Besides Shakespeare, who are the writers with the greatest wit and rhetorical skill?
March 29, 2012 11:27 PM Subscribe
Besides Shakespeare, who are the writers with the greatest wit and rhetorical skill?
Of all English authors, Shakespeare is clearly the most famous for his verbal skill -- e.g. innovative rhetorical devices, creative use of vocabulary/meter/rhyme, innuendo & multiple meanings, and the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form.
What other authors are out there have lines or passages that make you say "daaaaaamn, that was smooth!" I'm asking more about being witty/skillful/humorous rather than being philosophically profound or emotionally moving (although that certainly doesn't hurt).
Recommendations of particular books/poems are appreciated. (Even for Shakespeare himself, as I don't know which works are the best to start with if I want to appreciate his verbal wit.)
Of all English authors, Shakespeare is clearly the most famous for his verbal skill -- e.g. innovative rhetorical devices, creative use of vocabulary/meter/rhyme, innuendo & multiple meanings, and the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form.
What other authors are out there have lines or passages that make you say "daaaaaamn, that was smooth!" I'm asking more about being witty/skillful/humorous rather than being philosophically profound or emotionally moving (although that certainly doesn't hurt).
Recommendations of particular books/poems are appreciated. (Even for Shakespeare himself, as I don't know which works are the best to start with if I want to appreciate his verbal wit.)
P.G. Wodehouse is possibly the funniest writer in the English language. Hilarious feats of language.
Try some Jeeves and Wooster stories. "Carry on, Jeeves", perhaps.
posted by misfish at 11:54 PM on March 29, 2012 [14 favorites]
Try some Jeeves and Wooster stories. "Carry on, Jeeves", perhaps.
posted by misfish at 11:54 PM on March 29, 2012 [14 favorites]
Terry Pratchett.
posted by aryma at 12:16 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by aryma at 12:16 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
For wit, you want Oscar Wilde.
Public domain! Awesome.
posted by jsturgill at 12:28 AM on March 30, 2012 [18 favorites]
Public domain! Awesome.
posted by jsturgill at 12:28 AM on March 30, 2012 [18 favorites]
Dorothy Parker never stops amazing me with her wit. You can't go wrong with the Complete Works.
posted by jesourie at 12:32 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by jesourie at 12:32 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
I think Truman Capote falls in the "skillful" category. I read Breakfast at Tiffany's about every other year; for many reasons but one is that every sentence is perfect.
posted by sbutler at 12:42 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by sbutler at 12:42 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
For contemporary work, I think both Ian McEwan and Sebastian Faulks have had some pretty fine moments.
posted by jojobobo at 1:17 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by jojobobo at 1:17 AM on March 30, 2012
I'd say Jane Austen - though she isn't perhaps the first to come to mind when thinking of humour.
And Sheridan, who I think has a similar but kinder sense of humour. Where Austen is mordant, he has the gift of making human folly seem ridiculous but sympathetic.
posted by Segundus at 1:17 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
And Sheridan, who I think has a similar but kinder sense of humour. Where Austen is mordant, he has the gift of making human folly seem ridiculous but sympathetic.
posted by Segundus at 1:17 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
About Truman Capote - he is seriously AWESOME. There is a quote from him I put on a t-shirt back in high school I still can not place, and I am always on the verge of making an AskMe about it.
I popped in to recommend Hunter S, Thompson and Gonzo Journalism.
That said...
There is significant evidence to support that Shakespeare did not write what we think he wrote. Evidence for that, here. Sorry, doll. But so it goes.
Just tomight I was thinking about an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called, "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz," but I was thinking it should be, "A Heart As Big As The Ritz."
Fitzgeralds's last (unfinished) novel was, "Love of The Last Tycoon," which was based (loosely) about Irving Thalberg.
----
My son is named "Duncan" because of the Dune books by Frank Herbert. Also, I'm Scottish. But I can't recommend the Dune Trilogy enough. It influences EVERYTHING.
