Shit talking classic literature

Because my relationship with the canon is complicated   

[firebirdy]

This may be the best book I have ever purchased. It is definitely in the top 10

[corvidcall]

whAT BOOK IS THIS

[faokryn]

To Be or Not to Be by Ryan North.  Hamlet as a choose-your-own-adventure book.

[aleatoryw]

I own this book and it’s about 600 pages and it’s ALL this good. You can play as hamlet, Ophelia, or hamlet sr, who is a ghost. You can murder everyone in the play. You can fire yourself out of a cannon and use your uncle as a skateboard. There are dozens of endings and places where you can diverge from canon and do something wacky instead. 10/10 would recommend

[maddie-grove]

Back in 2003 or so, my mom was in a book club that was reading Jane Eyre, and one of the other women was like “I wish I lived during that time, it was so wholesome and innocent!” Which. Like. Okay. When someone expresses these feelings about Anne of Green Gables or the Little House books or Little Women or even Jane Austen, I usually get what appeals to them and (unless I have reason to believe they’re very stupid) don’t take it super-literally. But oh my god when does Jane Eyre ever get to have wholesome fun??? It’s all typhus and fires and shit.

[maddie-grove]

She was (according to my mom) specifically expressing a nostalgia for a certain type of old-fashioned girlhood. Which is a lot more baffling than if she’d just found it romantic with zero recognition of all the fucked-up stuff. This is a book where the heroine’s childhood is actually improved by being packed off to the Typhus Outbreak School for Unwanted Young Girls, because the headmaster sucks so much that her being publicly humiliated by him doesn’t really count against her with most people.

[musicofthe-ainur]

Am I the only person who thought this was really fucking funny

[eleemosynecdoche]

A lot of the really funny moments in Lord of the Rings come from Tolkien playing with language like this, where we have relatively formal, archaic, “high” language responded to with informal, modern, “low” language. 

[modernclaire]

another hilarious example:

[lotrmusical]

my absolute favorite example of tolkien switching registers in this way is

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

[grindrbooks]

[shittalkingclassicliterature]

This account sure is startling

[adzolotl]

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves A stately pleasure-dome decreed. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

[patienz]

they fuck you up your mum and dad two vast and trunkless legs of stone i do not like it, sam i am as small as a world and as large as alone

[playwrongs]

God moves in a mysterious way:

He gives his harness bells a shake.

What will survive of him is love

If he should die before he wake.

[inthefallofasparrow]

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. See in her cell sad Eloisa spread, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

If I should die, think only this of me, Between what I see and what I say, In this short Life that only lasts an hour Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

[atamascolily]

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow? Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead. I learn by going where I have to go.

[animatedamerican]

But I am done with apple-picking now, I thank whatever gods may be; I never saw a purple cow, I think that I shall never see.

I have a rendezvous with Death, She walks in beauty like the night – Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, So on we worked, and waited for the light.

[elodieunderglass]

Thank you @mugwomps this is the brain equivalent of one of those massages where they hit you

[thoodleoo]

ancient dog names, courtesy of ovid

melampus: blackfoot

ichnobates: tracker

pamphagos: glutton

dorceus: gazelle

oribasos: hiker

nebrophonos: deercatcher

laelape: hurricane

theron: hunter

pterelas: wingy boy

agre: hunter 2

hylaeus: woody

nape: valley girl

poemenis: shep

harpyia: snatchy

ladon: bitey

dromas: speedy

canache: loudmouth

sticte: spot

tigris: tiger

alce: strong girl

leucon: whitey

asbolos: soot

lacon: howler

aello: stormy

thoos: fast boy

cyprius: cyprus boy

lycisce: wolfdog

harpalos: snatchy 2

melaneus: blacky

lachne: fuzzy girl

labros: rowdy boy

argiodus: white fang

hylactor: barker

melanchaetes: black-hair

theridamas: killer

orestriphos: mountain boy

[stickfiguregods]

It should be added that these all occur in one short passage as they eat their master Actaeon.

[notahorseindisguise]

"its a living" <- guy who has a job it hates

"its'a living!' <- dr mario frankenstein

[stufftoinspiremetowrite]

Thank you OP. I haven't laughed like that in a really long time.

[notahorseindisguise]

thats why i do this

[powerbottombrucespringsteen]

If i was in call me by your name i’d be ignoring the horny jailbait twink and spending the whole summer chasing after his dad and inspiring an entirely different brand of insipid and pointless discourse

[persianmom-deactivated20251026]

what will it be, boss? the comfort of misery or the pain of change?

[wizard-of-interesting-failure]

[slunch]

if I were an English teacher I would print this out and put it onto the wall next to a "reading is poggers" poster

[orcposts]

do not go gentle into that good night

[orcposts]

be a bit of a bitch about it

[transbian-uprising]

can't in good conscience leave this out

[idiopathicsmile]

NYT crossword puzzle clue today: "spice used prominently in Hungarian cooking" My mom: ??? Me, who mainlined Dracula Daily circa 2023: 😎😎😎

[the-bedheaded-league]

Holmemes pt. 25

Answer the question, Irene.

(Image 3 is from @beekeeperspicnic and image 5 is by @haedraulics . If you are an artist in the Holmes fandom and would like to offer your art up to the sacrificial altar of Holmemes pls let me know 🐝❤️🎻)

[televisiongifs]

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) The Diary (S01E10)

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

"On The Road" fuckin sucks and they both should say it <3

Also the fact that the teacher in this scene literally looks like an older version of the fuckin guy from Glee is both weirding me out but also feels appropriate

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Though Dracula is never specifically stated to be Mormon, his three wives and refusal to drink wine were common stereotypes when the novel was written by Bram Stoker, shortly after his ex wife moved to Utah. This sardonic element is lost now that the Latter Day Saints have banned polygamy and allowed drinking beverages other than blood.

[sandersstudies]

Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)

Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!

Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks

[roofbeams-deactivated20180202]

the moral of hamlet is don’t ever try to go home and resolve conflicts with yr family just stay at college and do gay shit w ur friends

[legoloveletters]

As an English teacher I am qualified to tell you this analysis is insightful and may be supported fully with textual evidence.

[paddysnuffles]

As a librarian with a Bachelor in English, I concur with the English teacher.

[little-miss-rasputin-pageant]

in almost every other children's book where the main heroine is swept away to a land of whimsy she's shown having a lovely time; braving dangers occasionally, trying to find her way home, sure, but ultimately delighting in the magic around her. meanwhile alice spends her entire time in wonderland like

[wavrn]

roach-works:

Look, here’s the thing: Alice in Wonderland’s enduring charm is that it perfectly captures the vibe of being a very tired and annoyed child who is nonetheless required to play along with adult nonsense.

Alice is dragged from place to place without warning, forced to play stupid games with no good prizes, grilled over her schooling and manners and recitation and dress, scolded, judged, insulted to her face, sent away, given gifts she didn’t ask for and doesn’t like, corrected incorrectly, been subject to shifting and arbitrary rules, and then when she gets snappish with all this nonsense everyone acts like a little girl’s temper is the end of the world.

Alice in Wonderland isn’t a drug trip or a nightmare or a metaphor, that’s just what being ten years old is LIKE. That’s why kids love it so much. Even if they can’t quite articulate how, they recognize themselves in it.

_____________________________________________

trans-pickles:

I'm gonna go ahead and add - the reaction image is barely even a joke. This is the original illustration of her at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Look at how angry she is.