/lit/ - Literature

>English is an ugly lang--
No. The reason modern literature is ugly is because modern people are ugly; ugly and too stupid to write beauty.

>wrote the greatest poem of all time
>all his other work is shit
How is this possible?

Who is the most depressing author?

>>23096301
Poe's The Raven and Tamerlane
Longfellow's Evangeline, Paul Revere's Ride, and The Courtship of Miles Standish
Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Ovid's Metamorphoses (George Sandys' translation)
Lind's The Alamo
The Old Saxon Genesis (A&B)
I.J. Schwartz's Kentucky
Eschenbach's Parzival
Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal
Camões' The Lusiads
The Squire Of Low Degree
Trumbull's M'Fingal
Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott
Lucanus' Pharsalia
Benét's John Brown's Body

>>22922706
Poe beats Lovecraft, hundredfold.
How much did he really change American literature? He established Romanticism, Surrealism, Gothic, Horror, and Detective fiction in America.

>>22843399
Edgar Allan Poe
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Kennedy Toole
Alan Dugan

>>22552088
Oh Times! Oh Manners! It is my opinion
That you are changing sadly your dominion —
I mean the reign of manners hath long ceased,
For men have none at all, or bad at least;
And as for times, although 'tis said by many
The “good old times” were far the worst of any,
Of which sound doctrine I believe each tittle,
Yet still I think these worse than them a little.

I’ve been a thinking, isn’t that the phrase?
— I like your Yankee words and Yankee ways —
I’ve been a thinking, whether it were best
To take things seriously or all in jest;
Whether with grim Heraclitus of yore
To weep, as he did, till his eyes were sore,
Or rather laugh with him, that queer Philosopher,
Democritus of Thrace, who used to toss over
The page of life and grin at the dog-ears,
As though he’d say, “Why who the devil cares?”

I only got into poetry about a year ago, and I've just been slowly making my way through a couple anthologies, my favorite so far being an anthology of English Romantic poetry, but lately I've decided to pick up the Americans, you know, Whitman, Longfellow, Eliot (who I barely understand), and so on, but I never gave Poe a fair shake, I suppose because I didn't really like him much in school when it was all required reading, but I decided to pick up a collection of his poetry and tales, and this one, "Tamerlane", is one of the first poems in that collection. It absolutely took me off guard, and even made me cry, a first for me, because no poem has ever affected me so much as this one has, and all I can think now is, "Why have I never heard of this poem before?" I experienced something very similar while reading Longfellow and Wordsworth; their most famous poems didn't seem all that special to me, but their lesser known poems blew me away. thanks for reading my blog If any poem has had a similar effect on you, please share.

An excerpt from Tamerlane:
>Father, I firmly do believe—
>I know—for Death, who comes for me
>From regions of the blest afar,
>Where there is nothing to deceive,
>Hath left his iron gate ajar,
>And rays of truth you cannot see
>Are flashing thro' Eternity—
>I do believe that Eblis hath
>A snare in ev'ry human path—
>Else how, when in the holy grove
>I wandered of the idol, Love,
>Who daily scents his snowy wings
>With incense of burnt offerings
>From the most unpolluted things,
>Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
>Above with trelliced rays from Heaven
>No mote may shun—no tiniest fly
>The light'ning of his eagle eye—
>How was it that Ambition crept,
>Unseen, amid the revels there,
>Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
>In the tangles of Love's very hair?

Is it true that only first world, coddled people prefer horrifying, dark or "edgy" stories compared to wholesome ones? Do people under stress only prefer wholesome stories?

Is it true that only first world, coddled people prefer horrifying, dark or "edgy" stories compared to wholesome ones? Do people under stress only prefer wholesome stories?

What does /lit/ think about this essay?