---
Similar to sbutler, I re-read Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby every other year, or so.
---
I like Wilde, but my votes are for Fitzgerald, Thompson, and Herbert for writers who changed how we communicate, but may not be recognized for this. With an emphasis in Herbert and Thompson.
Thompson, especially.
So there ya go.
posted by jbenben at 1:22 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
I popped in to recommend Hunter S, Thompson and Gonzo Journalism.
That said...
There is significant evidence to support that Shakespeare did not write what we think he wrote. Evidence for that, here. Sorry, doll. But so it goes.
Just tomight I was thinking about an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called, "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz," but I was thinking it should be, "A Heart As Big As The Ritz."
Fitzgeralds's last (unfinished) novel was, "Love of The Last Tycoon," which was based (loosely) about Irving Thalberg.
----
My son is named "Duncan" because of the Dune books by Frank Herbert. Also, I'm Scottish. But I can't recommend the Dune Trilogy enough. It influences EVERYTHING.
---
Similar to sbutler, I re-read Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby every other year, or so.
---
I like Wilde, but my votes are for Fitzgerald, Thompson, and Herbert for writers who changed how we communicate, but may not be recognized for this. With an emphasis in Herbert and Thompson.
Thompson, especially.
So there ya go.
posted by jbenben at 1:22 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
I second Jane Austen ... Emma in particular exemplifies Austen's ability to overlay a Romanticized country idyll with social commentary (if not satire).
I'd also suggest another William -- William Faulkner. In my mind, no American writer matches the sheer intellectual heft of a Faulknerian sentence/paragraph/work.
posted by tmharris65 at 2:14 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'd also suggest another William -- William Faulkner. In my mind, no American writer matches the sheer intellectual heft of a Faulknerian sentence/paragraph/work.
posted by tmharris65 at 2:14 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
The evidence to suggest that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare is not significant, or particularly credible.
The short stories of Saki are excellent.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
posted by misfish at 2:21 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
The short stories of Saki are excellent.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
posted by misfish at 2:21 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
Jonathan Swift.
“And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
― Gulliver's Travels
And of course, A Modest Proposal discusses how to deal with the expensive burden of having too many children by eating them.
posted by kinetic at 2:30 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
“And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
― Gulliver's Travels
And of course, A Modest Proposal discusses how to deal with the expensive burden of having too many children by eating them.
posted by kinetic at 2:30 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
Will Self?
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:51 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:51 AM on March 30, 2012
Alexander Pope.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:08 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:08 AM on March 30, 2012
Well, if you like Shakespeare you'll love Christopher Marlowe. What with them being the same person and all.
Also yes, definitely Mark Twain.
I also think of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Umberto Eco (or his translator?) for their beautiful flow of language.
posted by mibo at 3:12 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
Also yes, definitely Mark Twain.
I also think of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Umberto Eco (or his translator?) for their beautiful flow of language.
posted by mibo at 3:12 AM on March 30, 2012 [4 favorites]
Tom Stoppard, hands down.
posted by willbaude at 3:50 AM on March 30, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by willbaude at 3:50 AM on March 30, 2012 [6 favorites]
Okay not English, but the wonderful French playwright Molière gives Shakespeare a run for his money.
Stella Gibbons' hilarious Cold Comfort Farm established her as an incisive and iconic wit. Like Shakespeare, she played around with language, inventing her own country vocabulary - 'mollicking' is my favourite. She was presumed to be Evelyn Waugh under a pseudonym when CCF was first published. I think CCF is a marvelous parody of Emma.
Oscar Wilde's witticisms are divine - and not just in his plays. In a review of Joseph Knight's bio of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1887 he wrote: "We sincerely hope that there will soon be an end to all biographies of this kind. They rob life of much of its dignity and its wonder, add to death itself a new terror, and make one wish that all art were anonymous."
