Classical Literature - Tumblr Posts
death is a man
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“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”
— Frida Kahlo
Artwork: Le Printemps (Springtime), Pierre-Auguste Cot.
“What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.”
— Franz Kafka
Movies to watch if you love Pride and Prejudice
1.Bright Star (2009)
This one is a beautiful, quiet and poetic movie about the love affair between Poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne.
2. Becoming Jane (2007)
This is an autobiographical movie about Jane Austen and her romantic relationship with Tom Lefroy. It is not entirely based on facts, since we know so little about some aspects of Austens private life.
3. A room with a view (1985)
This movie is a lovely and incredibly acted adaption of E.M. Forster's novel. It stars a young Daniel Day-Lewis and Helena Bonham Carter.
4. Finding Neverland (2004)
This film has to be one of my all time favourites: it is about J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspires him to create Peter Pan. It is a heart-wrenching, magical tale of love, fiendships and the wonders of the world.
This monologue is really something else. His voice and acting are incredible. This adaptation is also wayyy more sexual than i thought a 1800s Play could be.
One of the most beautiful passages in theatre history...fight me!
“I love you, I need you, I want you. I go to sleep thinking about you and wake up with your voice winding through my head, I look at you and I can’t focus, the whole world shimmers, I’m ashamed, I’m angry, I’m in love, I’m mad, I’m happy, I’m dead, I’m alive, I’m stupid, I’m tongue-tied."
- Cyrano de Bergerac adapted by Martin Crimp
Book recommendations based on your favourite authors
1. Oscar Wilde
Edward St Aubyn - Patrick Melrose
If you love Oscar Wilde i would recommend St. Aubyn's amazing novels. They are full of wit, cunning irony, upper - class critisicm and dry humor.
2. William Shakespeare
Margaret Atwood - Hagseed
Part of the "Hogarth Shakespeare Series" this is a brillant retelling of Shakespeares play the tempest.
3. Lewis Carroll
Michael Ende - Momo
Similar to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Ende takes us on a young girl's magical journey in which she has to bring back the "stolen time".
4. Stephen King
David Mitchell - Slade House
Stephen King himself recommended this suspensful novel about an abnormal house: “Hard to imagine a more finely wrought and chilling tale of the supernatural. One of the rare great ones.”
5. Suzanne Collins
Koushun Takami - Battle Royale
This book has a very similar storyline to Collins great Hunger Games Saga: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing.
6. Jane Austen
Goethe - Elective Affinities
A love story just as sharming and complicated as Jane Austen's beloved works: Eduard and his wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet but idle life in their estate, when their piece is fastly thrown into chaos as he invites his friend the Captain and she invites her niece Ottilie to stay with them: a story of forbidden love begins to grow as they both form attraction to their guests.
Beautiful Opera arias to start your classical music Journey
Below i made a little list for poeple who want to get into Opera (with Links)
1. Nessun Dorma - Giacomo Puccini
~ A total classic for a reason
2. Lascia ch'io pianga - Georg Friedrich Händel
~ "let me weep my cruel fate" - it's breathtakingly beautiful
3. L'ho perduta - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
~ a short musical masterpiece
4. Je crois entendre encore - George Bizet
~ one of the most heartfelt melodies ever written
5. La Habanera - George Bizet
~ almost everyone heard this sassy classic once
6. Un bel di vedremo - Giacomo Puccini
~ another tearjerker by the master of romantic operas
7. Una furtiva lagrima - Geatano Donizetti
~ one of the most romantic arias out there
8. Addio del passato - Giuseppe Verdi
~ a musical farewell
9. Largo al Factotum - Giachino Rossini
~ This is a fun one and a real show off
10. Pourquoi me reveiller - Jules Massenet
~ this is the one for you if you like it dark and dramatic
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - 42nd Anniversary Edition
~ Illustrations by Chris Riddell
I'm looking for illustrated books or special editions of famous novels. Do you guys have any "beautiful books" recommendations?
Anticipated Book to movie adaptations 2022
Who else is excited? Also del Torro filming Pinocchio...a dream come true😍
Actors and their favourite books
Tom Hiddleston - Any human heart
Hiddleston mentioned in a tweet, that this was one of his favourite novels.
Colin Firth - The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
"I don't think I've ever read such descriptions of what it would be like to lose your grip. He has a vision that makes you less sure of your surroundings—and I find that stimulating."
Natalie Portman - Cloud Atlas
"This was the present I gave everyone I knew for three years. It's six different stories told in different time periods and genres: One is historical fiction, another is a '70s thriller mystery, the sixth is a post¬apocalyptic story"
Daniel Radcliffe - The Master and Margarita
"It's now my favorite novel—it's just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humor, and heart."
Timothee Chalamet - And then the End will come
Chalamet mentioned in an interview, that he really loved this book
Morgan Freeman - The Poisonwood Bible
“Some of the best writers are women writers – Barbara Kingsolver, Joyce Carol Oates. They just don’t get enough play.”
Margot Robbie - The five poeple you meet in heaven
I love that book. It felt very different, moving and heartfelt. It made me think. It’s a quick read, it’s a good one to recommend over the holidays.”
Cate Blanchett - The true history of the Kelly Gang
"Carey is one of my favorite writers. In Kelly Gang, the narrative voice is so unique. We Australians all know about Ned Kelly, but what Carey does is get inside his character's mind in such an illuminating and heartrending way. Aand there's not a trace of sentimentality in it. I so admire that as an actor, because I realize how difficult it is to do."
