/lit/ - Literature

I've seen a lot of posters here lately that have been griping about a specific issue: fame. There are many who seem to have the following train of thought:

>X is famous
>Because X is famous, normies have naturally heard of, engage with, and may even like X
>I hate normies
>Because normies like X, I must now hate X
>Because fame has made normies like X, I must hate fame

There is some nuance to this obviously. Perhaps you started out liking X, but then as the fanbase for it grew the people within it began to ruin it of their own accord. That's a common scenario, but there are of course others. I tend to think that the core structure of the hatred of fame is as I have greentexted above. I want to briefly refute this hatred of fame from a loosely traditionalist perspective (specifically (Proto-)Indo-European/Anglo-Saxon).

Since they have been a language family, Indo-European peoples have understood that fame is something that is not only positive, but to be desired. What I believe to be the earliest (extant?) form of narrative structure is that surrounding the epic hero and epic poetry. Epic heroes understand that corporeal life is ephemeral, whereas fame was an eternal form of life that one could achieve during their living days. This is the basis of the epic poem: the exaltation of the famed hero and the (in some cases religious) practice of reanimating the hero through song and story. Beowulf is my favourite example. Old English as a language is one that is filled to the brim with different terms for fame; one such term was “lof,” which is etymologically connected to the word for love. This word appears as a part of a compound word that describes the (now dead and extremely famous) Beowulf as “lofgeornost” - most eager for fame. This word is the final line of the poem, which completes the poem’s programmatic structure: i.e., the poem has been made for the express purpose of glorifying the hero. It indicates through structural context as well as etymological origin (in my opinion, this next part is pretty hotly contested tbdesu) that fame is not only a thing that one should love and strive for, but what should define a man at the end of his life.

So why do you hate fame? This is my genuine question. Is it just because you don’t have it? That’s sort of a cliche, but it’s all that comes to my mind and I want to think a bit more deeply. I know that “bad” things can become famous as well, but to be honest I don’t really care. I think that fame is something that doesn’t have to make distinctions between good and bad, or what is repugnant to your own individual tastes. Fame is a reflection of truth in this way, because it supersedes whatever your own individual definition of truth or right is with an objective truth: have you or anyone you know ever heard of it before?

So, is your hatred of fame surface level, or is it deeper? What makes it deeper? Do you even hate fame? I'm so curious and want to know more don't disappoint me guys

Why was Grendel portrayed with a mailman bag? What does it say about Beowulf that Grendel had a leather bag? What does it imply about Grendel?
This is driving me nuts

>>17881671
I like Arthur Rackham
Also, the first 'book' that every captivated me and made me realise there was more to literature than the repetitive stories I heard at school was a copy of Beowulf for children, with pic related included. More than any book, chapter or phrase it captivated me

Was Grendel just a Norf?

Can we all agree that Grendel did absolutely nothing wrong?

Hrothgar put his mead hall in Grendel's swamp, keeping the poor swamp beast up all night and polluting the nice swamp air with the smell of ape piss and strong alcohol.

It's not like the poor swamp beast could actually file a noise complaint, it's the kings mead hall, so therefore his only option to get them to shut the fuck up is to brutally murder and consume 60 vikings, causing them to abandon the region entirely.

Then they are so absolutely terrified of this swamp beast who only attacked people who entered his territory, therefore violating his NAP, that they call in some little anglo saxon shithead to come and murder the poor guy.

Long story short: Vikings are assholes.

what the fuck was his problem?

What the FUCK was this guy's problem?