I will try to enliven the forum with fun questions.
Name your favourite traditional authors and poets.
Best author Jane Austen. As Walter Allen said, 'You don't blunder onto perfection six times' That is why she is my number one. People can argue over the best novel ever written, but as a collection of six books, no-one comes close to her genius.
I did not add authors to my list, that I have only read once.
My list.
1st. Jane Austen
Joint Second place.
Henry James
Joseph Conrad
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy
Charlotte Bronte
Lord Alfred Tennyson
William Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
I like Mark Twain.
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were excellent reads. Huckleberry Finn has many weaknesses, but is brillantly written. It is Mark Twain's, best work.
Keats lived in Edmonton North London. It is where I live. There is plaque in Keats Parade, Church Street, to commemerate him. Although he was twenty five when he died, he left a lasting legacy.
I know an amusing story about Chekhov.
His friend Maxim Gorky asked Him, ' Shall I plan for y next novel?'
Chekhov knew that Gorky was not a good planner. He replied, 'This is not a conversation about literature, it is about psychiatry.'
Gorky responded, 'What do you mean?'
Chekhov answered, 'Anyone who writes without a plan must be insane.'
I am unfamiliar whith Hopkins although I have heard his name.
William Shakespeare
Unbeatable in my eyes. :)
Mark Twain, Anton Chekov, John Keats, Gerard Manley Hopkins