reread the novel. A good book can open our eyes to so much and alter our understanding of the world, as noted by MaryWright above, thereby making a new reading of a novel as rewarding (if not more so) than the first reading. One should also consider that we are always changing. When we finish a book we are a different person in some ways than when we started the book: We have lived our lives, interacted with others, events have taken place in the world around us, and we have read a new book. When I first read Look at the Harlequins! I was unaware of the rancor between Nabokov and his first biographer, Andrew Field. After reading Field's books on Nabokov and reading Look at the Harlequins! in this new light the novel transformed from a fictitious autobiography of an author with some slight resemblances to Nabokov into a doppelganger of Field's works, revealing fictional counterparts to Field's very real scholarly errors and oversights. Nabokov's final, incomplete novel The Original of Laura has been widely dismissed as a recycled pastiche of elements from his previous works, most notably Lolita. But critical consensus has shifted as the work has been reread and re-evaluated (including the reversal of the most noted Nabokov scholar, Brian Boyd).
However Nabokov's works are certainly not the only example of this. Some others that jump to mind are: John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Danielewski's House of Leaves, Dick's VALIS, Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom, Moby-Dick, and many others. Heck, some works require multiple readings and considerations before we're even sure what we've read, like Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. – echarlberg8 years ago
A question that has been brought up quite a few times in my literature classes is how to change the canon to include more diverse literature. First, we need to define what makes a "classic" a "classic." Is it that they were written so long ago and people still read them? Or does the novel hold something else entirely? Another aspect I have noticed when reading or browsing over deemed classic novels is how male dominated the canon is. Yes, we have Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters and Alcott and Harper Lee, but overall, female authors are few and far between in the original canon. White male authors dominate. Why is that? How does the dismantling begin? Does it need to happen or should we simply leave the canon well enough alone?
Another question to add to the list of why "classics" are dominated by white male authors might be: to what extent do the market forces acting on and created by a publishing "industry" leave the canon relatively untouched by anyone outside the DWM (dead white male) zone? – pjoshualaskey8 years ago
This topic calls for an analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, specifically in regards to how both wealth and poverty are portrayed within the novel. How do the rich live in East and West Egg as opposed to the poor in the Valley of Ashes? What is implied by this portrayal? What can readers learn from Fitzgerald's portrayal about attitudes about class in the 1920s?
Wealth and poverty have always been tangled together in the landscape of the class struggles of the 1920s. The way they are depicted in the novel is a brutal, realistic representation of the realities of the time. – Kaya8 years ago
Analyze any presidential speech from a current nominee or former president. What made their speech successful and what could they of done better? Review their rhetoric and how it is relevant to the situation. What is being said, who are is the speaker's audience and what is their purpose? Are there specific events that have caused this speech? (Ex; Bush 9/11 Speech or Eisenhower's Little Rock Speech) use specific evidence to back up your claim with reasoning.
Lloyd Bitzer's "Rhetorical Situation" could be a useful reference for someone doing this kind of analysis. – Matt Sautman8 years ago
