eliot wrote j. alfred prufrock when he was twenty-two?!

[recursivelyenumerable]

jesus christ.

[Van Cruncheon]

thankfully, nobody spent much time telling me i was brilliant and clever and destined for greatness when i was a kid

therefore, i have set the bar very very low: i hear kingsley amis wasn't hospitalized for alcoholism until he was 38

i got 4 more years left to top that

[y2kev]

OMG I love this poem

It's my FAVORITE poem EVAR. I even bastardized the prince hamlet line into my xbl status

[Howard Alan Treesong]

"no hamlt no mnt 2 b"

[y2kev]

"no hamlt no mnt 2 b"

I just dropped the t from not so it's "I am no prince hamlet," which actually does change things a bit.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I made out with a girl once because I could recite this entire poem from memory and it got her panties wet

spoiler (click to show/hide)

she was 15

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was 16

[close]

[drohne]

joyce wrote 'the dead' when he was 25

i remember when i used to recite factoids like that to myself from a 'so i've still got some time' angle

[CajoleJuice]

I made out with a girl once because I could recite this entire poem from memory and it got her panties wet

spoiler (click to show/hide)

she was 15

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was 16

[close]

[y2kev]

joyce wrote 'the dead' when he was 25

Jesus Christ

I'm still partial to Araby just because I admire Joyce's ability to use fewer words and be as effective as most authors are in ten times as many. Both of those stories (and most of Dubliners) end so incredibly well.

I was going to type bow joyce bow2 but i realize that at EB it actually does the emoticons

[drohne]

anyway, as amusing as it is to tell myself that keats was younger than me when he died, precocity rarely has much to do with literary achievement, and when you needle yourself in that manner you're not even needling yourself correctly. no: dwell on your manifest giftlessness and not the failure of your gifts to manifest at some arbitrarily chosen age

[y2kev]

i'm only 20! i've got at least one masterpiece in me and i've got 5 years to do it.

i'll get some practice right now

shantih shantih shantih

take that, eliot

[Van Cruncheon]

anyway, as amusing as it is to tell myself that keats was younger than me when he died, precocity rarely has much to do with literary achievement, and when you needle yourself in that manner you're not even needling yourself correctly. no: dwell on your manifest giftlessness and not the failure of your gifts to manifest at some arbitrarily chosen age

on the upside, i've won far more snarky internet exchanges than either of the shelleys ever did at my age!

i'd like to think that i could've dropped a sick burn on gb shaw, for example, and oscar wilde would be all " drinky "

[muckhole]

As a child, I'm pretty sure I once handed in a poem from a Groo comic in and got an A. 

[Loki]

Recursivelyenumerable sounds like I did when I discovered that Shelley wrote The Modern Prometheus at age 19.  I mean, the prose can be a bit turgid at times, but wow.  I was blown away.