What is your favorite literary form?
What is your favorite literary form?
Despite the fact that i'm Portuguese, and my country as an incredible tradition of poetry (Luís de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, Alexandre O'Neill, Herberto Hélder, Eugénio de Andrade, etc) my favourite form of Literature is novel.
Although I also read poetry I love all kinds of good prose, from the novel to the essay.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
What i suppose I mainly read are what could be called essays or what is supposedly non-fiction as least in the minds of the authors. It could be called creative non-fiction. It often contains references to more detailed research. It ranges from reports of a person's near-death experience to a scientist providing a summary of recent research in some field to a philosopher giving a description of some philosophic idea. This would also include books explaining how to do something.
Last edited by YesNo; 12-24-2016 at 09:17 AM.
When I was younger I loved novels. Then I went through a period where I devoured the Greeks and Romans. Really liked drama and epic. Lately, I've been getting into the middle ages, sagas and romances mostly. I think my favorite thing is when people tell stories in verse. Poetry would be a lot more popular with men if we taught that it was about knights, dragons, ghosts, witches, giants, monsters, and magic instead of flowers, trees, and lakes.
"So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
"This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
Feed the Hungry!
I've thought about writing epic fantasy and science fiction poems. I assume the reason it hasn't been done, or done successfully is because it's extremely hard to do well. The profitability, or lack thereof of this type of venture probably prohibits it from happening.Originally Posted by mortalterror
Is poetry any less popular with men than it is with women though? It seems to me to be a minority interest in general.
Yeah, epic poetry must be an incredibly demanding form. All the challenges of a novel plus the constraints of verse.
Well, there was a Swedish Nobel Laureate named Harry Martinson who wrote a sci-fi epic poem called Aniara about a doomed space ship on a mission to Mars. Supposedly, the poem was good enough that someone turned it into an opera. Then there's Frederick Turner's poem Genesis about the terraforming of Mars. And apparently there's a thing called the Rhysling Award for science fiction poetry.
"So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
"This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
Feed the Hungry!
I think it is. Part of the problem is that 2/3 of English degrees go to women, which means 2/3 of English teachers are women, which means you get more Jane Austen than Ernest Hemingway, more Emily Dickinson than Homer, etc. I'm afraid it colors the way the whole subject is perceived by society at large, the same way that a subject like philosophy which is 3/4 male has the opposite problem.
"So-Crates: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing." "That's us, dude!"- Bill and Ted
"This ain't over."- Charles Bronson
Feed the Hungry!
From my perspective, poetry is not less popular among men that it is among women. Unless that's not the reality i contact with.
The gender of the teacher IMO doesn´t necessarily determine the genre of Literature taught and the gender of the authors.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
I agree with mortalterror in this regard danik. to not, I think, borders on suggesting there are no differences between men and women in terms of what we value, or even in how we think.
I usually like mortal´s posts very much. But in this case he seems to be doing the opposite you are suggesting, bounty:Men would make some literary choices just because they are men, and women dito just because they are women. I think there is a very wide range of values, ideas and feelings as regards both men as women.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
im not suggesting there is complete (100%) distinction when it comes to that, but id be very willing to bet quantifiable research would affirm the "gut" feeling there are strong gendered preferences.
Novels are what I usually read, but I think drama is my favourite - what great writers in that genre - Aeschylus, Shaw, Shakespeare. I'm not a great one for poetry, but one of my most favourite works of literature is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I also like The Canterbury Tales.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
