/lit/ - Literature

>>19488293
>Moreover, it cannot be said that the majority of people lack the taste to esteem the highest works of art. The majority always have understood, and still understand, what we also recognize as being the very best art: the epic of Genesis, the gospel parables, folk-legends, fairy-tales, and folk-songs, are understood by all.
But they're not. Nobody understands the Bible anymore.
>How can it be that the majority has suddenly lost its capacity to understand what is high in our art?
He makes this rhetorical question because a point he raises is that the elites claim that in order to appreciate the great art, one must be equipped to understand it, and use this as an excuse for publishign unintelligible, opaque and decadent art.
So what about The Divine Comedy? A crapton of the subtext in the Divine Comedy, much like in the Genesis or the Psalms, is completely lost to someone who doesn't have a minimum degree of instruction. Did Russian peasants even read the Bible? Does Tolstoy's idea of peasants is that of people who actually understood the Bible instead of memorizing passages they didn't understand to get along with liturgy like 100% of rural people still do?
How are fairy-tales any different than Marvel Superheroes? Unironically, on the basis he uses to criticize the lack of relatability of more modern work, he ought to have supported the most braindead shit that is being pushed out today.
In a passage before he criticizes a play for being retarded, and saying the plot means nothing, "there's an indian king who disguises himself as a minstrel, his bride falls in love with the minstrel but it turns out the minstrel is the king and everyone rejoices" how the fuck is this any different than popular folk-tales? The most popular Russian tale is that of a lazy guy who sleeps on a magical wish-granting stove, thanks to which he eventually marries a princess. There is no particular virtue in him or anything.
I don't understand if I am getting filtered or he's completely irrational. He dismisses Liszt as a pianist twirling his fingers for a bunch of foppy, degenerate artistocrats' amusement but loves the analogue of some hick with a banjo singing about how fat is wife's ass is, because this is really what entertains the peasants. Is this guy living in a completely idealized version of poor Russia? Is Tolstoy the ultimate LARPer?

>>8882005
Thanks for contributing nothing, idiot.

YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS TO LIST THE TEN GREATEST RUSSIAN NOVELS OF ALL TIME

>>8874226
East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karennina, Resurrection, The Master and Margarita, The Brothers Karamazov.

? i heard this before by a PoC...

is it true

as Toni Morrison or James Baldwin as a writer?

We praise this white mediocre writer when there are black excellent writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin who are superior to Tolstoy in every manner

>DUDE SKY LMAO
what did he mean by this?

What is your favorite Tolstoy novel and why?

I want to read Tolstoy's Confession.

What edition do I buy?