Unavoidable Literature: Books and Authors You Might Have to Read in University
By Euan MacDonald
Thumbnail & Banner Photo of Jennifer Ehle and David Bamber in Pride and Prejudice (1995) by BBC1
Have you ever read the same novel twice in one year? In one semester? I know it’s possible because I’ve done it (twice). There are only so many classics to choose from, and unless you signed up for an intro class with a fresh Ph.D.-approved hire, many professors are comfortable with a select set of introductory literature, the difficulty of other plays, poems and books also keeping them within certain limits. Their bag of tricks is deep but not wide: These works hold infinite space for examination, but the amount of them is modest in numbers. Here, the brief choices possible from your early English courses will be outlined, along with some advice for analytical eyes and easy assessment through more visually enhanced means.
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen’s most popular novel by the standard of modern readers, Pride and Prejudice continues to bewitch students and professors alike, a constant member of university classes of varying levels (for instance, I’ve read it two years in a row). Its inclusion and tenacity since publication two hundred years ago may shock some, especially if their assumptions and comparisons are of the more dramatic kind; Austen’s novel is not an epic battle of good and evil, or a tragic theatre of cruelty, but a tracing of relationships in the early 19th century. Similar to her other novels - Sense and Sensibility (another common course choice) containing homogenous tracings around London - Austen advances her characters through their literal journeys, as strong-willed protagonist Elizabeth and company (mainly the other Bennet sisters) travel either isolated through muddy flatlands, by carriage to Pemberly, or for visits of friendship to Rosings Park, each providing an external representation of an internal feeling - treks through mud unyielding spirits, persona-stripping paintings in mansions, and ruminating walks. While the depth of character through simple relations is impressive, Austen also sheds a timeless emotion of an era’s limitations, hemming the sewn-on trappings of marriages without love for money and legacy. Elizabeth, by contrast of an 1813 publication date, is a romantic of the most modern capabilities, an independent person with a thinking mind. So, when reading in advance of your Pride and Prejudice essay worth half your grade, attempting to find cracks may illuminate more than it casts shadows: If you can find the little parts that age the whole, what remains a product that could be moulded in today’s world may make itself obvious. This book, brimming with passion for better or worse, is also surrounded by adaptations: Standouts being a 2005 film, and the 1995 mini-series. Besides this, it’s important to think about the basis of many a novel you may read in these aforementioned classes being the opinion that relationships are all that matter: That the people we surround ourselves with are our stories, a tree of life. For all of Austen’s beautiful buildings, the estates of Bingley’s and Darcy’s, did she think much of them empty?
Shakespeare’s Tragedies
It’s easy for newer university students to forget that Shakespeare’s discipline was not so narrow as to include only man’s eternal suffering. His work is divided today into three categories: Tragedies, histories, and comedies. However, one has captured the most attention of zeitgeists past his era, to the lengths of attracting a titular subgenre: A Shakespearean tragedy is something you may have heard of before, or an English teacher may have defined in a past reading of some of the grouping’s most popular plays - Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet among them. In my case, before even entering post-secondary, I had English teachers attempt readings of Macbeth and Hamlet, the great tragedy of them possibly being lost on me. Although your classes will not be limited to them - I did the double-edged sword of Much Ado About Nothing - they are his most popular works and are treated as such, the jewels in a great poet’s vast collection. To discuss them is a ginormous task even in brief, the depth of each immensely sad plot stabbing the reader incessantly. As with Pride and Prejudice, the baby steps I always recommend - and tend to take myself - are attempts to translate these works into other eras, formats, and scenes. To build comparisons that simplify and extract important information. For Shakespeare, this is a task easily accomplished through the labour of others - the amount of film adaptations from Shakespeare’s tragedies (really good ones, too) is unprecedented. King Lear demands a monolithic scale when compared to any other adaptation (in relation to this, the most unbelievably horrific events of any take place), and Akira Kurosawa translates these mountains of familial ties that bind (and break) into Ran (1985), two hours and forty minutes of exactly what the title translates into (乱) - chaos, utter tumult, disorder. Nominated for four Academy Awards, it is perfection from a master’s late-period oeuvre. Starting here is a good choice, as it encapsulates many of the brutal themes of betrayal, violence, and manipulation Shakespeare would cover elsewhere - Othello (which I read this year in a course required for an English degree, ENGL 2307), is a shining example on a smaller scale. No samurai battles and burning temples in that one. Other great reconstructions of these tragedies in the visual language include the Coen brothers' The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), a loose Henry IV translation in My Own Private Idaho (1991), and another great, albeit loose Kurosawa in The Bad Sleep Well (1960), riffing on Hamlet.
Beowulf
Considered the oldest piece of English literature, one can initially struggle with the idea that Beowulf (so old, the author is unknown) could remain relevant today. Is it taught simply for the sake of its history? Partially, yes. Part of Beowulf’s allure is its identity as a copy of a copy: Beowulf is, scholars assume, a translation by Christians of a Pagan text, but not thoroughly, leading to many discrepancies. The story is split between Christian values, biblical allusions, and violent Viking traditions. Part of reading Beowulf is understanding that the discourse of a work can never be separated from the work itself, and sometimes, it can have direct and narrative-changing consequences - but maybe not for the worse. Besides this, it does have a bedrock line to the fantasy we read and adapt today. Most famously, The Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien discussed extensively and whose writing has a deep debt to Beowulf’s divided storyline. As the pinnacle of the fantasy genre as a franchise whole, Peter Jackson’s films prove the staying power of tragic heroes Beowulf fought for representation of. Of course, the last one did come out in 2002. Twenty-two years on, are we still making these? A new Grendel spin-off with A-list talent says yes, and if it’s not too wide a gap to leap, this probably means it’ll be taught in first and second-year courses for the near future as well. Besides its merit as a fable and a political lesson and an inspiration, Beowulf is great to talk about, and inspires discussion easily: Why are these fragments (which Tolkien translated) here? What purpose does Grendel’s mom serve? Differences between part one and part two? These prompts barely scratch the surface, and whole courses are built around one of the longest English poems. The best part, with its fractured nature, is most questions lack objective wrong answers. Read Beowulf for the first time - your sheer confusion, hatred, or boredom is a reaction that someone may have written an article on.
Your professors, in the end, may surprise you. With all the contemporary work mentioned, the possibility lingers that a Beowulf fan may check out modern iterations, and a magnanimous Shakespeare historian may make a shift toward the more comedic body of works he produced. All Intro to Literature courses may look different in a year - anything is possible. But hopefully, between Samurai epics and billion-dollar franchises, the notion has been distilled here that these works are studied and educated, filtered and passed down, because they’re in possession of a certain quality of timelessness. Because learning the past helps us understand the present, with comparisons made, lines drawn from maps and words of our own original thought - which can eventually write essays. At least for your grade, the classics are worth it.