Dumbest Literature Mistakes You've Made

My mother insists I called 1984 an "ancient history book" when I was, like, nine. Old enough to know better, anyway. I don't think it sounds like me - people shooting down "old news" on the Internet have always set my teeth on edge - but I don't know why she'd make it up.

It makes me scratch my head, too.

I thought EB White was a girl.

Until now, so did I.

This is what you get for not reading the about the author blurbs, I guess.

edited 31st Oct '11 7:32:25 AM by annebeeche

I thought Kim Stanley Robinson and Robin Hobb were girls. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the default novelist in my head is female, so yeah.

edited 31st Oct '11 7:45:06 AM by DomaDoma

I once wrote an essay on The Canterbury Tales were I got the tales of the characters mixed up, only to catch my mistake after I turned in my essay.

Never again. ,_,

edited 31st Oct '11 8:38:58 AM by FifthSeason

I thought Frances Hodgson Burnett was a man.

edited 31st Oct '11 9:24:37 AM by SnowyFoxes

...So did I. Heh. Until I came to my senses and saw that she was writing exclusively about how girls can be an example for humanity.

@Doma Doma: Robin Hobb is female.

EDIT: See below.

edited 1st Nov '11 5:54:39 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Crap. Who's the Robin who writes all the medical thrillers? That's the one I meant.

The thread has now self-demonstrated, ladies and gents.

Once, back in college, I pulled an all nighter before my Shakespeare midterm. I wasn't studying, though, I was watching old Dragonball episodes online. The next day I called Iago Goku on my test as part of an answer that I still can't decipher what I actually meant to this day.

I got marked correct.

Robin Cook

As a child, I thought 1984 was about the Beatles because the front of the paperback had the title displayed in big puffy colored numbers.

And Cymbeline is a really weird one. So much of it comes off as comedic and ridiculous, but then you get people like Cloten coming in and boasting about how he's going to rape his half sister while wearing her husband's clothes to prove his love for her. And honestly, I think a lot of whether it's a tragedy depends on whether you consider Posthumous Leonatus to be the main character.

Don't know if this counts as a mistake, but I thought of The Merchant Of Venice as a tragedy (even though nobody died at the end) and was kind of shocked to find out it was considered a comedy. (Granted, at the time I didn't know the Classical definitions of "tragedy" and "comedy".)

The word "drama" has done wonders for modern theatre criticism, I feel.

To be fair, one of the key defining features of Shakespeare's writing style is how he mixes elements from tragedy and comedy. The Merchant Of Venice was written as a comedy, but you can not deny that the "If you prick us, do we not bleed" is a very serious speech when you consider that Jews were very much Acceptable Targets back in those times.

When I was very, very young, I often confused H.G. Wells, George Orwell and Orson Welles.

Me too.

Yeah, that got a bit confusing.

In elementary school, I thought Harry Potter was the same as Goosebumps. :|

Wells and Welles, yes. Orwell, no.

1. 38: Speaking of: how, exactly, does Macbeth count as a tragedy? I guess given the two options of "comedy" or "tragedy" (since even Shakespeare wouldn't put a plot instigated by fictitious witches in the "history" category), it'd be a tragedy, but, well, a) Macbeth is pretty much one or two virtues wrapped up in a whole bundle of flaws, none of which stands out as much more fatal than the rest; and b) it thus ends pretty well, all things considered.

It depends on how noble you think Mac Beth is at the beginning.

Making the tragic flaw his initial pliability? Sure, I'll buy that. Still, bloodthirsty bugger, even then.

Yes, "drama" is indeed a helpful word.

Despite traditional definitions, that's how I've always thought of Venice anyway. But it is my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, so... *shrug*

RE Macbeth:

A) You could say that he's an example of ambition as a fatal flaw. But as you note, he's a pretty huge bastard.

B) It's a tragedy under the definition of tragedy as "a work where (almost) all of the characters die by the end"

If you read what is said about Macbeth from other people's perceptions, all the other characters basically love him at the start - a bit bloodthirsty, but the king trusts him and rewards him, he's seen as a brave and noble example of leadership and loyalty to the king. The introductory scene is them talking about how he killed a traitor to the crown, for Dramatic Irony value. (There's a certain amount of Values Dissonance here, I suppose).

It's only after the witches start talking about how he will be king he gets ideas in his head and starts getting ambitious. And that's when it all goes wrong.

He's actually really conflicted about things early in the play, and feels a lot of guilt over killing Duncan. He just heads down the slippery slope as the bodies pile up.

Also, for what it's worth, the witches come from ''Holinshead's Chronicles" which was a "history" of the British Isles Shakespeare used as a source. Though he took a lot of dramatic licence overall.

/sorry for the tl;dr, was teaching Macbeth earlier this year.