And to continue with outrageously talented Hibernian folk:
George Bernard Shaw
James Joyce
Flann O'Brien
Samuel Beckett
Jonathan Swift
Sebastian Barry
Sean O'Casey
Richard Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith were two of the greatest London playwrights of the 18th C - The School for Scandal and She Stoops to Conquer are amongst the finest plays ever performed at Drury Lane.
And I know he's seen as flowery and very Victorian, but the way Tennyson interprets the character of Ulysses is divine. There's something truly beautiful about the way that lines like "And drunk delight of battle with my peers; Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy" flow in terms of symmetry, diction and meter. And
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
or
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
are more poignant than the rendering of Ulysses' yearnings represented in Dante's 26th canto in The Inferno. [This poem was also said to have made the prime minister at the time, Sir Robert Peel, give Tennyson his pension.]
On preview, seconding Pope, Marlowe, Marquez - would also add the wonderful Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz and the Australian writer David Malouf.
posted by honey-barbara at 3:51 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Stella Gibbons' hilarious Cold Comfort Farm established her as an incisive and iconic wit. Like Shakespeare, she played around with language, inventing her own country vocabulary - 'mollicking' is my favourite. She was presumed to be Evelyn Waugh under a pseudonym when CCF was first published. I think CCF is a marvelous parody of Emma.
Oscar Wilde's witticisms are divine - and not just in his plays. In a review of Joseph Knight's bio of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1887 he wrote: "We sincerely hope that there will soon be an end to all biographies of this kind. They rob life of much of its dignity and its wonder, add to death itself a new terror, and make one wish that all art were anonymous."
And to continue with outrageously talented Hibernian folk:
George Bernard Shaw
James Joyce
Flann O'Brien
Samuel Beckett
Jonathan Swift
Sebastian Barry
Sean O'Casey
Richard Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith were two of the greatest London playwrights of the 18th C - The School for Scandal and She Stoops to Conquer are amongst the finest plays ever performed at Drury Lane.
And I know he's seen as flowery and very Victorian, but the way Tennyson interprets the character of Ulysses is divine. There's something truly beautiful about the way that lines like "And drunk delight of battle with my peers; Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy" flow in terms of symmetry, diction and meter. And
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
or
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
are more poignant than the rendering of Ulysses' yearnings represented in Dante's 26th canto in The Inferno. [This poem was also said to have made the prime minister at the time, Sir Robert Peel, give Tennyson his pension.]
On preview, seconding Pope, Marlowe, Marquez - would also add the wonderful Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz and the Australian writer David Malouf.
posted by honey-barbara at 3:51 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Kurt Vonnegut has great dry wit. His writing style is deceptively simple - so much so that he is often dismissed by literary snobs. But certain passages and paragraphs will leave you reeling. He especially fits your request for "the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form." Read Slaughterhouse Five.
posted by Brodiggitty at 4:00 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Brodiggitty at 4:00 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
nthing Oscar Wilde. I wish I said something wittier to say, but sadly I am not Wilde.
posted by Senza Volto at 4:30 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Senza Volto at 4:30 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
Upon arriving at U.S. customs, Wilde said: "I have nothing to declare except my genius."
He wasn't kidding. Reading him gives me the same feeling I get when I read something from, say, Richard Feynman (i.e., I really got royally shafted on brain power at some point in my development). I don't just feel like Wilde is witty every now and then in his writings, a sentence here, a paragraph there. It's pretty much his modus operandi.
(Caveat: I don't know if it's just because I'm American that I think Wilde is the epitome of wit, and most Brits think he's just, you know, SLIGHTLY wittier than the norm.)
posted by The ____ of Justice at 4:50 AM on March 30, 2012
He wasn't kidding. Reading him gives me the same feeling I get when I read something from, say, Richard Feynman (i.e., I really got royally shafted on brain power at some point in my development). I don't just feel like Wilde is witty every now and then in his writings, a sentence here, a paragraph there. It's pretty much his modus operandi.
(Caveat: I don't know if it's just because I'm American that I think Wilde is the epitome of wit, and most Brits think he's just, you know, SLIGHTLY wittier than the norm.)
posted by The ____ of Justice at 4:50 AM on March 30, 2012
Douglas Adams.
