-
Jane Maree posted an update 7 years, 4 months ago
@aratrea my annual town book fair is on over the next few days, and -after doing Theme Mastery and hearing your thoughts on some of the classics- I thought I might give some a read/study/analyze myself. Today I got The Count of Monte Cristo, Crime and Punishment and one or two others, but I was wondering if you had any specific ones (other than on the recommended reading list) that you’d recommend for if I’m wanting to analyze the themes of the books.
Ah! Where to begin? If you can find the Divine Comedy by Dante Alghieri (it’s normally split into its separate books: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), get it. As an allegorical poetic epic, it’s not necessarily the most relevant to novels, but it’s my favorite work of literature ever and has some masterful themes in it.
After that, Frankenstein (I forget if that’s on the TM list or not), the Iliad & the Odyssey, Hard Times (Dickens), the Scarlet Letter, and Moby-Dick all are great works to read and study.
Ooh yep yep. I’ll write all those down on my list and see if I can hunt any of them up!