Narrative Poem Reading Challenge 2013

By -
Lemon Tree (aka Listra) at Half-Filled Attic says:

I have always loved narrative poems. I do, I like them. But somehow reading narrative poems is more challenging than reading normal poems or normal narratives. Looking at my TBR list, there are many narrative poems that I promise to read, both from the Classic Club's Project, and also from my own curiosity.
So, to share the joy of reading narrative poems, I'd like to propose a challenge: What about reading narrative poems in 2013?

I know that some of you must have joined several reading challenges by now. It can be hectic, reading all those book in a year. To make sure that everybody has fun instead of burden, instead of giving a number of poems you have to finish, I'd just give the levels of reading. Feel free to read just as much as you can. The point of all this is having fun, anyway.
Levels of reading:
  • Homer (< 4 narrative poems)
  • Orpheus (5 – 8 narrative poems)
  • Muses (9 – 12 narrative poems)
  • Apollo (> 12 narrative poems)
Rules:
  • You don't have to follow this blog to participate (though I would love it if you do).
  • The challenge will start on January 2013 and end on December 2013.
  • Only narrative poems will be counted. If it's just a good poem, but not a narrative poem, it doesn't count (though I would happily read your reviews about poems).
  • The length of the poems may vary, from long epics such as Illiad and Odyssey to Poe's The Raven. Don't worry about it. If you read a collection of narrative poems, you may write a review for each poem or as a group of it. But please put all reviews in the master post that will come later on.
  • Please put the button in your blog.
  • You don't have to choose your books now, so have fun along the year.
  • Please sign up through the Linky below. 


    I am not a huge fan of narrative poems, or poetry in general (I try!  I do!  I just fail a lot), so this will be my nutritious, educational, good-for-me challenge.   At the moment my problem is that all the things I can think of to read are hugely long and intimidating, like Marmion or The Faerie Queene.  So I shall sign up for the Homer level and see what happens!

Comments

  1. Lemon TreeDecember 27, 2012 at 6:23 AM

    YAY!! So happy that you join. I am going to have Faerie Queene as well, and aim to get as far as Orpheus, but I don't know whether I will be able to do so or not.

    Happy reading.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristopherDecember 29, 2012 at 9:19 AM

    For those looking for something a bit less daunting than Spencer's The Faerie Queene, you might consider narrative poems like Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market; Tennyson's Idylls of the King; the Old English Beowulf, Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;or something more recent like The Lays of Beleriand by J.R.R. Tolkien. Anyway, enjoy yourselves, there is some truly wonderful stuff out there in this category of poetry. Best wishes in 2013! Cheers! Chris

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanDecember 29, 2012 at 10:17 AM

    Thanks for the suggestions, Chris! I'll look into the Tolkien especially--I'm familiar with the others. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of...
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the s...
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he ...
Read more