/lit/ - Literature

>England isn't the only country of worth you know?

>thinking Hamlet is great

How old were you when you realized that Milton is a hack and Shakespeare's best play is not Hamlet?

"It is not a permanent necessity that poets should be interested in philosophy, or in any other subject. We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult. Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning."

Would you agree or disagree with this statement? T.S. Eliot wrote it in his essay "The Metaphysical Poets", referring to the Metaphysicals of the 17th century, but I think it continues to explain trends in literature through Eliot's own "High-Modernism", and even into the territory of highly allusive DFW style Post-Modernism.

If your poem doesn't have meter get the fuck out of my face

So how come every time I read some universally acclaimed poet's work, it turns out to be a perfect example of pretentious wanking over hermetic references to trivia that only a handful of people will know of and thus understand?

/lit/, i never come here, but i have to write a paper interpreting T.S. Eliot's Mr Apollinax. I really need your help on this one. There are no analyses' or interpretations on google and i have already spent two days trying to figure out what Eliot is saying in this. Please help me with this and ill dump some wallpapers in return. Here is the the poem

WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible fœtus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where worried bodies of drowned men drift down in the green silence,
Dropping from fingers of surf.
I looked for the head of Mr. Apollinax rolling under a chair
Or grinning over a screen
With seaweed in its hair.
I heard the beat of centaur’s hoofs over the hard turf
As his dry and passionate talk devoured the afternoon.
“He is a charming man”—“But after all what did he mean?”—
“His pointed ears … He must be unbalanced,”—
“There was something he said that I might have challenged.”
Of dowager Mrs. Phlaccus, and Professor and Mrs. Cheetah
I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon.

>>2291113
>i love eliot and think the wasteland is tryhard territory
>read prufrock again and again, much better use of your time

Exactly what I was going to say.

>>2187444
This is a board for literature, not talking about poor college decisions.

4chan is a place for bitter elitists with narrow tastes to talk about things they love. This is how it has ALWAYS been. /lit/ was born out of the desires of people from various other boards to talk about books.

That made me laugh really hard, just so you know.