reading meme

[angevin2]

From tree_and_leaf.

List some of your favorite words:Do you mean words I use a lot, or just words I like? I know, I'll list a bunch of them and you can guess which is which

Comments

[gillo]

I kind of like "The better part of valor is discretion," mostly on the grounds that it's actually a Falstaff quote, and Falstaff = awesome.

I thought
Henry IV came after
A Midsummer Night's Dream? 'Cos there's a very clear play on the proverb there too.

Theseus
A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.

Demetrius
The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.

Lysander
This lion is a very fox for his valour.

Theseus
True; and a goose for his discretion.

Demetrius
Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his discretion; and the fox carries the goose.

Theseus
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.

(Yes, I
do get obsessive about AMND. Why do you ask?)

[angevin2]

You're right, actually, but I'd forgotten that because I am not obsessive about Midsummer but am obsessive about Henry IV. Okay, then, I associate it with Falstaff. ;)

[gillo]

And a proper comment now. I agree with most of your team players except for Hopkins. I was force-fed his stuff when I was 16 and have never recovered from an overdose of the Deutschland.

The Brontes do good stories, but not good style. Their dialogue is often particularly wooden. While my beloved Austen can do dialogue like she's transcribing a tape recording, only of particularly clever, witty people. Pope's way better than Dryden.

[so_lily_briscoe]

With regard to your favorite wordsmiths, I think a film needs to be made, à la Monty Python's "Philosophy World Cup: Germany vs. Greece."

My money, as is to be expected, is entirely on Team Renaissance (as it is in most things), unless of course there is actual sport involved, in which case we might be fucked. I'll still be out in full colors.

[angevin2]

Team Renaissance has Shakespeare, and this makes them essentially unbeatable. ;)

[so_lily_briscoe]

You've just confirmed all of my suspicions about Shakespeareans.

(Well, not all of them. Not, for example, the suspicion that Mary Ellen Lamb is actually my grandmother and is just waiting around for the appropriate moment at which to adopt me, or my suspicion that my undergraduate advisor is a cyborg in whose programming a glitch erupted causing her to be incapable of emotion. Not all of my suspicions, then, but all of the suspicions regarding not individuals but the general population.)

[angevin2]

Oh, man. Confirming people's suspicions is always a Bad Thing... :o

[elspethsheir]

Oh, what a fabulous meme! I agree entirely about the key to fine writing - I know what I think is great, and I know what I think doesn't work. And I just know it. I love your pinch hitters. Hee.

[tempestsarekind]

Ooh, I will keep you company in your "not loving Marlowe all that much"-ness! And I agree on the Brontes as well. Dickens has only recently won my support since I read Bleak House, and of the Romantics, I only really like Keats. I feel better knowing I am not alone. :)

[angevin2]

I'm not sure if I don't like Marlowe or if I just get annoyed with him because everyone else loves him. But I generally prefer writers who like people. (One of the things I love about Edward II is the amount of sympathy extended towards all the characters, which is uncharacteristic, I think, though it was Marlowe's last play so I imagine he'd have developed more if he hadn't died.)

I do like Keats okay sometimes, when I am not trying to teach him. ;)