/lit/ - Literature

>>18078238
Why do those fucking eyes keep following me? I hate them. I hate them so much.

>The central innovation of modernist literature centers on the text simultaneous containing multiple layers of meaning

>Ancient and medieval literary exegesis involved the finding and explicating of multiple layers of meaning

>In 529 AD the Christian Roman Emperor Justinian forbade Pagans from publicly teaching, which, along with the Slavonic invasions of 580 AD (Lynch 1972: 167), marks an end of the flourishing of Neoplatonism in Athens.

>In 536 AD, much of the world went dark for a full 18 months, as a mysterious fog rolled over Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. The fog blocked the sun during the day, causing temperatures to drop, crops to fail and people to die. It was, you might say, the literal Dark Age.

Coincidence?

>>12583738

The best guide online is here:

https://twitter.com/CanadaNRx/status/868543166600757248

>Gian Biagio Conte defined genre as a "strategy of literary composition"

Makes you think

>>11374533
>implying humans were ever or will ever be conscious

>>11262275
no, that sounds fucking horrifying. I can imagine it as a junji ito comic, and am suitably terrified.

staring is another thing.

Also "unavoidably fucked" is a reoccuring nightmare of mine.

here's a picture that shouldn't scare the shit out of me, but totally does.

>Through the narrow glass brick window he saw the stars. Below it he saw the filth of the bathroom floor at the back of the gas station. He had never liked the night sky, black and infinite was ominous combination; and the terminal neon light pitifully illuminating the small room left him feeling detached from his surroundings. It all felt hollow, as thought he was standing on the sound stage of a movie and that, any second now, the roof and walls would be pulled away by occulted stage-hands and he would be left without reference in the starry dark. Quickly, sensing some greater dark shape moving across this void, he dabbed a finger tip in his urine stream. Warm, wet and ostensibly real. Feeling grounded but alarmed he returned to his truck, hands out learning on any surface that would grant assistance, gripping tightly all that he could, as though he would fall into the sky if he let go. Only when the truck door slammed behind him did the feeling of great distance and panic truly abate, and there he sat, sometimes sleep, mostly awake, until the sun rise.


Honest critique appreciated.

OP here again
>>10957827
I'll go ahead and say this with respect to reading any classic in translation: you can read almost any classic in translation in like an afternoon. The slightly longer ones (eg Thucydides) in a weekend. I will always say just go for it because the time investment is so short and they've all got something to offer.

The metamorphoses did almost nothing for me in English, but have definitely become my favorite Latin epic. Almost every fiction I write is directly responding to Ovid.

>>10957993
My man, you know how absurd a generalizing this is? Yes or no here would be useless for us both.

>>10958141
Honestly, just go to a post bacc or get a master's. 1-2 years, funded, easy to get recs.

>>10958576
I have no doubt that I've been here longer than you, little frog poster. But I will leave after this thread. /lit/ isn't what it used to be.

>>10959433
1) Rarely. 2) Yes. Greek has quite a few variant dialects that really mix things up, and Latin is a language in use for like 1000 years. Some things come more easily than others.

>>10959439
Try both! If cost is a problem, use a library.

>>10959456
Nope sorry.

>>10959459
English "classics" (all the authors you mentioned) I've read, although never really studied. Shakespeare is incomparably more fun if you know Latin. I can't speak for others, but my friends are generally less interested than I in literature broadly and more interested in antiquity. (Ooph forgive that sweeping generalization)

>>10959735
Not commonly. Check out university theaters. They are way more likely to do it.

>>10959776
Worse. Imagine your favorite song, and take out all the instruments. Replace them with one guy singing his favorite parts of the melody and calling that his song. At best, translations themselves can be new music created from the old (read more Borges if you want to think more about this), but they are nothing compares to the original.

>>10959782
I really wish I had more to say here. I've read bits of the Dionysicca in English, but really my work has a hard stop after the "high empire." I have no doubt later authors are writing works as beautiful and moving, but to keep my job I kind of am required to focus on the "sexy stuff" so to speak

>In the original, The Iliad is both archaic and fast-moving. The English translator has to make a choice between replicating one or the other.