/lit/ - Literature

How much longer ought I remind you that you currently most probably aren't reading the GREATEST poet of all time? What's your excuse for not reading Dante? Just read this:

With fixed heed, suspense and motionless,
Wond'ring I gaz'd; and admiration still
Was kindled, as I gaz'd. It may not be,
That one, who looks upon that light, can turn
To other object, willingly, his view.
For all the good, that will may covet, there
Is summ'd; and all, elsewhere defective found,
Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more
E'en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe's
That yet is moisten'd at his mother's breast.
Not that the semblance of the living light
Was chang'd (that ever as at first remain'd)
But that my vision quickening, in that sole
Appearance, still new miracles descry'd,
And toil'd me with the change. In that abyss
Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem'd methought,
Three orbs of triple hue clipt in one bound:
And, from another, one reflected seem'd,
As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third
Seem'd fire, breath'd equally from both. Oh speech
How feeble and how faint art thou, to give
Conception birth! Yet this to what I saw
Is less than little. Oh eternal light!
Sole in thyself that dwellst; and of thyself
Sole understood, past, present, or to come!
Thou smiledst; on that circling, which in thee
Seem'd as reflected splendour, while I mus'd;
For I therein, methought, in its own hue
Beheld our image painted: steadfastly
I therefore por'd upon the view. As one
Who vers'd in geometric lore, would fain
Measure the circle; and, though pondering long
And deeply, that beginning, which he needs,
Finds not; e'en such was I, intent to scan
The novel wonder, and trace out the form,
How to the circle fitted, and therein
How plac'd: but the flight was not for my wing;
Had not a flash darted athwart my mind,
And in the spleen unfolded what it sought.

Here vigour fail'd the tow'ring fantasy:
But yet the will roll'd onward, like a wheel
In even motion, by the Love impell'd,
That moves the sun in heav'n and all the stars.

>>9660230

>translated poetry

>>9288185

>critic of pure reason

Any lusophone anons there? I intend on reading the Divine Comedy next year, but I'm not sure on whether I should read it in English or Portuguese. Should I go for closer vocabulary with the latter, or are the English translations better?
And besides the Bible, medieval catholic philosophy and Greek/Roman classics, is there any other required reading?

>>8701144

>this is the best Russia has to offer

Honestly - how can Russians even compete?

>tfw you take a shit and you go to flush it but it gets clogged so now you have to frantically remove the top of the tank to stop the shit-water from flowing on to the floor of your newly renovated bathroom

Dante has never known a terror as the Inferno of shit

>oeuvre

>tfw have to travel through hell for a qt3.14

>It's a "Dante writes about some guy he doesn't like getting tortured in Hell" episode

>mfw prosefag plebs read a novel near me

>>6653340
(2/2) But I’m bringing all this up because in my experience I’ve found that sometimes reading can actually magnify loneliness, and I was wondering if any of you can empathize. Unless the book has me absolutely riveted (V., Lord Jim, Monte Cristo [to name a few]), never am I more critically aware of how lonely I am than when I sit down to read. Maybe I’m afraid of silence, or maybe my concentration is so shitty that I can’t lose myself in a book, but when I’m turning pages, reading sentences, this creeping awareness starts to sink in that, I don’t know, I’m kind of disconnected with this world I’m reading about, that mutual isolation feels nice at first but doesn’t bring companionship or intimacy, and that my interaction with the text is purely commensal: if, for any of these reasons I can’t read or fail to understand what I’m reading, well, that’s that. When I read, my own thoughts and feelings get louder until they drown out the book and I can’t read anymore. At least when I’m sitting down to think or journal I can deal with thoughts directly. I don’t know; I’m talking aloud here. Maybe it’s just passive activities in general.

Does anyone know this feel? What are your own experiences with loneliness and lit? Do you find it helps or hurts? What aspects of your own negative emotions make you want to read?

DUDE BETSY LMAO

>>6133064
>greatest poet ever
>Yeats, Keats, Whitman, Milton, Stevens, or Dickinson