/lit/ - Literature

>>2152526

Sorry, I'm a guy and a relatively straight and mildly masculine one (not being mutually exclusive in my experience) at that.

Which unfortunately in this day and age raises eyebrows when I say I've read everything of Austens sans Sanditon/The Watsons, and also means we couldn't marry thanks to the Fascist social conservatives who have the kind of autistic shitfit about the definition of marriage the Chinese have over territorial disputes. But, I digress.

>>2152528

>BUT CAN YOU SAY AN AUTHOR IS ANY BETTER BECAUSE OF THE INFLUENCES OF THE TIMES IN WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN?

Not necessarily better because of the influences, but I honestly think one gets a more accurate assessment of an author and a greater appreciation of their work when taking into account the historical context, both in literary history and in general. Making value judgements in ignorance of these things is, I reckon, to make somewhat flawed ones.

Then again I'm also partial to the idea of the importance of look at an authors work within the context of the rest of their work and the development of their own writing, and not just writing in general. Which I'm sure most people accidentally dabble in when they've read a lot of an author's work (I'm sure you've done it with Tolstoy et. al.)

>Last Five
Anne Bronte - Tenant of Wildfell Hall (or, why I want to go back in time and bitchslap Charlotte Bronte for causing this novel to be ignored even though it basically takes elements of her own and Emily's work and runs absolute riot with it.)

Arthur Conan Doyle - Hound of the Baskervilles (or why Sherlock Holmes kind of works better in long-form)

Arthur Conan Doyle - Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (or Doyle humanises the seemingly inhuman)

Arthur Conan Doyle - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (or just..fuck yeah Sherlock)

Jack Lynch - Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard [Non-fiction] (or lol Puritans and Bowdlerisation)

>Current
Nothing. I've been sick and/or trying to work out Wii NAND emulation (or FUCK YOU MIGHTY CHANNELS, FUCK YOU.)

>Next Five
Fucked if I know. (or maybe re-attempt Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native because I keep trying to read it when I'm at my busiest and I'm not now. Or just read a Len Deighton novel. Or something.)

>>2048286

Somebody pimping their own work I imagine. Hell, I didn't realise it was there when I read the thread yesterday.

I've only read Agnes Grey but I already kind of like her a bit more than the other Bronte sisters even though it's objectively an inferior work to at least Jane Eyre (Wuthering Heights didn't work for me, though I might have to read it again).

I just like how in a lot of respects, she cuts out a lot of the bullshit and really exposes a part of society without using gothic elements as a bit of a crutch.

If Tenant of Wildfell Hall is what I think it is, I think I've found the angry, impossible love-child of Jane Austen (I've gone all the way with Janey-A) and George Eliot. Though obviously not as intellectual and talented as the latter or as ironic as the former.

I'd also do Emily even though I don't like her work as much.

Charlotte I'd fucking bitchslap for the shit she pulled when it came to the republication of her own sister's work.