Three Tang Dynasty Poets

Three Tang Dynasty Poets (Penguin Little Black Classics)

Just before I left to spend three weeks visiting friends and students in China, I decided to sit down and read the collection of Tang Dynasty poetry from Penguin Little Black Classics. I was really glad I did this before I went, not just because I learnt a lot about Chinese literature and history from the collection, but also because my Chinese friends were so excited to hear that I knew who these poets were. The fact that a series of books published in the UK would include a collection of poems from China brought many of my friends a lot of joy.

Lips Too Chilled

Lips Too Chilled (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Matsuo Bashō

This is quite a challenging review to write: not only is this the first post I have made about poetry (not sure why I’ve not mentioned it before), but it is also about a form of poetry I know very little about. In the UK, we learn briefly about haiku, perhaps in primary school, but it is not taught in much depth at all. Yet I know that Bashō has had an incredible influence on Japanese Literature, and when I saw that his work was included in the Penguin Little Black Classics series, I thought it was a good opportunity to discover more about a literary history and a poetry form of which I had limited knowledge. I found this little collection of poetry to be a fascinating and very readable insight into the haiku form, and I’m glad I took the time to read it.

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is one of those writers you feel you must have read at some point in your life, but they’ve just become so ingrained in our culture that you aren’t quite sure whether you actually did, or if you just know their writing from other media. Certainly this must be true of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, the first of the three short stories in this little book from the Penguin Little Black Classics Collection: it is referenced so often, with such a range of spoofs and rewrites, that we could probably all retell the main plot points of the narrative without ever having read the story. I may not have read much (or any) Poe up until this point, but it is impossible to miss how much of an influence he has had on the culture I live in. And so, one sunny day (because I didn’t want to read it just before I went to sleep), I sat down and read these short stories about mystery, madness, and death.

The Old Man of the Moon

The Old Man of the Moon (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Shen Fu

Please note: there are some slight spoilers for the story below.

You could be justified in thinking, based on previous posts and comments I have made, that I am not a big fan of romance. It’s not an entirely untrue assumption, but it is more that I am not a big fan of the way that romance is portrayed in the media. I can read or watch a love story with no problems; include an unnecessary romance in an otherwise solid narrative, or imply that a romantic ending is the only kind of happy ending, and then I will take issue. And when I take issue on this topic, I really take issue: just ask my family about my reaction to the last episode of Downton Abbey. But I am stating for the record here that I am not opposed to romance in media, and I am capable of reading (and enjoying) a love story which is just a love story. Case in point: Shen Fu’s The Old Man of the Moon.

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

How Much Land Does a Man Need? (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy is quite on-trend in the UK at the moment. With the BBC adaptation of War and Peace currently airing, I seem to be coming across many people who are reading his novels or, at the very least, wanting to discuss them. I’ll be honest: I’ve never read War and Peace (I know, I know). It’s downloaded on my tablet, and has been sitting there, judging me, for over a year. Similarly, Anna Karenina looks out at me from my bookcase, wondering if it will ever get read. However, I actually do have a contribution to the ongoing conversation about Tolstoy in the form of a post about two of his short stories: ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ (considered by James Joyce to be the “greatest story that the literature of the world knows”) and ‘What Men Live By’.

Wailing Ghosts

Wailing Ghosts (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Pu Songling

In my post on The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell, I mentioned that I felt the Penguin Little Black Classics Collection had a certain bias towards male writers. Whilst I stand by that, I do think that they have done a good job in the collection of including a range of influential texts from a variety of cultures and nationalities. One of the things I have enjoyed about this collection is that it has enabled me to read some classic short fiction and poetry from cultures that are very different to my own: as an International Student Worker, this has been particularly exciting for me, as my students love telling me all about their home country’s culture and literature.

The Old Nurse’s Story

The Old Nurse’s Story (Penguin Little Black Classics) by Elizabeth Gaskell

If you haven’t had an opportunity to browse the Penguin Little Black Classics collection yet, you should definitely have a look to see if there are any which take your interest. The collection is a series of 80 short books celebrating the 80^th anniversary of Penguin Books, ranging from short fiction, to poetry collections, to extracts from important historical texts. It is possible to get all 80 in a box set, but I have been enjoying simply buying the ones I want to read when I see them (although at only 80p a book, it’s easy to get carried away).

The Old Nurse’s Story is a selection of two short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell: The Old Nurse’s Story and Curious, If True. I was excited to see that Gaskell had been included in this collection, especially since it is clear, from glancing down the titles index, that it is very biased towards male writers. I had read Gaskell’s North and South and Cranford but never any of her short fiction and, since I have a particular interest in Victorian female writers, this little book was right up my street.