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Practice your writing by typing out classic literature. This method not only enhances your understanding of rhythm, structure, and nuances but also connects you deeply with the timeless flow of literary history.This is a BETA version.
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Walden; or, Life in the Woods is a book by transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. It reflects Thoreau’s attempt to live a simpler life surrounded by nature, and it critiques the complexities of contemporary society and the impact of the Industrial Revolution.
time to time on to linen paper. Says the poet Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast, “Being seated to run through the region of the spiritual world; I have had this advantage in books. To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines.” I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table through the summer, though I looked at his page only now and then. Incessant labor with my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that _I_ lived. The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages. The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a
Other classics
Ernest Hemingway
In Our Time
Marcel Proust
Swann's Way
August Strindberg
Röda Rummet
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
Lewis Carroll
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment
Jane Austen
Emma
August Strindberg
Inferno
Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
Marcel Proust
Within a Budding Grove
Hjalmar Söderberg
Förvillelser
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights
Victoria Benedictsson
Modern
Louisa May Alcott
Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag Vol. 1
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Cranford
Herman Melville
Moby-Dick; or, The WhaleWhy Type a Masterpiece?
Typing out classical literature is not just an exercise in patience; it's a deeply immersive way to understand the rhythm, structure, and nuances of great writing. By manually reproducing the works of renowned authors, you engage with the text on a level that reading alone cannot offer. This method allows you to feel the flow of sentences, the choice of words, and the intricate construction of paragraphs that make these works timeless.
Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words.
– Virginia Woolf
literati is a unique platform where writers can select from a vast collection of public domain classics to type out. This practice is akin to a musician playing pieces by the masters to internalize the elements of composition and performance. Just as the musician learns the subtleties of each note and chord, the writer learns the power of each word and sentence.
Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.
– Gustave Flaubert
Engaging directly with masterpieces allows writers to absorb the rhythm of the text, the ebb and flow of its pacing, and the beauty of its imagery. It cultivates an appreciation for the craft of writing and provides invaluable lessons in how to construct compelling narratives, develop characters, and evoke emotions in readers. Happy typing!
The only truth is music.
– Jack Kerouac