Why study it, why bother with it at all?
To cultivate focus and depth in our lives. Without these, you implicitly accept shallowness as a way of being. This has never been more true than now, when we all spend countless hours engaging in mediums that breed and depend on this inattention and shallowness.
Also, fun.
Not bait, I'm genuinely curious.
>not liking storytime
>not liking poetry
are you broken? :(
Why read Shakespeare?
>>9628182
Why not read Shakespeare?
He understood the concepts of envy and mimesis. We are all slaves to other people's desires.
>>9628189
Time
Why is it that i speak 4 languages but prefer reading translated works of literature in English?
It's not even my mother tongue..
>>9627956
That looks like a blue ass touching mars, and the sun in the background.
>>9627946
probably because you're Dutch and have a shit literary tradition
>>9627868
I don't think many have read it. I did. It's okay but very much feels like it was written by a young DFW. I remember being quite bored for a good 100-page section in the middle where it feels as if the story is going absolutely nowhere. None of the characters are compelling or fleshed-out but it is occasionally very funny, especially when it pokes fun at them for not being flesh-out or compelling. Like pretty much everything I've read of DFW it succeeds in detailing the small, precise, or trivial details of things.
>>9627868
Why don't you talk about it?
>DFW
Dropped.
>Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough, and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.
Please don't ever post on this board again.
/pol/ army reporting in!
*clicks heels*
destroy jewish propaganda sir yes sir!
sieg heil!
deus vult!
>>9627448
I actually really liked that part in the story. A businessman and a cab driver (one's a demon, but I forget which - the cab driver, probably). They have sex, and then in the morning, they just... switch lives, calmly and if it were an obvious forgone conclusion. If I'm honest, I think it's my favorite part.
Brian Fuller doesn't pull any punches, and I love him for it.
What are some recommended books to get into the Jungian analysis in psychology, archetypes, psychic alchemy, etc.?
>>9627428
Probably some Jung.
>>9627430
And what do you recommend from Jung?
>>9627433
collected works
read most of the good german poets and want to get into english poetry now
I've obviously read most of Shakespeare and already ordered Paradise Lost but where do I go from there?
Shelley, Whitman, Poe ?
I wouldn't bother with Poe if I were you.
Maybe go to other Renaissance poets like Donne, Jonson if you like that sort of thing.
>>9627260
have you read Georg?
hmmm
When writing a novel, how do you choose the names of your characters? I would prefer not to give any name desu senpai
>>9627211
I just shift through names until I find one that "fits". Sometimes I change their name a couple times during the story, if I find a better name. You have to enjoy your characters too.
whatever comes to mind, usually John if it's a guy, not too sure about girls though
>>9627211
I construct a pseudo-language based on real languages I associate with my subjects. I give names for important tools, events, qualia (emotions and colors), symbols and the sort. I then twist and turn them to form names.
Remember to keep old-people names separate.
Finished this yesterday /lit/June 10th: What a strange coincidence...and what a ride it was!
Feel free to discuss anything, but these are my questions:
1.Obligatory: What was Vhiessu then? Surely not a Rosicrucian utopia under the Arctic? Yet Fairing seemed to be attempting to create his own Vhiessu under New York, perhaps reading Augustine's City of God a little too literally
2.Who narrates the ending? Stencil fils? He narrated all the others, barring Fausto's Confessions, Is this why there's that line, "His father, ha."? If so what will Stencil do knowing that she had nothing to do with his father's demise?
>>9627153
Thomas Pynchon is the dumbest fucking "writer" to ever exist, he's just not intelligent. I know people who study philosophy, history, sciences, physics, all of them think he's a fucking charlatan, the only people who idolise him are shitty Lit majors.
>>9627243
>my undergrad friend think pynchon is a charlatan
lol
Ayy June tenth was my birthday!
Why is Russian Sci-Fi (Stanislaw Lem, 'We') so much more intellecually stimulating than American Sci-fi (Vonnegut, PKD, Asimov) or British Sci-fi?
it really isn't
One is politically oriented while the other is technically oriented? One is about what science is used for and the other is about what science does?
>>9626989
>Vonnegut
>PKD
>Asimov
>technically oriented
Pfftchakahahahah
What's the best English translation of Dante's Paradiso? Preferably with the Italian text alongside. On the same note, how should one prepare to get the most out of The Divine Comedy?
>>9626921
allen mandelbaum /thread
>>9626921
>how should one prepare to get the most out of The Divine Comedy?
what im trying to do now, i guess lots of Greek myths, homer, and some well known biblical references. brush up on the bible my man.
>>9627162
Be familiar with The Bible, Virgil's Aeneid, and Thomas Aquinas. You should also read up on the politics of Florence at the time.
Name me a better fantasist piece than this
>>9626850
Tell me at least someone on /lit/ has read this book.
>>9626850
Ya'll some lames
read Marcel Schwob if you want to see symbolism at its best
>>9626850
The Illuminations
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/new-class-war/
This is a lot better and more cogent than that jacobite shit you guys read. Is this a proper contextualization of the global zeitgeist? Is there a managerial elite and how much of it is connected to the rise of the expert that Hofstadter discusses? Why don't we ever talk Burnham here?
Nobody on this board reads.
>managerial elite
Yes, It's called the middle class, everybody already hated them.
>>9626630
Who needs to be discussed more is Burke not Burnham.
the new meme is writing full, sincere, and well-thought out posts. you can maintain a sense of detached irony by poor grammatical standards like i am doing, but please spread this new meme. well thought out, rational, reasoned, intelligent, positive thinking posts.
I actually agree with trying to spread such a meme and appreciate your efforts OP ... sorry, my grammatical standards weren't poor enough. hopefully, however, such a meme will help to make /lit/ a better forum for the discussion of literature and even perhaps philosophy
>>9626616
I already do this.
>>9626616
And risk becoming Reddit? Cleave this fucking royalist's head off!!!!!
>take Lit class for fun
>Frankenstein comes up
>read it twice already and wrote on it before in high school and don't hate it, but am getting cold feet now
>usual science vs. nature, nurture vs. nature, etc, themes are boring and dry as fuck to me
>want to write about something a little zesty
>have to write both a 10 page research paper and a close reading (of a passage or a sentence) essay ASAP
You guys have any guidance for this plebeian?
>>9626585
meditate until you reach a light sleep and you start experiencing daydreams/hallucinations
then just write down any one of those and try to argue it from the perspective of the book
that's something i do, but i haven't had to write a paper in years
Dr Frankenstein is the evil scientist Yaqub.
His monster is white people
Go crazy.
>>9626585
There's the incest themes, Percy's influence on the text, the anaphora of wretch.