/lit/ - Literature

Plebs like the Inferno best
Patricians like the Purgatorio best
The Enlightened like the Paradiso best

>>15835663
Yes, but those don't just turn up out of the blue. The Church launches an investigation into the life of a potential saint and uncovers qualities that make them worthy of canonization, including miracles.

Reminder that the Divine Comedy is a work of Catholic mysticism and Dante should be canonized by the Church.

Is there any point at all to learning Italian for literary reasons? Obviously the Commedia is a masterpiece, and Petrarch's sonnets are pretty good, but I'm just not sure the bulk of Italian literature is good enough to counterbalance the fact that fucking nobody speaks Italian outside of Italy. If I learn German, I can get around Europe. If I learn French, I can get around Africa. What the fuck is the practical benefit of learning Italian?

There is absolutely nothing like great poetry. I don't understand people who say poetry is somehow obsolete, or it's been surpassed as a medium. There's no experience in the world like reading a great poem out loud, a poem that has all the right rhythmic and sonic qualities, a poem that you come to fully understand as you're reading it. There's no other form of art that generates this feeling. It's not even comparable to prose. A great novel is a slow burn. Poetry is like some huge explosion, some bright burst, in your mind. A great poem gives you a tiny, fleeting connection with the sublime. I've never experienced what I feel reading a great poem with any other form of art.

>>15293914
Poetry will live forever.

Who here wants to become a great poet or a great writer? Who here wants, not just to write, but to write so well that history remembers them on the level of Tolstoy or Keats or Dante?

All right, it's time to put things to a vote:

https://www.strawpoll.me/17948666/r

>>12805094
>a novel

Once upon a time, maybe. But it's funny. In my own journey I find myself moving backwards through time, almost. I started out writing terrible fantasy novels that I tried to get published. I even almost got an agent for one of those novels; she rejected me after she requested my full manuscript.

But, in hindsight, I'm glad she did, because I would never have evolved the way I have if she'd become my agent. I had a period of profound crisis, and then I started delving back into serious literature. This coincided with me deciding to go to graduate school, not for an MFA, but to get a Masters in English Literature. I've been immersed in great literature again in a way I haven't been since I was an undergrad, and it's advanced my art a lot. But, like I said, I keep going backwards. From fantasy novels I moved backwards into short stories, and I got three short stories published. And I had ideas of publishing dramatic novels, or story sequences. But now I've moved back even further. I've moved back into poetry. I seem to have, strangely, advanced and regressed simultaneously; I've moved forward as an artist but backwards in literary time. But now I write poetry. I've honestly never been happier than I am as a poet, and I keep hearing from the people that read my poems that I have some sort of power in verse that I never achieved in prose. So I think I'll stick with poetry. I'm even starting to move into narrative poetry--epics, and such. Long poems, like what Homer and Dante and Milton wrote.

But that's MY journey. I can't speak for yours. All I can tell you is to keep pushing forwards. Somebody very wise once told me that the secret to becoming a great writer is persistence. Lots of people have talent. But not everyone stays dedicated to their craft for the long haul. Not everyone is willing to stick it out to the bitter end. But if you have the stamina to persevere against all odds, you can occasionally be rewarded with incredible beauty.

I've been writing a lot of poetry this year. I've gotten a few poems published, but I've also gotten my fair share of rejections, which is only natural. Here's hoping I can get at least one more published this year. Maybe I can start to build some recognition for myself as a poet.

Who else is in awe of his genius?