/lit/ - Literature

What works of Romanticism are worth checking out?

>>9008543
>What poetry would you recommend?
Sorry in advance for the lengthy reply, but this warrants something interesting. First and foremost poetry is all about language emotion with characters and story secondary. But there are exceptions, if you want into epic poetry, go with some relatively easy translations (Fagles) of the Iliad and the Odyssey which are the bases for almost every story ever written. But if you really don't value fiction like that and want some shorter poems, I highly recommend William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Lord Byron for starting to read and understand meter. After that, you can try something from Herbert, Donne, Dante, among others.

For some specific poems I would recommend, Rime of the Ancient Mariner as seen in pic related, The Waste Land by Eliot, Pale Fire by Nabokov, and lastly if you're feeling up to the fairly difficult blank meter, the contrarian, controversial, yet highly inspiring Paradise Lost by Milton.

Have you ever read any Dostoevsky? I assure you you do not need a readers guide to understand his story driven works, the only really difficult book of his is Demons which has much to do with political theory. Instead, if you liked Kafka on the Shore, I highly highly recommend redirecting you to his novella White Nights and his longer story The Idiot.

I understand your cautious interest for liberal arts in which many people have spent their entire lives not even having a passing interest for. Keeping in mind it's an intentionally slow book, I would recommend The Magic Mountain by Mann above all else. I know some of Murakami's works are enjoyable, but take them with a grain of salt

HP Lovecraft - Dagon (5 pages long)

Man escapes a pirate ship, is adrift for a couple days until his boat is grounded into a black mire. He smells dead fish, sees a black sun, and believes the stretch of land he is on could have only recently been uprooted by volcanic activity. He spends days exploring the land, reaching the base of a mound. Plagued by nightmares, he gives up on sleep and continues to explore the swamp. Over the mount he sees a valley with a monolith “not altogether the work of Nature.” Through the moonlight he sees aquatic hieroglyphics on the monolith depicting fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, and unknown species. He sees carvings of a humanoid race of people, yet these people have webbed hands and feet, wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and the size of whales. He then sees a one-eyed, fast, scaly armed monster that darts towards the monolith while making a sound that turns the narrator mad. He runs away, is whisked up by a ship during a storm, and taken to San Francisco where he continues to dream of the monster finding him.

What are your thoughts on "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"?

I was first made aware of the poem through the Ben Howard song "I forget where we were". Would like to see some other /lit/ opinions on it.

>http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173253