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
posted by JanetLand at 5:20 AM on March 30, 2012 [6 favorites]
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
posted by JanetLand at 5:20 AM on March 30, 2012 [6 favorites]
Chesterton:
“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” – A Miscellany of Men
He wrote the Father Brown mysteries and some poetry, but is probably more well known for his long-form essays: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, What Is Wrong With The World, and so on.
posted by jquinby at 5:50 AM on March 30, 2012 [7 favorites]
“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” – A Miscellany of Men
He wrote the Father Brown mysteries and some poetry, but is probably more well known for his long-form essays: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Everlasting Man, What Is Wrong With The World, and so on.
posted by jquinby at 5:50 AM on March 30, 2012 [7 favorites]
Writers noted for wit and rhetorical skill, I assume you are asking about English language authors, here are my idiosyncratic picks...
William Hazlitt
George Orwell
Henry Adams
Barbara Tuchman
Chesterton
And in a living author and non-fiction context, I enjoy:
John Stilgoe
Mary Beard
Anthony Grafton
Simon Schama
Guy Davenport
And for a translated author- Umberto Eco
Plus of course... Shakespeare and the obligatory Declaration of Reasonable Doubt link.
posted by mfoight at 5:52 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
William Hazlitt
George Orwell
Henry Adams
Barbara Tuchman
Chesterton
And in a living author and non-fiction context, I enjoy:
John Stilgoe
Mary Beard
Anthony Grafton
Simon Schama
Guy Davenport
And for a translated author- Umberto Eco
Plus of course... Shakespeare and the obligatory Declaration of Reasonable Doubt link.
posted by mfoight at 5:52 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Molière
posted by fuse theorem at 6:07 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by fuse theorem at 6:07 AM on March 30, 2012
Samuel Beckett. Check out Watt or Mercier & Camier .
posted by newmoistness at 6:41 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by newmoistness at 6:41 AM on March 30, 2012
George Eliot really knows how to put together a sentence. Middlemarch has some of the most astonishingly good writing I've ever read.
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:12 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by Ragged Richard at 7:12 AM on March 30, 2012
For my money, no author towers higher than Mervyn Peake when it comes to raw descriptive power.
YMMV: his Work of Note is the Gormenghast triology, which gets slotted under Fantasy without actually having any fantastic elements in it except for the mere presence of an immense labyrinthine castle and characters with fanciful names.
This is the very first paragraph of the very first book, Titus Groan. Roll this around in your mouth for a bit:
It's gothy, it's fantastic, it is frankly kind of weird, but the whole book is like this. I find myself reading passages aloud, just to hear them spoken, and inevitably wind up in a kind of Ian McKellen impersonation when doing so.
And what you start to understand about a third of the way in is that it's funny. Not guffaw funny, not bon mots funny, but saturated in a kind of dry-as-dust straight-faced sense of irony and absurdism and comic purpose.
I'm going on, but I love Peake, and I think he gets tragically overlooked, partially because of the Fantasy label, and partially because the last of the trilogy was written when he was ill and severely reduced in capacity. Titus Groan is my desert island book. I think everyone who loves English should read it.
posted by Shepherd at 7:17 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
YMMV: his Work of Note is the Gormenghast triology, which gets slotted under Fantasy without actually having any fantastic elements in it except for the mere presence of an immense labyrinthine castle and characters with fanciful names.
This is the very first paragraph of the very first book, Titus Groan. Roll this around in your mouth for a bit:
Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping arch, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.
It's gothy, it's fantastic, it is frankly kind of weird, but the whole book is like this. I find myself reading passages aloud, just to hear them spoken, and inevitably wind up in a kind of Ian McKellen impersonation when doing so.
And what you start to understand about a third of the way in is that it's funny. Not guffaw funny, not bon mots funny, but saturated in a kind of dry-as-dust straight-faced sense of irony and absurdism and comic purpose.
