Esther's Classic Literature Blog

There's something to be said for creating a work of literature that can stand the test of time. Many writers of today go to great (and painstaking) lengths in the attempt to accomplish that transcendency--a universality that touches us to the core, and ensures that the author (and the work) will be remembered for a long time to come.

It seems rather simple: To reach out and touch another person. But, a great writer really does much more than that... He/She touches a whole range of readers--each with a myriad of joys/sorrows, hopes/fears, successes/failures. How does one writer touch each of those individuals in very specific ways? How did writers of the past achieve lasting value in their writings? What can we learn from their struggles (and successes)?

In his article about Pride and Prejudice, John Thornton writes: "Jane Austen is a novelist with an extremely narrow focus that extends, surprisingly, into a wide range of concerns. Her books can be viewed most simply as eerily good romance novels, more broadly as sharp critiques of nineteenth-century vanity, cruelty and folly, and--broadest of all--as an indictment of a social system and economic system dedicated to the marginalization and commodification of a full half of the human experience."

Take the Pride and Prejudice quiz to test your novel knowledge, and then join our discussion of Jane Austen's novels.

Cover Art © W.W. Norton & Co.

Summer is the time of weddings, and the season for nuptials is well underway. While you're preparing for your own wedding, watching someone you know walk down the aisle, or just dreaming about when your day will come, why not read about a few weddings in literature? Read on:

• Meg's Wedding - Louisa May Alcott
• Madame Bovary's Wedding - Gustave Flaubert
• The Wedding of Mr. Ellenwood and Mrs. Dabney - Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Marriage of Adam and Dinah - George Eliot
• King Arthur's Wedding - Sir Thomas Malory
• Jane Eyre's Wedding - Charlotte Brontë

Here are a few related quizzes:

• Brownings' Quiz
• Louisa May Alcott Quiz
• Madame Bovary Quiz
• Jane Eyre Quiz

Enjoy reading about weddings in literature!

Cover Art © Library of America.

It's the dream of some: To live forever, to be remembered far after the last breath has ceased.

Luigi Pirandello was born on June 28, 1867. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." He wrote novels, plays and short stories. How does illusion relate to unreality?

In Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello wrote: "A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die! And to be able to to live for ever you don't need to have extraordinary gifts or be able to do miracles. Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Prospero? But they will live for ever because - living seeds - they had the luck to find a fruitful soil, an imagination which knew how to grow them and feed them, so that they will live for ever."

I remember when I first read E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. I'd heard for such a long time that the book was marvelous, descriptive, unforgettable... but I don't think I was quite prepared for the description, that draws you in. And, there's something about some of those passages that seem to stay with you--like an old friend. Somewhere in those lines-passages-pages, we fall upon a fascinating mix of light-and-dark, of illusion-and-reality, of being and belonging, of knowing and being. Have you ever felt so much like a stranger in a strange land, or like you belong in a place so far out of your realm of understanding?

In Passage to India, E.M. Forster writes: "In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all other stars. A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange freshness behind."

Here are more quotes from A Passage to India. Also, read the review.

Blogs That Link Here

Erich Maria Remarque was born on June 22, 1898. He would later be in the unique position to write his famous war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, after his experience at 18 years of age, as a soldier on the front lines in World War I. With terse prose, he writes about the horrors of war, centering around Paul Bäumer, a young soldier.

In this anti-war novel, Remarque writes: "To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself." Read more quotes from Erich Maria Remarque, and All Quiet on the Western Front.

The Awakening is the famous (and very controversial) novel by Kate Chopin. Edna is the protagonist of the work. We see her life, her relationship with her husband and children, her adultery, and her emotional and sexual awakening. Based on the critical response of this work, Kate Chopin never wrote another novel, but this novel is still studied as an important work in American literature and as an essential reading selection in feminist and women's literature.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin writes: "The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander an abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water."

Read the novel, peruse a few quotes, and then take a look at a review of The Awakening. (Also, find more study resources.)

The Awakening takes us to the beach, and out to sea. Enjoy The Awakening this summer!

Whether you're reading a novel for a literature class, or enjoying a book on the beach, characters are the vehicles that often help to drive the plot. They make you care about what happens, and you may grow emotionally attached to them (wishing for their happiness and success). But, not all characters are very exciting. And, in some novels, the characters have such similar names that it's sometimes difficult to keep track. Here are a few tips to help: How to Keep Track of Characters...

Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen, first appeared on the London stage in 1891. Although not as famous as A Doll's House or Hedda Gabler, the play is known for its controversial references to incest and sexually transmitted disease. Coming from such a world-renowned playwright, the play has a good deal of depth. Read the review. Have you read (or watched) this famous play?