Stemming from Brian's topic on best book, what's your favorite classic play/book/epic poem/etc.

 

Mine is probably The Odyssey by Homer. It is an awesome epic.

ET Tu Brutus - Even in Death Caesar was using the formal command after being stabbed - Admin david

i didnt really enjoy Julius Caesar too much...i mean, I know I sound ignorant in saying this, but I don't really appreciate Shakespeare. I mean, I guess my favorite would be Midsummer's Night Dream.

Shakespeare isn't really meant to be read (as in at all) and really the intellectuals have ruined any enjoyment anyone could get out Shakes...

 

Best play is Waiting for Left by Clifford Odets. Pretty powerful stuff about unions in the 30's (and many of the audience members are supposed to be made up of actors pretending to be at the meeting, booing etc.). Probably one of the best plays I've ever wanted to do and never got the chance...

you know a lot more about theatre than I do, but I enjoyed reading Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

I like Little Women... but I also like Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

you know a lot more about theatre than I do, but I enjoyed reading Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

I did "An Ideal Husband" and that kind of humor gets real old after awhile. It's more funny in print, I think...

what is a 'classic'

Even though I hardly understand it, I like Shakespeare. My fave is Romeo & Juliet. The Leo DiCaprio movie is bad ass. I gotta watch that again someday.

Julius Caesar was good, so was Othello, but still the LOTR trilogy is still the best :thumbup

Othello is amazing. Laurence Fishburn (The Matrix) played Othello in one of the most recent Othello films and did an amazing job.

I actually got to see that movie once and thought it was pretty good. Laurence did a great job!

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

I absolutely hated that book. So Pointless IMO.

 

Throw up there the Art of War by Sun Tzu and the Illiad by Homer. I always like the Trojan War better then I liked his journey afterwards.

LOTR then anything Jules Verne...

yah, I can definitely see where Importance of Being Earnest would be better in writing. I mean, it's just silly (yet clever) humor. Nothing too deep in it.

 

Anyone like Great Gatsby? I didn't enjoy it at all, but a lot of my friends absolutely love it. I also enjoyed Lord of the Flies.

I guess those are much too recent to be classics maybe? I don't know. If you throw Gatsby in there, one must also throw in To Kill A Mockingbird, which is one badass book.

Those last three you mentioned are very good reads. Also one that hasn't been mentioned yet but should be is The Catcher in the Rye.

Catcher in the rye

Uncle Tom's Cabin is pretty good.

 

 

So is Gone with the Wind.

 

 

and i could go on for a good long while.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller....also anything by H D Thoreau.

 

 

Favorite Greek/Roman classic is History of Herodotus by Herodotus...because I love history and this was the first history book.

 

 

And B Wood reminded me about ole Machiavelli...Prince...good read.

Classic, I have to say "100 years of Solitude".

I guess those are much too recent to be classics maybe? I don't know. If you throw Gatsby in there, one must also throw in To Kill A Mockingbird, which is one badass book.

I would say anything not written in the last ten years is a classic. It's hard for a book, with as many authors are there are out there, to have that kind of staying power. So, I'd say ten years is a good barometer of what defines a "classic."

 

Grantes there are modern day classics which capture the imagination of the contemoporary mind or audience that they can skip the whole ten year period. I would say Fight Club is the best one I can think of (due in part, no doubt to the popularity of the movie, but all those ideas were presented originally in the book).

all quiet is great and my favorite

 

but id have to say my favorite author is bevin alexander

you know a lot more about theatre than I do, but I enjoyed reading Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Outstanding pic for a classic.....

 

Great thread overall, come to think of it.

 

A couple others on my all time:

 

The Great Gatsby

Grapes of Wrath

Dante's Inferno

Animal Farm

 

And, of course... Lord of the Flies.

 

Fire up for political commentary by novelists.

Ive actually never seen Anne Frank, although I've seen it at a playhouse. I have friends who've read it, and said that it was incredibly boring.

 

Speaking of boring classics, Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" was quite possibly the worst book I've read....ever. I had to put it down about 200 pages through and say "screw it".