Classic literature, an unending sweet tide

[primsong]

One thing that has become apparent to me as I wade further into reading obscure classics (working on Rabelais right now) is that the further you go the more you realize you've been missing out on. My only guide for the most part is my own whim and curiosity - if it keeps getting referred to and quoted by others, I want to know what the original was about. This morning in our bible study I found a passing reference to a list of classical works by everyone from St. Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle to Calvin and C.S. Lewis. A veritable treasure-trove of wisdom from folks who have already been down this "Life" roadway, and what they found. I had to shake my head over my own idea that I am well-read in any way, shape or form when I found out of the entire list I had only read two of them, and those only in a passing manner - there were several that I'd never even seen before.

So many wells to drink from, and only so many hours in a lifetime.

Comments

[maidoforange.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. We can't read everything, it is true, though I have felt similar frustration at times, myself.

[meneleth.livejournal.com]

All I know of Ravelais is that he's mentioned in the song in Music Man. ("She advocates dirty books - Chaucer, Rabelais...") How's the book? What other lost classics have you read and what did you think of them?

[primsong.livejournal.com]

The scholarly intro droned on and on and nearly put me off the book, but now that I'm reading the text it is an interesting romp. It was written in the early 1500s in France as popular fiction for the masses, so to speak, and Francois Rabelais was a monk - though at this point in time, being a monk did not mean any, er...refinement. Quite the contrary.

It is filled with puns and pointed satire all set in a sort of lewd/crude Paul Bunyan legend (well, it *is* French - think of ol' Paul in a Chaucer tale) regarding a giant named Gargantua who was a figure in the tales of that time. Some of the turns of phrase are rather fun and he coins his own words sometimes, but he's also pretty straight-on about any sort of bodily fuction and revels in them so you have to be in the right mood to read it. Junior-high boys would love it. Renaissance toilet humor, go figure!

I have one other work from that time and place, a collection of Francois Villon's poetry that is likewise penned by a monk and likewise very worldly. Both give an interesting glimpse of what life and society were like at that time. I can well see why the ladies of Music Man would have considered this a 'dirty' book! (and now look askance at the idea later in the play that they 'simply adored them all'... I don't think the playwright of Music Man ever read this, snicker...)

[estellye.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I sort of find it comforting that there is no bottom to it. No matter how much reading I do, my list of "stuff I want to read someday" is only going to get longer as time goes on. Compared to you and OBT I haven't even gotten my feet wet, but I could dive and dive endlessly and come up with pearls for the rest of my life and beyond. Never mind that new classics are being written every day, lol. Maybe heaven is a library.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

So many wells to drink from, and only so many hours in a lifetime.

Well said, indeed!

[hapendfro.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who says she knows she will have to live a really really log time to be able to read all the books on her shelves. I know exactly how she feels. And those are just the books already on the shelves. There are oh so many more to locate.

[niee87.livejournal.com]

Ha, I actually just finished a couple weeks in a class on Rabelais and interpreting the carnival grotesque form that he writes in. I'd never heard of him before, but he's very interesting.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Certainly a bit unique! I can't say it will be among my 're-reads' in my library, but some of the glimpses of what life was like at that time and place are very interesting - rather like Chaucer, another whom I have never taken to but still find the views of worth studying for the period and the people.