The world would have been better off without the following "classical" writers:

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I find Byron to be passible... Joyce is interesting from a 'what the hell is this drunk irishman trying to say' sort of perspective. When I read him I wasn't doing much else in my life so the word games were fun... but I never understood why so many people thought his writing was amazing (I also am baffled by RAW's obsession with Joyce).

I really liked Dickenson, but the rest were meh... not horrible, but definitely not writers on the level of Poe, Twain, Dumas, etc.

[NWC]

Agreed with everything except Joyce. I'm often surprised he's considered a classic author simply because I enjoy reading him so much,

Do you also hold your cigarettes backwards?

I quit smoking a long time ago.

[Doktor Howl]

Agreed with everything except Joyce. I'm often surprised he's considered a classic author simply because I enjoy reading him so much,

Do you also hold your cigarettes backwards?

I quit smoking a long time ago.

Beret?

[Kai]

I like Dickenson, but only for one poem. The rest I haven't read enough to have an opinion about them.

I wonder, if Starbucks Libertarians read Homer and the Icelandic sagas, would they be less of pretentious pricks?

[Cramulus]

So he was like Paris Hilton with less opportunities to bathe.

Kinda.

He was the first person to have his portrait drawn "as a man of action", instead of holding a quill or book or something lame and typical of the era.

He certainly knew how to party -- Lady Caroline Lamb described him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know".

The "Byronic Hero" refers to somebody who pretty much ignores society's rules and the typical things associated with heroism. Despite being "good guys", they're actually quite flawed. Without Byron, we probably wouldn't have Gollum, Holden Caufield, Batman (the Dark Knight version, not the Adam West version) Tyler Durden, Han Solo, Jack Sparrow, or Spider Jerusalem.

I admit I'm a bit biased - I play a LARP character based loosely on a reformed Lord Byron.  

[Jasper]

Okay, I never looked at it that way.  That's actually pretty awesome.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

James Joyce
Emily Bronte
Thomas Hardy
Lord Byron
Emily Dickenson
William Butler Yeats


All of the above wrote pure shit, and should have been infected with smallpox and dropped down a convenient sewer.

I have to agree, though I will say that some of Yeats work as far as history goes, was not gaggingly terrible.

I would add

Charlotte Bronte
Anne Bronte
John Bunyan
Miguel de Cervantes - yeah I said it.  I hated Don Quixote, longest, most boring book I ever read! UGH!
John Milton

[Doktor Howl]

James Joyce
Emily Bronte
Thomas Hardy
Lord Byron
Emily Dickenson
William Butler Yeats


All of the above wrote pure shit, and should have been infected with smallpox and dropped down a convenient sewer.

I have to agree, though I will say that some of Yeats work as far as history goes, was not gaggingly terrible.

I would add

Charlotte Bronte
Anne Bronte
John Bunyan
Miguel de Cervantes - yeah I said it.  I hated Don Quixote, longest, most boring book I ever read! UGH!
John Milton

Yes.  Also Goethe.  Marlow or GTFO.

[Kai]

Paradise Lost, seriously?

[Jenne]

LOVE Goethe!

And if you thought Don Quixote was bad, you should read motherfucking 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!  OMG WORST BOOK EVER

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Paradise Lost, seriously?

Yeah I gotta agree with that too. Paradise Lost had some promise but got kinda boring.

Plus the idea of Lucifer inventing cannons... it's just... no.

[Doktor Howl]

Paradise Lost, seriously?

CRAP

[Kai]

Well, at least no one on my shelf has been mentioned yet.

[Doktor Howl]

LOVE Goethe!

And if you thought Don Quixote was bad, you should read motherfucking 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!  OMG WORST BOOK EVER

Don't get me started on Jules Verne. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Also, that damned idiot, James Cooper that wrote the Deerstalker/Pathfinder/Last of the Mohicans bullshit.... I wanted to stab my eyes out. I was partially rewarded years later when I read Mark Twain's essay on the author and books.