I'm going on, but I love Peake, and I think he gets tragically overlooked, partially because of the Fantasy label, and partially because the last of the trilogy was written when he was ill and severely reduced in capacity. Titus Groan is my desert island book. I think everyone who loves English should read it.
posted by Shepherd at 7:17 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
The first person that came to mind was definitely Oscar Wilde (as some have already said). His plays are comedic gold. I'd also recommend some of e.e. cummings' satirical poetry- it can be more biting than you'd expect. I don't know how modern you want to get, but I'd say Douglas Adams sometimes does the same thing- he's usually more absurd, but he sometimes gets these snarky underhanded little lines in that are just so tight.
posted by windykites at 7:37 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by windykites at 7:37 AM on March 30, 2012
Tom Stoppard and Salman Rushdie.
posted by MsMolly at 7:44 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by MsMolly at 7:44 AM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
If you're into Shakespeare, there's no need to look too far outside of his own century to find similar and even superior wordsmiths. Shakespeare's the most "famous", but he is by no means the pinnacle of Early Modern wit.
John Donne is (in my not-so-humble opinion) much smarter, much better, and much, much funnier than Ol' Willy ever was. He is the granddaddy of Wit. All of the "Songs and Sonnets" are worth reading, but for pure wit and cheekiness, I'd suggest starting with "The Flea" (for extra giggles, keep in mind that when it was written the character "s" greatly resembled an "f"), and also reading "Elegy 19" (sometime called "Elegy 20" or "Elegy 8"). I dare anyone to read that and not fall hopelessly, passionately, and inappropriately in love with Donne.
Keeping in the period, Andrew Marvell is completely insane, but also brilliant (try This deceptively simple poem, from which I stole my screenname). Ben Jonson's plays are (waaaay) funnier than either Shakespeare or Marlowe, and (most of) his poetry is good too. The other Cavalier poets (esp. Carew and Herrick) are dirty little bastards, and an absolute joy to read. Witty/funny as hell.
And it goes without saying that Milton trumps them all. His humour is a little less cheeky than Donne, and less wacky than Marvell, but it's there and it is absolutely audacious, and no one else (Shakespeare included) even holds a candle to him in terms of your metrics of "verbal skill -- e.g. innovative rhetorical devices, creative use of vocabulary/meter/rhyme, innuendo & multiple meanings, and the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form."
ProTip for reading 17thC poetry: If you think they might possibly be making a penis, orgasm or other sexually inflected joke, they most definitely are (and probably a million more that you missed). No one likes to "die" quite as often as Donne does.....
The 17th Century is awesome. Eat it all up.
posted by Dorinda at 8:05 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
John Donne is (in my not-so-humble opinion) much smarter, much better, and much, much funnier than Ol' Willy ever was. He is the granddaddy of Wit. All of the "Songs and Sonnets" are worth reading, but for pure wit and cheekiness, I'd suggest starting with "The Flea" (for extra giggles, keep in mind that when it was written the character "s" greatly resembled an "f"), and also reading "Elegy 19" (sometime called "Elegy 20" or "Elegy 8"). I dare anyone to read that and not fall hopelessly, passionately, and inappropriately in love with Donne.
Keeping in the period, Andrew Marvell is completely insane, but also brilliant (try This deceptively simple poem, from which I stole my screenname). Ben Jonson's plays are (waaaay) funnier than either Shakespeare or Marlowe, and (most of) his poetry is good too. The other Cavalier poets (esp. Carew and Herrick) are dirty little bastards, and an absolute joy to read. Witty/funny as hell.
And it goes without saying that Milton trumps them all. His humour is a little less cheeky than Donne, and less wacky than Marvell, but it's there and it is absolutely audacious, and no one else (Shakespeare included) even holds a candle to him in terms of your metrics of "verbal skill -- e.g. innovative rhetorical devices, creative use of vocabulary/meter/rhyme, innuendo & multiple meanings, and the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form."
