/lit/ - Literature

>>20339372
>top 3 poets
Shakespeare
Walt Whitman
Seamus Heaney
>top 3 philosophers
Hegel
Kant
Spinoza
>top 3 plays
Oedipus Rex
Medea
The Tempest
>top 3 history books
im cheating here a little bit in that i think the best histories tend to be philosophical works.
Debt: the first 5000 years
Discipline & Punish
The Souls of Black Folk

>>19982767
yes, but not in a way thats easy to point out. (and what i say applies to all art more broadly.) They do not change philosophies or political structures, but create the lens through which philosophies and political structures are looked at. Religious feeling does not work without a sense of awe, Nation states do not work without a founding myth, and Humanism does not work without a love for humanity.
>>19982914
all great examples
>>19982857
pretty bad take

What am I supposed to look for in art? I can look at a painting and say "i (dis)like this", but I can't really point as to why. Any advice?