/lit/ - Literature

Sorry chaps, had to run for a few hours.

>>18575163
It's great. I'd also recommend Viper's Tangle, Graham Greene's four Catholic novels, and of course Bernanos.

>>18575170
Yeah, i feel you. Take care of yourself. Set aside time when you can to just be in nature, do simple things, play video games. I found that helps. Also calming down and reading short stories, Turgenev, Chekhov, Hemingway etc tends to reset my prose-brain.

>>18575175
My knowledge of the Greeks is very good. I specialise in the English Renaissance (a tricky term, but for now let's call it that) where there was a huge revival of classical literature in Grammar schools and the like. The Liberal education was based largely upon the Greeks and some Romans (Cicero was significant) and can be seen in much of the work from the time. Shakespeare (who attended Grammar school) fashioned Julius Caesar from Plutarch's Lives, for example. I think the Bible is a masterwork of great literary value as well as an authentic spiritual text (I'm unironically Catholic). My research, without going into too many details, is actually around how Renaissance writers blended classical themes with the prevailing Christian religion. You see this in Shakespeare, Marlowe, most of the Elizabeth an revenge tragedies really, in Paradise Lost, and of course Dante is the master of blending these together in the Divine Comedy. He seems to take Augustines view that pagan gods existed but were demonic in nature.

>>18575212
I know this is blasphemy but I'm not a huge fan of Ulysses or FW. To see what Joyce accomplished with Dubliners and Portrait, I would much rather he'd written more 'conventional' novels with the beautiful prose of those earlier works and the depth of experienced he'd accumulated in his maturity. I find Woolf rivalled Joyce in Dalloway and Lighthouse, overdid it a bit with Waves, jumped the shark with Orlando. Proust supercedes both as the master prose artist of the 20th century IMO.

>>18575224
I do not. Merchant is my favourite of his comedies, though it is certainly a very dark comedy for Shylock. Merchant of Venice is, I believe, one of the few occasions on which Shakespeare entered his creation, in forcing Shylock to convert at the end. Completely unnecessary in the context of the play, he's been defeated, publicly humiliated, lost his daughter and stripped of all assets, to have him convert borders on cruelty and suggests something about Shakespeare's character in making the decision. There was a fair bit of antisemitism among Catholics at the time, and I do buy it to the theory Shakespeare at least had Catholic sympathies. Shadowplay by Asquith is a good book on the topic if you're interested.

>>18575298
I do write, I've had a handful of short stories published in literary mags and journals, I've contributed a few articles to prominent newspapers (Guardian, Independent, Times, Catholic Herald) and I've had academic papers published in journals...(cont)