ProTip for reading 17thC poetry: If you think they might possibly be making a penis, orgasm or other sexually inflected joke, they most definitely are (and probably a million more that you missed). No one likes to "die" quite as often as Donne does.....
The 17th Century is awesome. Eat it all up.
posted by Dorinda at 8:05 AM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
P.G. Wodehouse is at the top of my list, especially in terms of vocabulary. I'm sure he invented at least as many words as Shakespeare.
In terms of rhetoric, Douglas Adams, definitely. His stories are completely off-the-wall surreal, but somehow make perfect logical sense.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:06 AM on March 30, 2012
In terms of rhetoric, Douglas Adams, definitely. His stories are completely off-the-wall surreal, but somehow make perfect logical sense.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:06 AM on March 30, 2012
Max Beerbohm rivaled Wilde for wit. The places to start are Zuleika Dobson and Seven Men.
posted by Iridic at 10:02 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by Iridic at 10:02 AM on March 30, 2012
The great secret of Ulysses is that most of is a fucking riot. Joyce was hilarious.
posted by scody at 10:39 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by scody at 10:39 AM on March 30, 2012 [3 favorites]
Rostand and Cervantes, especially in their original languages, were maestros of linguistic finesse.
posted by IAmBroom at 11:42 AM on March 30, 2012
posted by IAmBroom at 11:42 AM on March 30, 2012
Seconding James Joyce. Ulysses is brilliant--the punning, the use of a huge number of popular genres and modes of speech, the layers upon layers of historical and cultural allusions, the absolute beauty and perfection of the last few chapters. Hear it read aloud if you can--it will bring the language alive for you.
Thomas Pynchon also does lots of wild and crazy things with language.
posted by tully_monster at 11:57 AM on March 30, 2012
Thomas Pynchon also does lots of wild and crazy things with language.
posted by tully_monster at 11:57 AM on March 30, 2012
I'm shocked that George Orwell hasn't been mentioned except in a large list of names. His work is all public domain and a large repository of his books and essays can be found freely available here
posted by Blasdelb at 12:04 PM on March 30, 2012
posted by Blasdelb at 12:04 PM on March 30, 2012
Vladimir Nabokov
Salman Rushdie
Mark Twain
Anthony Burgess
S.J. Perelman
Philip Roth is no slouch.
Johathan Swift
Dorothy Parker
Robert Benchley
Voltaire ain't so bad.
I heartily recommend Albert Jarry's Ubu Roi.
George Orwell
Woody Allen's writings are better than his movies, arguably.
Groucho Marx's letters are a scream.
Martin Amis and Papa Kingsley
Ford Madox Ford is quite dry and not to all tastes, but incredibly brilliant. Graham Greene's favorite novelist, which is saying something.
Chester Himes is underrated and very witty.
Dunno if they're in that same League of Giants, but, of modern novelists, I think that both Gary Shteyngart and Sam Lipsyte are witty and brilliant.
William Vollmann, bless his fucked-up heart, can also seriously turn a phrase.
posted by Dr. Wu at 12:49 PM on March 30, 2012
Salman Rushdie
Mark Twain
Anthony Burgess
S.J. Perelman
Philip Roth is no slouch.
Johathan Swift
Dorothy Parker
Robert Benchley
Voltaire ain't so bad.
I heartily recommend Albert Jarry's Ubu Roi.
George Orwell
Woody Allen's writings are better than his movies, arguably.
Groucho Marx's letters are a scream.
Martin Amis and Papa Kingsley
Ford Madox Ford is quite dry and not to all tastes, but incredibly brilliant. Graham Greene's favorite novelist, which is saying something.
Chester Himes is underrated and very witty.
Dunno if they're in that same League of Giants, but, of modern novelists, I think that both Gary Shteyngart and Sam Lipsyte are witty and brilliant.
William Vollmann, bless his fucked-up heart, can also seriously turn a phrase.
posted by Dr. Wu at 12:49 PM on March 30, 2012
Seconding Wodehouse.
