I love all kinds of poetry but I’m definitely partial to the smaller ones especially those that make a wry, ironic point with what is said as much as what isn't.
Case in point -
A Man Said to the Universe
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane
On the subject of prose, i'm reading Northanger Abbey right now which is one of Austen's least popular and much reviled book. Damn my literary tastes if you will but I find that I rather like it. The language is delightful and Austen oozes satire. My only complaint about the novel is that I never quite get the same feel for Henry Tillney as I did for her other heros. He is difficult to pin down or form an opinion about and not at all well characterized. He must be one of Austen's weakest heros but i'm willing to forgive her for the fact as this was her first novel (Sense and Sensibility was her first published novel).
I'm looking forward to watching the movie rendition of this book.
Here is a passage about our anti-heroine Catherine Molland -
"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach [i.e. attract], they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."
A modern reader will cringe at this passage if read out of context but Austen is merely being facetious.
