When I wrote about The Mysteries of Udolpho for the Classics Circuit I did not have the time to give it the week of blogging I easily could have—I would say “the week of blogging it deserved,” but who can make such judgments? But I do want to go back to it this week [...]
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Many years ago I read Northanger Abbey, one of the few Jane Austen novels I really enjoyed, and other than various literary history and criticism that has touched on Ann Radcliffe, that remained my main source of knowledge of her works until I finally made my own way through The Mysteries of Udolpho. And, [...] Does anyone call Robinson Crusoe a picaresque? Do we have to be questing or adventuring to be picaresque, or is it enough to be episodic? In any case, Robinson Crusoe is episodic, and unevenly so, in exactly that way that will leave the well-versed reader saying, “This was totally written before 1750.” I actually [...] So the religious/didactic element is a definite sign of Early Novel Syndrome, as is, I believe, the issue of time passing strangely that I wrote about a bit yesterday. Two more posts on two more symptoms of ENS should do it for Defoe, for now, and then I’ll try to perk us up next [...] Yesterday’s bite wasn’t exactly tiny. But folks, there was so much more to say! Today, for a break, I will be truly brief. Last week I discussed the extreme lengths of time that pass in Robinson Crusoe, throughout the book, with very little indication that so much time is going by. The narration will [...] I implied yesterday that I had writer’s block. I don’t. I have time issues, and a block as far as being able to write something in the allotted time (say…ten minutes). But then again maybe it is a certain kind of writer’s block: I want to make an argument, but I don’t have the [...] Let me break my writer’s block once more with a poem: Young Robinson was born a Romantic To dour Christian parents, hard-working and content To remain at home, never crossing the Atlantic Where he, tempest-tossed, found life progressing without his consent; Leaving him first enslaved, then escaped, with life And limb intact but little [...] Robinson Crusoe, or The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was first published in 1719, and you probably think you know the story. Daniel Defoe’s novel, you imagine, relates the tale of a castaway lost on a desert island, where he saves the life of a fellow unfortunate, a black man he [...] I read The Sorrows of Young Werther as part of my long-lingering (malingering?) epistolary literature project, and in this respect it was rather on the disappointing side. The novel is, like Evelina, not really epistolary. That is to say, I’d argue it doesn’t really gain much from the structure. The bulk of the novel [...] The problem with being a trendsetter is that the more successful you are, the less original you’ll seem. Thus is the trouble with The Sorrows of Young Werther, at least for me. Goethe’s influence was so great, and I’ve read so many influenced by him, that Werther seems almost derivative. He so epitomizes the [...] |
My Personal Canon (ongoing project) |
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