I enjoyed this so much. I'm so glad you have started a channel, and look forward to more. Exactly what I was hoping to find.

@carlaeskelsen

7 ай бұрын

I'm firmly in the Stella Gibbons "Cold Comfort Farm" camp, myself, but this was very interesting and enjoyable, and much more informative than I expected.

I love Jane Eyre. But if I had to pick a single, favorite work of classic literature, the competition is tough. I assume, for the context, we mean classic novels preceding the 20th century. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol is high on my list. The Idiot, by Dostoyevsky, as well as Brothers Karamazov both also sit high on the list for me. (Demons was really interesting and I loved reading it, but the reason I read it was because a novel by Heimito von Doderer prompted me to, and Doderer's novel I think is even better; Crime and Punishment is excellent, but it is at the bottom of a list of Dostoyevsky for me). I used to say my favorite Dickens novel was Bleak House, followed by Dombey & Son, then by Little Dorritt, then by Our Mutual Friend, then by David Copperfield; recently however I think David Copperfield jumped ahead of the other Dickens novels. I had an interesting conversation with someone in a bookstore (I live in Phoenix AZ, she was visiting from Ohio for the Winter). She asked me if I had to choose my last book to read - my death-bed read as I reworded it to her - what would I choose? I immediately knew I would want it to be a book which captured the full scope and drama of humanity and human life. Books like War & Peace and Les Miserables and Don Quixote came to mind. At the time, David Copperfield won out. An actively reading human being probably reads more than ten thousand works of literature if they live long enough, and if they are posed Ohio lady's deathbed question: Of all the books you have read in your life, which would you choose to be the last one you read? Or, possibly, the one you are found dead having been in the middle of? The book they select I think is a strong candidate for being their favorite book. David Copperfield, War & Peace, Les Miserables, Jane Eyre. . . . There is a very good reason books like this end up having "classic" status; it's that all-encompassing sense of humanity they share which compelled Wordsworth to spend his whole life studying Milton's Paradise Lost . . . you know? I think you do know. The "text" of Paradise Lost "took on new meanings," as you say about classics, for Wordsworth, who saw himself as the Miltonic heir. Picking a favorite classic: that is hard; that is tough; it is like you yourself said: it's pitting favorites against favorites; it is pitting them against each other. It would have to result in a competition resembling social theorist hijackings of Darwinian theory. Let's say mine is Miserables and stick with it. This declaration does not come lightly; it comes at the sacrifice of the likes of Gaskell's "Mary Barton," of "Jane Eyre" and "Villette," and of Austen's "Emma," and of "A Simple Story" by Elizabeth Inchbald. It comes at the sacrifice of "Lost Illusions" by Balzac - which is not an easy decision. But I do think it is the right choice for me. It comes at the inevitable, sinful lower grading of Don Quixote and Anna Karenina and War & Peace. But at those losses, let's say my favorite classic novel is Les Miserables. If you ever should so choose to change your mind on the matter of reading literary studies of your favorite book, one you would probably get a lot out of is a book actually titled "The Madwoman in the Attic" (you're probably aware of it, given your academic background and the fact that you self-identify as a madwoman in an attic). The book is a late-1970's critical study of female English authors in the 19th century. The book is divided into six parts and a preface. The fourth part is entirely dedicated to Charlotte Bronte and consists of four chapters, the second of which is entirely devoted to the novel Jane Eyre. "The Madwoman in the Attic" is among the best works of literary studies published in the 1970's, 2nd perhaps only to the by-then seasoned M.H. Abrams and his book "Natural Supernaturalism." In addition, "Madwoman in the Attic" may very well be the greatest feminist work of literary criticism yet to be published. It's closest contender, Elaine Showalter's "A Jury of Her Peers" is good, but nowhere near as good as "Madwoman in the Attic". There is also the excellent essay on the Bronte sisters from Elizabeth Hardwick's 1974 book, "Seduction and Betrayal."

I read Jane Eyre this last January and love it so much. You are saying almost all of the things I love about this book. Thanks for this video, it's an excellent discussion on the book 😊

@GlutenbergBible

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching! If you're a fan of Jane Eyre I have a podcast recommendation, the Hot & Bothered podcast. You'll have to scroll back a while to find the episodes, but they did a whole series they called "On Eyre" reading through Jane Eyre a couple chapters at a time, talking in depth and interviewing academics - I really enjoyed it!

@Bryndisdaugtherofgunnar

4 ай бұрын

@@GlutenbergBible Excellent, I will check that out, for sure.

I'm planning to reread JA and dive into this lonely melancholic story of self search ❤ Although I don't think Jane was ugly. She is described as plane, which is ordinary. Back in days having plane daughters was almost a crime because no one wanted marry them

This was excellent. I've never heard anyone sum up my feelings on Jane Eyre so well. I know people who absolutely hate Mr. Rochester, and the reasons they hate him aren't actually bad, which is why I often struggle to defend my fondness of him. But the reason I can't let go of him is that the things he loves about Jane are actually the things everyone else *hates* about her. She's too opinionated and angry? He loves that (and majorly gets off on it, too). She's too quiet at other times? He loves that. She's too plain? He loves how she looks, which is different from just thinking she's beautiful. It's like Charlotte Bronte is sending a message to us: "You know those traits everyone else tells you to squash, to repress and remove from your being? One day, you will meet someone who loves you not in spite of those things, but BECAUSE of them." From what I've learned about her life, she may have needed to hear that message herself.

This was wonderful, thank you. I have read Jane Eyre several times but you’ve made me want to pick it up again. I’ve not read anything about the Brontes’ lives, so those details were fascinating. I love lots of classics, but the first one I loved was Wuthering Heights which I read at school. In my twenties, I fell in love with Jane Austen’s work, despite hating Emma at school, which I now adore (read at the same time as Wuthering Heights so clearly my teenage self preferred the gothic drama to the regency romance!). Pride and Prejudice remains my absolute favourite classic which I could read over and over again and I’m sure I’d find something new each time. Great video!

@GlutenbergBible

7 ай бұрын

I hated the first Jane Austen novel I read for school, Persuasion! And now I love it. I think a lot of Austen’s wit and cleverness just flew over my head when I was 17. But that’s the fun of returning to classics when you’re a bit older, or just in a different point in life!

Hey there! This was fun to watch, thanks. What’s more fun that reading books? Talking about them lol. Jane Eyre is not my favorite but I do appreciate it’s brilliance. I am more a fan of Wuthering Heights which I have come to see as a book about Nelly more than anything and her love for people who treat her as a servant and not part of the family.

@GlutenbergBible

7 ай бұрын

I love the idea of focusing on Nelly! I feel like in Wuthering Heights and in Frankenstein, it's easy to forget that it's a frame narrative, and that we're getting the main story translated through someone else's perspective and memory, but that adds such a fascinating element to it.