Classics for Pleasure

Extollager

Extollager

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I suppose music could be included, but no movies, TV or radio, no comic books. In fact nothing more recent than a century ago.

So, are there classics, let’s say classic books, poems, plays, music that always give you real pleasure whenever you turn to them, and, if they were things you first met in school, you’d still want to keep in your life because they are so enjoyable?

Gulliver’s Travels is one such book for me, and I saw it was published on this date or near it in 1726, that is almost 300 years ago.
 
Limiting myself to works written in so-called modern English, I suppose we have to start with Shakespeare. His plays could be discussed endlessly, of course, so here's just a list of favorites. Among the early plays, Romeo and Juliet; among the Greek and Roman plays, Julius Caesar; among the comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream; among the histories, Richard II (perhaps an eccentric choice, given Richard III and Henry V, but I find Richard II a very interesting character); among the great tragedies, a very difficult choice would be Othello; among the problem plays, Measure for Measure; and among the late romances, The Tempest.

The Swift is, certainly, a fine choice.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759 - 1767) by Laurence Stern is delightful, often hilarious, and amazingly post-modern.

Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen is wonderfully enjoyable, her clear, insightful style like a refreshing drink of cool water.

It took me a while to get into Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, but now I can see it as the profound and groundbreaking work that it is.

Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë is extraordinary, unlike anything else I have ever read

I adore Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) by Herman Melville; I revel in the endless digressions that drive other readers crazy.

I appear to be woefully unread when it comes to the late 19th century and very early 20th century, it seems, as nothing demands mention. Just barely outside your century limit would be The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I love.

As far as poetry goes, favorite short poem of the time period is "Ozymandias" (1818) by Percy Bysshe Shelley; favorite long poem is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) by T. S. Eliot; and favorite really long poem is "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Given all that, it may seem odd that my favorite poet of the time is Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886.)

I am too much an amateur listener to classical music to say more than, yes, Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and "that crowd" (to steal a joke from Tom Lehrer's parody of Clementine) are all great.
 
Stuff I consume for fun, rather than being worthy. These are all repeat offenders that fall into the same easy-to-consume category as queuing up Blues Brothers yet again on a Friday night.

Mendelssohn’s Octet
Any of the Beethoven symphonies. No.9 if I had to pick one.
Pretty much any Bach
Some Mozart. Requiem has been on repeat in the car recently. Only place I can turn it up loud without complaints.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Jane Austen
George Elliott
George Macdonald
Treasure Island
Selected Shelley, Byron, Keats, Tennyson. I cannot claim to have read these systematically.
Lewis Carroll
Candide
Madame Bovary
Le Grand Maulnes
The Voyage of the Beagle. I will happily lose myself in almost any pre-20th century natural sciences book.
 
I like to reread Dracula now and again, not least because I used to live not far from Whitby, which, coincidentally, is having a Goth Weekend as we speak
 
Vince W said:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Alexandre Dumas
H. Rider Haggard
Edgar Rice Burroughs
P. G. Wodehouse

These are the ones off the top of my head.
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Yeah ERB. I think he just about slips under the 100 year limit. Not sure about PGW though.
 
Jo Zebedee said:
Waiting for Godot. Love it. Also Playboy of the western world. And Gone with the Wind if it’s old enough
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Anything after 1922 is too recent for the arbitrary definition intended to make us think about classics for this thread.
 
I have to say John Buchan especially Leith books John MacNab etc. However not Richard Hannay. I think they just creep in.

Classical music, I would say Chopin, Schuman and Schubert.

Poetry, I would add Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Of course I have forgotten Dickens and Hardy.
 
Never tire of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture or anything by Beethoven. I’ve stopped work in and outside of the house more than a few times because one one these came on the radio. (Sorry for the use of radio but I can’t always go to the concert hall.)
 
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