Hi all!
As a (hopeful) applicant to Cambridge University (I actually haven't been able to make a final decision yet since I'm still waiting for my remarks to see how the UMS fares), I'd like to ask a rather broad question...
I've been looking over my choice of reading materials over the past year and so and realised that my overwhelming passion for 20th Century literature (Faulkner, Greene, Chandler, Vonnegut, Hemingway, and currently Du Maurier) and poetry (Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, T.S. Eliot, Larkin, Plath), and even plays (Pinter) have unfortunately left me rather scant in the...well, the entire 16th-19th Century literature department. PANIC PANIC
Well, I guess I haven't been ENTIRELY negligent about pre-20th century literature. For example,
Novels-wise, I've read:
Wuthering Heights, two Austens (guess which two), Walpole's
The Castle of Otranto (which I really, really did NOT enjoy), and...well, that's it.
Plays-wise, a bit of Shakespeare (
King Lear is one of my set texts for A2, and I've also read
Romeo and Juliet,
The Tempest,
Hamlet,
Richard III...so all the 'mainstream' ones), Marlowe's
Dr. Faustus, and
Oedipus Rex.
And as for poetry...bit of Renaissance Verse, 17th Century Libertines Verse, some pre-20th Century American Poets (Anne Bradstreet, Allan Poe, Dickinson), and tried (mind you I tried) to get through translations by Heaney and Tolkien of
Beowulf.
In case you can't be bothered to read all the above (I don't blame you), basically I'm a bit worried my reading's been overtly narrow which may pose a problem as my Personal Statement is also similarly dominated by references to 20th Century literature. I've been told we should always just put down what we enjoy reading the most as opposed to what we think the universities want, but I don't want them to think of me as being limited in my range of reading and unwilling to read pre-20th Century...I actually enjoy most of what I've read in this time period, I just don't really know where to start!
So here's the skinny: anyone here have any recommendations for 16th-19th Century literature for me to peruse and enlighten myself?
For poetry I think I'll be getting the
Norton Anthology of Poetry, but I'm really clueless about novels. I quite enjoyed the Austens, I LOVED
Wuthering Heights and I do like my Shakespeare, but I just want to explore a bit more...
Anyway if you've taken time to even skim through this post then thanks and also my sincerest apologies for the rambling nature of my prose. Any suggestions I will treasure most dearly!!!