Why are writers so obsessed with the classics? At some point,

>>8743975

i'll bite. the ideas we take for granted weren't always so 'obvious' to us. they had to be developed by this classical writers. isn't it interesting to you to understand how the psychic landscape of humanity has changed over time? wouldn't that lend a deeper understanding of *us*? what is intrinsic and what is cultural to humanity?

i empathize with the fact that their writings are hard, and i haven't even read the actual writings. i'm basically talking out of my ass. but i understand why they're important

>>8743975
Are you stupid? you can't even pretend to understand English literature with having read a good percentage of the "classics".

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>>8743975
>At some point, shouldn't we stop looking backwards?

Only way to look forward is by looking back

>>8743982

Bretty good post

>>8743982
You're right. I don't really like it when people view classics as the greatest literature will ever accomplish, obsessively study and imitate them instead of searching for a contemporary voice. I think there's a general feeling in society that there is nothing new under the sun, which is untrue. Sorry if this doesn't make any sense.

>>8744007
>Are you stupid?
Probably
>you can't even pretend to understand English literature with having read a good percentage of the "classics".
I read the classics. I don't worship them. Classics should be viewed strictly historically.

>>8744024
>Classics should be viewed strictly historically.

What do you mean?

>>8744024
"Classics" aren't "strictly historical" though, the Shakespeare industry is booming, It's more relevant than ever before.

>>8743975
I don't understand your point. The classics are great, people love them, but they shouldn't be allowed to spend a lot of time looking at the works they love the most and think are best?

>Nobody can get good at writing by pasting together ideas from old as fuck literature
Baseless conjecture which is obviously false. We do have Joyce remember and he is hardly alone.

>No writers seem to truly give a shit about the world we live in now.
Again a completely untrue conjecture. We have both Kafka and Proust as god-tier writers who are interested in precisely that and it's not exactly a short list that can be drawn up to augment them.

Well it's the simple fact that the act of being human hasn't changed since the development of literature. The cultures and perspectives change, but there is nothing unrecognizable in Gilgamesh's fear of mortality. It's not historicity that matters, it's the relateable expressions of human sentiment that we find in these works that make them worth reading. And the works that have resounded through the ages, the works of Homer and Dante and Cervantes etc are so prevalent because they're of such acute observation and expression that it's not hard to relate to them in some genuine way that helps you understand a bit about yourself. Or maybe you'll pick it up and say "this is old so it's shit lol".

>>8743975
Sigh

>Why are writers so obsessed with the classics?
They are not.
>some contemporary poet or novelist and they try really hard to imitate works that are hundreds of years old.
No notable contemporary writer does this.

>>8744024
>Classics should be viewed strictly historically.
No they shouldn't. Art that is beautiful and talks about human beings will be beautiful and meaningful as long as human beings exist, if not after that.

The classics are classics not because they are old and respected but because they constantly renew their relevance. This spark of truth in them about the human condition is why they are important and more than just pure entertainment.

If it was eventually revealed that Trump and H. Clinton escaped from a unpublished Shakespeare play via somesort of metaphysical cataclysm, I'd hardly be surprised, they are virtually stock characters even down to their names.

Its not a zero sum thing, of course there should be new writers, but I also don't see how they could ignore the fact that anyone reading their work has already understood the real world with the aid of these archetypes.

Act 1, Scene 1, A debate.

Trump: Jeb, thou art ever the low yellowstocking cur. Low in stature, low in colic, low in energy. I however shall build a wall and, standing tall, take arms there. And while a man of the south may say, 'tis the height of folly, that folly will stand several head's height higher each time his own head is animated by an impudent wind!

Enter: Cruz (A Spaniard).

Cruz: Brother (although twould be a cursed brood indeed), visit at my door - that which was based shall not be debased with a swipe of thy sandpaper tongue.

Trump: A duel of tongues I seek not, your reputation with young men does not my fit tonsils beckon (for I joust for sport only with my lady malania despite what barkers and low doxies proclaim). Yet fi, for your mien and eyes desperate of near union betwixt such a narrow nose, thou art the spirit of deception, supping at the buttery and nostrils alert to curd - I name thee King Rat, El Ratto and Lying Ted.

Act 1, Scene 2, The Hamptons

H (a Termagant).: King Billy, thou shalt not obstruct my rise. Whilst the crown tis smithed for the gander, the goose shalt yet wear it anon. Do not impute weariness upon my own head, thy weariness of soul doth betray itself and may be made double through the publication of broadsides truthful about the erring but erring not in truth. For whilst some may declare that having noxious weed, then should one ignite said weed, thou have smoked *a country blend* and thy health shalt never be the better for it, whether fumes inhaled or not tis moot if that tube is well sucked.

King Billy: Crone, thou hast ever the upper hand, though few would wonder (as that is the case and widely known) why I had my hand up her.

>>8743975
>Nobody can get good at writing by pasting together ideas from old as fuck literature.

If people didn't read the classics then this would be all they would do. This is why philosophers converse with past philosophers and why literature interacts with past literature.

You're not just going to come up with a ground breaking idea independently. You're most likely to just copy what someone else did in the past but better already.

Mediums only develop when they recognize the past or you're just going to repeat the same shit over and over just with a slightly more contemporary flavor.

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>>8744352
Continue... mmm yes

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>>8743975
>No writers seem to truly give a shit about the world we live in now.

Way to confirm your illiteracy.

I was hoping someone would stop me.

Ac1, Scene 3, a television studio.

Meg (a pundit): What Baron's court is fill'd compleat with scandals of tavern and schoolroom, and talk so ill-humoured as to tell its own tale of humours ill? The crown cannot sit atop such a turbulent crested peak. A man cannot rise too far from stooping too low.

Trump (aside): She finds my humours ill? Tis the mirrors mocking vision: she only declares her bile, only proclaims her phlegm, and that of the air, hot and wet, flows doubtless from parts unmentioned by any knight.

wat if shakespear around today? hamlet get ipad lol

>>8743975

>Why are writers obsessed with the highest creations of their art form.

herp derp

Act 2, Scene 1. Another debate.

H. ...and so to Syrian fields, why the very sky should be encompassed by the mailed fist of the ground and thine own diamond ceilings shatter'd!

Trump: Yet what of messages mislaid, messengers betrayed and dispatches not dispatched? I speak of both envoys lost in lands foreign and in her own house, lowly servers too entrusted with too mighty a dish (I speak, as I build, before time's arrow and below the shylock's petty grasp).

H: I am undone! Twas a sad plan that twas cast asunder by one whose name was Danger.

Trump: That which twas great will be greater still and thou willst shatter no ceilings but observe that which echo to the turn of the jailers key. Your fortune will be only a bitter salt.

Retainers: God save the king!

The End.

"King Trump " (Or the Tragedye of H).

>>8744014
I'll never get over how much Hegel looks like my Granny.

>>8744742

Looks also a lot like Livia Soprano

>>8743975
Because books are an archaic and dying form. The future is in film and video games where the modern stories are being told. Writers are largely old men clinging to decrepit old books no one truly cares about anymore aside from their circle of writers and pompous academics.