I would like to begin this post by congratulating myself for graduating from ASU. I would like to continue at this point by thanking myself for my congratulations.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Matt,” you’re thinking, “is it really a big deal to graduate from the only university that won’t allow student to take finals if they’re wearing pants?” It’s better than you think. For that, good reader, is a half truth. I believe that Vassar has the same policy.

I thought that I would share a list of my favorite works I’ve read while studying literature at ASU as a recommendation to anyone looking for something good to read and as evidence to anyone who doesn’t believe I did any work. I’ll go with my five favorites in tidy genres. These aren’t necessarily my favorite works, just my favorites that I’ve studied in class. Also, I’ve no doubt forgot some stuff that belongs on the list, since I did this off the top of my head. Bonus: If you can name the mistake I made upwards of fifteen times in the following list, you become a blog superstar. FYI: most of this stuff can be found free online if you Google the title.

Poems:

5. “Luke Havergal” by EA Robinson
Much like Theodore Roosevelt, I love this poem and have little idea what it is actually about. It just sounds great.

4.“Dream song #1” by John Berryman
“Hard on the shore wears the strong sea/ And empty grows every bed” Beautiful poem, sad poem.

3. “The Bee Box” by Sylvia Plath
What does society do to the individual? What does the individual do with society?

2. “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
Wonderfully recounts the horrors of war with its attendant ideologies.

1. “The Waste Land” by TS Eliot
It’s not nonsense. I promise. Eliot communicates beyond words. Objective Correlative: he coined it, he mastered it.

Essays:

5. “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation” by Richard Vatz
Vatz shows how knowledge about and the interpretation of an event determine its reality.

4. “Narrative on the Life of a Slave” by Frederick Douglass
How does one oppress effectively? Through distraction, groupthink, and ignorance, of course.

3. “On the Sublime” by Friedrich Schiller
The beginning of this essay is superb. “The morally educated man, and only this one, is entirely free.” Take your time, and read this one closely.

2. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” by Louis Althusser
Very astute commentary about how a society perpetuates itself.

1. “Politics” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think this is were Emerson comes together the best. This is a call for mutual trust and love and for everyone to perform their duty to their fellow beings without compulsion. Read it!

Short Stories:

5. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges
A genuinely hilarious story about a writer who “did not want to compose another Quixote --which is easy-- but the Quixote itself . Needless to say, he never contemplated a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it. His admirable intention was to produce a few pages which would coincide--word for word and line for line--with those of Miguel de Cervantes.”

4. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin
A philosophical tale about a fictional utopia. . .at a cost.

3. “The Lost Beautifulness” by Anzia Yezierska
A sad story of extortion and giving in to ugliness. Yezierska is an immigrant who looks at one giving up on the American dream.

2. “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville
What to do with people who refuse to function within the system? “Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!” I could have also picked “Billy Budd” or “Benito Cereno” both by Melville, both excellent.

1. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” Gabriel Garcia Marquez
How do people treat religion? A magically realistic investigation.

Plays:

5. “Oedipus King” by Sophocles
I didn’t say these were my favorites. Just my favorites from school.

4. “Troilus and Cressida” by William Shakespeare
Greed. Violence. Machismo. The more I think about this play, the more I like it. But it still gives me the creeps big time.

3. “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell
Don’t underestimate the ladies!

2. “Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe
The famous tale of a man who wanted to be more than mortal.

1. “King Lear” by William Shakespeare
Everything one needs to know about power and society. One of my absolute favorites.

Novels:

5. “All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy
Well done. No quotation marks.

4. “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens
I read this as an allegory about upward social mobility. Dickens at his best.

3. “Utopia” by Thomas Moore
This book coined the word Utopia. Absolutely brilliant work from 1516 that reads like it could have been written last year. Perhaps the most insightful look into the underpinnings of civilization I’ve ever read.

2. “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad
English was Conrad’s third language. He wrote some of the most beautiful English prose ever. This book focuses on the ideology necessary to convince people to do great harm to other people. As applicable today as it was when it was written. Another of my all-time favorites.

1. “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville
Every citizen of a free nation needs to read and understand this novel. If you think Melville is being boring at any time, you’ve failed to pick up the symbolism, or shouldn‘t be allowed to vote. This is not a book about a whale. This is not a book about a boat. This is a book about the death of a nation. You could read this fifty times and come up with something new each time. First one to read this book gets a shiny new doubloon!

I originally planned to write a paragraph for each work explaining why I think it’s great, but at this point that just seems way too long. If you would like to hear any particulars, just shoot me a comment and I’ll reply.

For those of you who saw that this was a long post and skipped ahead to see of there are any new pictures, this is your lucky day.