Also: he's no Shakespeare, but A.J. Leibling is fun. He wrote for the New Yorker about French food, journalism, World War II and pugilism. The first paragraph of his boxing book The Sweet Science is to me, by its end, delicious:
Also: he's no Shakespeare, but A.J. Leibling is fun. He wrote for the New Yorker about French food, journalism, World War II and pugilism. The first paragraph of his boxing book The Sweet Science is to me, by its end, delicious:
It is through Jack O'Brien, the Arbiter Elegentarium Philidelphiae, that I trace my rapport with the historic past through the laying-on of hands. He hit me, for pedagogical example, and he had been hit by the great Bob Fitzsimmons, from whom he had won the light-heavyweight title in 1906. Jack had a scar to show for it. Fitzsimmons had been hit by Corbett, Corbett by John L. Sullivan, he by Paddy Ryan, with the bare knuckles, and Ryan by Joe Goss, his predecessor, who as a young man had felt the fist of the great Jem Mace. It is a great thrill to feel that all that separates you from the early Victorians is a series of punches on the nose. I wonder if Professor Toynbee is as intimately attuned to his sources. The Sweet Science is joined onto the past like a man's arm to his shoulder.If that doesn't make you like him, there's this Wikipedia footnote:
Friend and fellow New-Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell inherited Liebling's book library after his death, and recalls Liebling's once having used bacon as a bookmark.posted by Superfrankenstein at 1:09 PM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Now, I don't know if he ever once put pen to paper, but, if only for his recorded monologues: Lord Buckley.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:18 PM on March 30, 2012
posted by Sys Rq at 1:18 PM on March 30, 2012
Most of my recommendations for wit have been mentioned, and rightly so, but on the skillful/moving side I want to throw a shout-out to Lord Dunsany. The King of Elfland's Daughter, especially, has so many paragraphs that I just had to reread over and over. It is fantasy, but it's astonishingly lyrical prose and was just a revelation for me.
posted by Errant at 1:42 PM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Errant at 1:42 PM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
He employed it more for profundity than for humor, but Thomas Browne's prose is counted among the glories of the language.
posted by Iridic at 2:56 PM on March 30, 2012
posted by Iridic at 2:56 PM on March 30, 2012
Nobody's mentioned Geoffrey Chaucer yet, but his stuff is full of amazingly clever wordsmithery. Canterbury Tales, obviously. Start at the beginning? Maybe the Knight's Tale or the Wife of Bath. This guy was kind of inventing language as he was writing, and it is pretty cool.
Some of Shakespeare's contemporaries have already been mentioned, Chris Marlowe chief among them. I'm not sure which Marlowe play is most accessible. Edward II? Doctor Faustus?
Take a look at Restoration drama - aka, Comedy of Manners - writers - like William Wycherley (The Country Wife & The Plain Dealer), William Congreve (The Way of the World), George Etherege (The Man of Mode) and John Dryden (Marriage a la Mode). These guys were the precursor to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. All so clever.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:07 PM on March 30, 2012
Some of Shakespeare's contemporaries have already been mentioned, Chris Marlowe chief among them. I'm not sure which Marlowe play is most accessible. Edward II? Doctor Faustus?
Take a look at Restoration drama - aka, Comedy of Manners - writers - like William Wycherley (The Country Wife & The Plain Dealer), William Congreve (The Way of the World), George Etherege (The Man of Mode) and John Dryden (Marriage a la Mode). These guys were the precursor to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. All so clever.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:07 PM on March 30, 2012
James Joyce's Ulysses is a lot of fun mainly because you've got pages of wtf followed by something like this, which makes you laugh till you fall over:
"He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which dangled at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the Ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O’Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O’Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O’Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M’Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal Mac-Mahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castille, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn’t, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo, Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquillising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone."
