How exactly are you supposed to get a real literature education in the modern day? There are like 5 different mostly still in print shakespeare commentaries but once you move past that you'll be lucky to get one university printed $100+ dollar commentary with 3 reviews for any other book you might be interested in, is there really no multi volume doorstopper that discusses the most influential books from the western canon on a deeper level?
>>25510349>How exactly are you supposed to get a real literature education in the modern day?Textbooks. The Norton Anthology of English Literature is in three volumes IIRC, at least the most recent one, and starts around Beowulf and goes up to contemporary. Contains poetry, drama, essays, stories, short novels, and novel excerpts. You can read them straight through or jump around, either's fine. Or you can just read whatever grabs your interest at the moment. There's no quiz and nobody's looking over your shoulder to make sure you've done the reading. If you want to sink a year into completing Henry James, go for it. >There are like 5 different mostly still in print shakespeare commentariesStart here. Trust me on this. This is the best one-volume Shakespeare commentary. It's got extended essays on each play, an index of major criticism in the back for each play, alongside recommended film, TV, and theatre adaptations. >you'll be lucky to get one university printed $100+ dollar commentary with 3 reviews for any other book you might be interested inThis is why God in his infinite wisdom invented shadow libraries and SciHub.>is there really no multi volume doorstopper that discusses the most influential books from the western canon on a deeper levelThere's Copleston's history of philosophy, but that's for philosophy. But to answer your point, no. There's some midcentury New Criticism stuff that kinda-sorta does this (FR Leavis's "The Great Tradition" for the realist novel, MH Abrams's "The Mirror and the Lamp" for the Romantics) but they're all 10,000 foot view and you're really getting one critic's idiosyncratic reading of a bunch of stuff. There's no one book in multiple volumes that's THE view on the Western Canon. Why would there be? Think about how many valid, sound interpretations you can pull out of one Joyce story. If you're interested in specific writers or specific books, there's bound to be canonical criticism on them. Helen Vendler on Keats's odes/Wallace Stevens's work is the first thing that comes to mind, but we could also reference Booth's reading of Shakespeare's sonnets, or Bakhtin on Dostoevsky, or Booth (different booth) on Finnegans Wake, or or or.
>multivolume doorstopper that discusses the most influential books on a deeper levelwho would want that lol. just start reading and you'll find them on your own. if you spend enough time on this board you can pretty easily distinguish those that want to hardmaxx the entire western canon (plebians) and those that simply read what they like when they like (patricians).
>>25510368>Marjorie Garber>American>listening to an American talk about ShakespeareI don't think I will, thank you.
>>25510349Why are the course names ALL? What does that mean?
>>25510400Why?
>>25510408Americans are a disgrace.
>>25511633That's not a very enlightening response.
>>25511650Why did you delete your post?
>>25511655I responded to myself by accident.
>>25511660Typical American.
>>25511664I was genuinely curious as to why you would avoid American scholarship on Shakespeare, considering its volume and status, but it seems you're simply a lost redditor.
>>25511672Not that guy, but it’s like learning how to make a manga or an LN or a VN or an RPG from non-Japanese.
>>25511672>it’s just reddit that hates us!No actually it’s the rest of the world that hates you disgusting retarded mutts.
>>25511679Not really. Shakespeare died less than a decade after the first English colony in America was founded. Modern Englishmen and Modern Americans are equidistant from Shakespeare's language and literary context.>>25511684Your opinion of Americans doesn't matter; I just wanted to read your assessment of American Shakespearean scholarship, but it's become clear that you are unequipped to provide one.
>>25511708Most pseud post of the day so far, congrats!
>>25510368I bought that book based on an anon's advice some months ago and can confirm it's top tier. Maybe it was you
>>25510349USA education overrun by leftists
>>25511728>You imply American scholarship on Shakespeare is bad>I ask why you think this>You can't tell me why>I point this out>>You're a pseud!
>>25511753Probably was me, I haven't seen any other anons talk about it on here. Glad you enjoyed it and found it useful! <3 u shakespeare