Famous writers and the books they can't live without
All these answers are taken from BBC's Podcast "Desert Island Discs", where famous artists share the one book they would take with them to a deserted island.
Neil Gaiman - The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Margaret Atwood - Stories from 1001 Arabian Nights
Maggie O'Farrell - Selected Stories by Alice Munro
Colm Toibin - The portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Stephen Fry - Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot
Tennessee Williams - Poetry by Hart Crane
Roald Dahl - The New Oxford Book of English Verse by Helen Gardner
Helen Fielding - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Patricia Highsmith - Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Zadie Smith - Remembrence of Things past by Marcel Proust
To all theatre and book nerds out there: Who is your favourite play writer? (Expect for the good old Willy shakes of course) I need more recommendations.
I think Goethe is hugely underrated!
Mozart and his weird sense of humor
“I wish you good night, shit in your bed all your might.”
"Oh my ass burns like fire.” (To his cousin)
"Write to me and don't be so lazy. Otherwise I shall have to give you a thrashing. What fun! I'll break your head." - (To his sister)
"To every good friend I send my greet feet; addio nitwit. Love true true true until the grave, if I live that long and do behave." - (To his cousin)
In 1782, Mozart wrote a six-voice canon. The canon’s title translates to “Lick Me In The Ass” :
"Lick my ass nicely,
lick it nice and clean,
nice and clean, lick my ass.
That’s a greasy desire,
nicely buttered,
like the licking of roast meat, my daily activity.
Three will lick more than two,
come on, just try it,
and lick, lick, lick.
Everybody lick his own ass himself."
“Yesterday, though, we heard the king of farts/ It smelled as sweet as honey tarts/ While it wasn’t in the strongest of voice/ It still came on as a powerful noise.” (To his mother)
There is a whole wiki only dedicated to Mozart and his love for ass jokes:
10 Classic Book Recommendations
I’ve read a lot of non-English classics over the last couple of years (all translated into English because I am not bilingual) and I thought it’d be fun to share some of my favourites!
This post contains affiliate links and they're marked with an asterisk (*) - you obviously don't need to use them.
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The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (1002)
Originally written in Middle Early Japanese (translated by Meredith McKinney)
A collection of essays, anecdotes, poems, observations and musings from Sei Shōnagon’s time as court lady to Empress Consort Teishi in Heian Japan
This is one of my favourite classics because found myself relating to a woman who lived over 1,000 years ago and it was wonderful. Some things have obviously changed – we’re from different times and places – but this book reminded me of how similar we are to the people that came before us.
Bookshop.org UK*
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (1873)
Originally written in French (translated by William Butcher)
An adventure novel
There’s something wonderfully superficial about this book. By this, I mean that the book doesn’t look at anything in depth because Fogg is in a race against the clock and has no time to dwell upon things.
Project Gutenberg (tr. G. M. Towle) | Bookshop.org UK*
The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō (1702)
Originally written in Early Modern Japanese (translated by Yuasa Nobuyuki)
A travelogue interwoven with poetry
The opening lines are stunning and reading this book made me feel free in a time when everyone was restricted.
Bookshop.org UK*
Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1862)
Originally written in Russian (translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky)
Semi-autobiographical philosophical fiction
Bleak and depressing and so, so interesting. Dostoevsky gives us a real insight into what life was like in exile in Siberia.
This isn’t the translation I read but, apparently, this one is much better and I intend to pick it up myself very soon.
Bookshop.org UK*
The Odyssey by Homer (c. 8th century BCE)
Originally written in Homeric Greek/Ancient Greek (translated by Emily Wilson)
Epic poem
It follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca and Greek hero, and his journey home after the Trojan War.
I have read many a translation of the Odyssey over the years and I love (almost) all iterations of it but Emily Wilson’s translation is beautiful.
Bookshop.org UK*
Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1320)
Originally written in Italian (translated by C. H. Sisson)
Poetry and religious philosophy
Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise with Virgil and Beatrice as his guides. Inferno will always be my favourite section of the poem but I really love Paradisio too.
Bookshop.org UK*
Poetic Edda (c.985)
Originally written in Old Norse (translated by Carolyne Larrington)
A collection of anonymous Old Norse narrative poems that tell mythological and historical stories.
This is the only translation I’ve read because I wanted something relatively accessible for my first foray into the Poetic Edda but I’ve also heard good things about the Hollander translation.
Bookshop.org UK*
Metamorphoses by Ovid (8 AD)
Originally written in Latin (translated by Rolfe Humphries)
A narrative poem that chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar. It includes various myths, such as Diana and Actaeon, Arachne, and Orpheus and Eurydice.
Although I’ve recommended the Humphries translation, you could pick up any verse translation and still enjoy it. I personally love Arthur Golding’s translation* from 1567 because it was the first direct translation from Latin to English and it’s a reflection of the poetry of its time.
Bookshop.org UK*
The Outsider by Albert Camus (1942)
Originally written in French (translated by Sandra Smith)
Also published as The Stranger in English
A philosophical novel
Camus wrote the best absurdist novels and this one is fantastic. I can’t really describe it but it had a great impact on 18-year-old me and it was my introduction to absurdism and existentialism (but don't tell Camus I described his novel as existentialist).
Bookshop.org UK*
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)
Originally written in Russian (translated by Bela Shayevich)
Dystopian novel – inspired Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984
The book depicts a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. Everyone is a number and the city’s buildings are constructed almost entirely of glass. It’s such an unnerving book.
Bookshop.org UK*
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If you pick up any of these books based on this post, please let me know what you think!
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