And having it read to you for the first time by someone who can keep a straight face, will kill and bury you under a big rock.
posted by storybored at 8:26 PM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
"He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which dangled at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the Ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O’Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O’Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O’Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M’Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal Mac-Mahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castille, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn’t, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo, Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by tranquillising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone."
And having it read to you for the first time by someone who can keep a straight face, will kill and bury you under a big rock.
posted by storybored at 8:26 PM on March 30, 2012 [2 favorites]
I've read Nabokov's Lolita approximately eight times and I catch on to a few more jokes every time.
Alexander Pope can be coolly snide and artistically virtuosic at the same time, but the heroic couplet takes some acclimatization.
posted by Orinda at 10:21 PM on March 30, 2012
Alexander Pope can be coolly snide and artistically virtuosic at the same time, but the heroic couplet takes some acclimatization.
posted by Orinda at 10:21 PM on March 30, 2012
ha! storybored quoted one of my very favorite passages. The entire Cyclops episode, which that is from, is basically one long, elaborate, hysterical send-up of heroic poetry and Irish nationalism. Great stuff.
posted by scody at 10:36 PM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by scody at 10:36 PM on March 30, 2012 [1 favorite]
Waiting for Godot (text) by Samuel Beckett is extremely witty. Happy Days is probably better, but you asked for wit, right?
The first half of The Picture of Dorian Gray is basically a collection of witticisms.
posted by ersatz at 5:43 AM on March 31, 2012
The first half of The Picture of Dorian Gray is basically a collection of witticisms.
posted by ersatz at 5:43 AM on March 31, 2012
Read Wodehouse, read Wodehouse. He is the master of us all.--after Laplace on Euler
Christopher Hitchens, a prominent Wodehouse fan, was also an adept wordsmith. Agree with him or not or both, but there are definitely passages that get a "daaaaaamn, that was smooth!" from me.
posted by tellumo at 10:32 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]
I can't believe I didn't mention Jeanette Winterson my first time around! I'm interrupting my reading of Weight to bring you this:
"My father was Poseidon. My mother was the Earth. [. . .] Both were volatile. My father obviously so, my mother more alarmingly. She was serene as a rock but volcano'd with anger. She was quiet as a desert but tectonically challenged. When my mother threw a plate across the room, the whole world felt the crash. [. . . .]"
Ah, it's wonderful.
posted by mibo at 5:24 PM on April 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
"My father was Poseidon. My mother was the Earth. [. . .] Both were volatile. My father obviously so, my mother more alarmingly. She was serene as a rock but volcano'd with anger. She was quiet as a desert but tectonically challenged. When my mother threw a plate across the room, the whole world felt the crash. [. . . .]"
Ah, it's wonderful.
posted by mibo at 5:24 PM on April 1, 2012 [1 favorite]
Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner is painstakingly witty, a book that keeps you under its thumb with its intelligence and sense of style: "It was the last great heyday for courtesans, and she made hay."
Cole Porter's Lyrics have a lot of hidden gems that come out on repeat listens.
Also, sort of an obscure choice, but Anthony Lane's collection of movie reviews Nobody's Perfect is just outstanding for this, not all of the reviews are convincing but Lane's rhetorical skill alone turns pages.
posted by kettleoffish at 11:17 PM on April 1, 2012
Cole Porter's Lyrics have a lot of hidden gems that come out on repeat listens.
Also, sort of an obscure choice, but Anthony Lane's collection of movie reviews Nobody's Perfect is just outstanding for this, not all of the reviews are convincing but Lane's rhetorical skill alone turns pages.
posted by kettleoffish at 11:17 PM on April 1, 2012
I would like to vouch for Jonathan Swift.
(Yes, Oscar Wilde is pretty popular a choice too)
posted by lorn at 3:57 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
(Yes, Oscar Wilde is pretty popular a choice too)
posted by lorn at 3:57 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
J-Aust FTW!
posted by dracomarca at 8:02 AM on April 5, 2012
posted by dracomarca at 8:02 AM on April 5, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mochapickle at 11:36 PM on March 29, 2012 [7 favorites]