Five English-department inspired reading recs from a graduating English major

In my time in the English department, I’ve grown familiar with the skill of forcing myself through books that I didn’t particularly love. Sometimes, a book just isn’t for me; sorry Jane Austen! Some books are pleasant enough to enjoy, but not compelling enough to return to. However, there are also many texts that I read at Princeton that were fundamental to my experience in understanding literature. If you’re in search of some good summer reads, here are five recommendations of the works that I think everyone — English major or not — should pick up.

‘Autobiography of Red,’ Anne Carson

My introduction Anne Carson was reading “Autobiography of Red” in ENG 317, a seminar on erotic poetry. Most of our readings were typically from the 1500 to 1700 range, so reading a text written in 1998 already made it unique in the course. The novel itself, though, felt much more emotionally raw than the other texts I had read for the course. The bluntness of the storytelling that so explicitly explored desire, loneliness, and the isolation of identity in a class that felt so fixated on the blurriness of eroticism in earlier poetry created a sharp contrast to the experience of reading poetry across hundreds of years. Adaptations of Greek myths often suffer under the weight of historical context and the difficulty of adapting ancient characters for a modern audience. “Autobiography of Red” does not share this struggle. Carson, a classicist, has a clear understanding of the story of Geryon — a monster that the hero Herakles must kill as part of his 12 labors — and how to modify that story for a modern setting. Though Geryon retains his status as a “monster” in the text, his story is later reframed as one of trauma, self-exploration, and love. A story of a monster and the person that hunts him becomes one of queer coming of age, where desire and destruction intertwine as a traumatized child develops from childhood to adulthood. Written as a novel in verse, Carson’s work is a breath of fresh air in its poetic style that feels both ancient and modern.

‘Macbeth,’ William Shakespeare

Like every stereotypical English major, I love Shakespeare. Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one of Shakespeare’s plays on my recommendation list. Most people have probably read at least one Shakespeare play in their lives, but if I had to recommend you pick up another, it would be “Macbeth.” I first read it in high school, but it has since become my most read Shakespeare play since, as I read it for two separate courses as well as my thesis. In many ways, “Macbeth” was the play that made me fall in love with tragedy and set me on my course in the English department. Short and relatively fast-paced, the play follows the destruction — personal and political — brought on by uncontrolled ambition. From the moment that Macbeth hears the witches’ prophecy, he is damned. His wife, Lady Macbeth, serves as a complex portrayal of an ambitious woman who is disempowered by a masculine hierarchy. Duty, gender restrictions, and an idealized destiny all come together to build one of Shakespeare’s most iconic tragedies.

‘Beloved,’ Toni Morrison

“Beloved” is another book I’ve read multiple times at Princeton, once in ENG 368, a course on modern American literature, and once in ENG 399, a course on law and literature. By the time I finished reading it each time, I had a distinct thought that Toni Morrison is potentially the greatest American novelist of the last century — an opinion I still hold. “Beloved” is not an easy read. The first time I read it, I was lost in a world of memory and “rememory,” where past, present, and various points of view create a tangled narrative that is difficult to track. The second time I read it, it took even more effort than the first. The complex layers of the text, though, are exactly why I would recommend this book to everyone I meet. Morrison’s writing is complex and intricate, but she grasps the roots of American history, infusing it with the weight of human emotion and experience to create something otherworldly. Exploring the generational trauma of slavery as well as the dynamics between mother and daughter, “Beloved” concentrates on a chapter of America’s haunted past in one house, with one family. In doing so, Morrison masterfully answers the question of what it looks like to have your past return when you’ve tried to keep it buried.

‘Lolita,’ Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita” is a book that often earns me questioning glances when I tell someone it’s one of my favorites. I first read it in the same American literature course in which I read “Beloved,” and it was one of the first books I’d read that made me feel genuinely uncomfortable while reading it. It forces you to sit with the pure discomfort of  it. It uses beautiful, flowing language to describe a protagonist that every reader finds abhorrent. The controversial novel is written from the perspective of Humbert Humbert, a pedophile who abuses a young girl named Dolores. Written as a confession from jail while awaiting trial, Humbert’s point of view romanticizes the abusive dynamic between the two, refusing to truly acknowledge the moral problem of his pedophilic abuse of a young girl. Even the title of the book, “Lolita,” is the moniker that the narrator gives to the girl, forcing Dolores into the objectified label that Humbert sees her as. If you want to read a love story, maybe don’t pick up this one. But, if you want a book that will force you to feel the tensions between words and actions, to sit with beauty and disgust simultaneously, then this is the book for you.

‘Doctor Faustus,’ Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe is not typically the first tragic playwright to come to mind when thinking about tragedy — an unfortunate side effect of being a peer of Shakespeare. Yet, the art of tragedy is alive and well in “Doctor Faustus.” The play follows a scholar who sells his soul in exchange for knowledge and power. It’s dark academia before dark academia, holding up an uncomfortable mirror to my own — and every other Princeton student’s — desire for knowledge. “Faustus,” like “Macbeth,” is a text that pushed me towards a study in tragedy. Themes of ambition leading to destruction are similar to those in “Macbeth,” but the play overall takes on a much more religious tone. It is a text fixated on the idea of damnation and salvation, exploring what it means to be not only complicit in, but responsible for, your own suffering. This was one of the first tragedies I read at Princeton, and it’s one that I still think about often and find myself revisiting. 

These books all deserve their spot within the canon of English literature. Literature reflects the complexities of humanity, and it is in texts like these five that we can explore desire, disgust, damnation, self-destruction, ambition, trauma, and every other facet of the kaleidoscopic human experience. Whether it’s your first time or 50th time reading these books, there’s always something to gain.

Mackenzie Hollingsworth is a member of the class of 2026 and a senior writer for The Prospect. She can be reached at mh5273[at]princeton.edu.

Please send any corrections to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.