Leseliste #1

[hope_calaris]

I have, thanks to Claire's screencaps, a shiny new icon! And it's not even Captain Hammer!

But now on to the really important stuff. I passed my exam (we dont' get marks, but I've been "good")! Lutz and Gemmeke were very nice and I could answer most of the questions during the American Literature part ... I sucked big when questioned about Shakespeare during British Literature (Gemmeke thought I like him ... duuuh, no, not to read him, his plays on stage I enjoy. But hey, I got to tell the story of Stratford and the impression we got that Shakespeare didn't exist - that was fun!) and once the questionening turned to Oscar Wilde I felt good again and knew what I was talking about.

And because I want to show off ... the list of what I read for this exam.

1. Geoffrey Chaucer - The General Prologue (I had to read it, 'nough said)
2. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Reeve's Tale (see above)
3. William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream (funny, but like with all plays - better on stage)
4. William Shakespeare - The Sonnets (confusing, but they sound wonderful)
5. William Shakespeare - Hamlet (saw that one on stage and I will never forget what ruined my mark on that one German test ... Horatio doesn't die because he's the only character without guilt ... now I know it, too, thank you very much)
6. John Milton - Paradise Lost, Book I (talk about confusing again)
7. William Congreve - Love for Love ( ... I can't say what it's about ... I didn't care at all for anyone in that play)
8. Alexander Pope - Eloisa to Abelard (long ... )
9. John Gay - The Beggar's Opera (that was fun)
10. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (LOVE! pure love)
11. Jane Austen - Emma (obviously I belong to the minority which doesn't like Emma and thinks of her as self-centered and egoistic)
12. William Blake - Songs of Innocence and Experience (once again, I love it. Most of all The Divine Image and A Divine Image)
13. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (except for a 2o pages intervall which was boring a really good book with interesting psychological insight)
14. Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest (I love Wilde's wit and repartees)
15. Oscar Wilde - The Ideal Husband (actually I think the dandy Goring is the most caring and loving character in that play)
16. Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter (the prologue is soooo boring, but it actually gets better towards the ending)
17. Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Minister's Black Veil (the first one I read of Hawthorne)
18. Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Prophetic Pictures (creepy)
19. Nathaniel Hawthorne - Ethan Brand (creepy)
20. Nathaniel Hawthorne - Egotism; The Bosom Serpent ( ... guess what! creepy)
21. Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn (I want to kick Tom Sawyer for Huck is clearly the more intelligent person and yet Huck doesn't believe in his own abilities *le sigh* ... sometimes quite hard to read for the dialect)
22. Upton Sinclair - The Jungle (I don't like it at all even though Lutz recommends it ... it's depressing and unfair and just makes me angry)
23. F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (I felt so bad at the end for Gatsby)
24. Thorton Wilder - Our Town (fast one to read ... don't think I'd like it on stage with no decoration and all ... )
25. Arthur Miller - The Crucible (made me also angry, but in a good way. I wanted to applaud Proctor - brave man)
26. E. A. Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart (I don't like Poe at all ... but that story is not as bad and crazy as The Black Cat)
27. Washington Irving - Rip van Wrinkle (can't remember it anymore)
28. Iroquois - Confederacy of the Five Nations (that gave interesting insight into Indian storytelling)
29. Cotton Mather - The Trial of Martha Carrier (once again, crazy people in Salem)
30. H. A. Jacobs - Incindents in the Life of a Slave Girl (well, I had to read it ... )
31. Walt Whitman - Song of Myself (I really like it, even though it's sooooooooo long ... it includes all and everything and some more, fascinating)
32. Walt Whitman - As I lay with my Head in your Lap (aehm ... )
33. Walt Whitman - Ethiopia Saluting the Colors (aehm ... )
34. Philip Freneau - Indian Burying Ground (sounds nice, but actually it defends Indian Removal politics by saying the Natives are by nature doomed to die)
35. Emily Dickinson - poem J.14/poem J. 1545 (easy to read, yet not quite my taste)
36. Anne Bradstreet - Before the Birth of One of Her Children (first Puritan female poet!)
37. Anne Bradstreet - To My Dear and Loving Husband (see above)
38. Ezra Pound - CXX (I like it very much ... "I have tried to write Paradise" ... sounds wonderful and if you know a little bit about Pound it makes even more sense)
39. e.e. cummings - I like my body when it is with your (love poem ... like it)
40. e.e. cummings - Since feeling is first ("for life's not a paragraph" ... so much truth)

Thanks to everyone who crossed his fingers and prayed for me. It's much appreciated.