/lit/ - Literature

>>10863227
We don't encourage wasting time with pseuds here

>>10863227
go to /mu/ for an overview of Lenny Kravitz, you moron.

>>10863230
that's literally all we do here

>>10863237
t. Pseud

>>10863227
why did Pound have kinky Jew hair?

>>10863230
>>10863232
Gee, what the fuck got your jimmies in a rustle? Leave the thread then you ginormous arseholes

>>10863250
I don't know, according to his wiki all his ancestry is English. He might have used something in his hair, as it seemed normal in old age

>>10863255
Bad writers must always be discouraged

>>10863260
and he was a nazi, so that wouldn't go too well with being a jew

>>10863275
>he was a nazi
tfw people confuse nazism with fascism...

>>10863280
The only difference is Fascism is for cowardly contrarians

>>10863290
>>10863275
>assuming that he was an antisemite

>>10863294
He said he himself he was an anti-semite fucking retard

>>10863302
Wrong. What's your source, pleb?

>>10863280
>>10863306
>>10863302
>>10863294
>World War II, [Pound] was paid by the Italian government to make hundreds of radio broadcasts criticizing the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jews
>criticizing the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jews
>criticizing Jews
>Jews

Ok so it seems you faggots got your panties in a twist because of his politics. I don't give a fuck about that, that's not what the thread is about. If you want to sperg like a retard leave this fucking thread.
Will someone recommend a compilation already god damn it

His selected translations and poems by Richard Sieburth is great - collected all of Cathay, his early personae poems of note, the Maulberly poem, and a few selected cantos. For pound it is important to track the arch of his work from the very start, and to include biography and history in your reading of him - he was, after all, among the subjects of the cantos...supplementary reading is a must - I would suggest also checking out “The Cantos Project”, they have the first 23 cantos wonderfully annotated. Best supplementary reading I’ve done on Pound is an article called “Usury and Torubador love” it helped me to get an idea of just how loaded and wideranging the idea of usury was for pound (typed on my phone while walking, no errors where none intended)

>>10863306
“but my worst mistake was the stupid suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism, all along, that spoiled everything – “

>>10863324
>criticizing Jews = being an antisemite
ok... Jew detected

>>10863333
read The Cantos and ignore the screeching cum latté leftists, i hate anti-Semitism and pretentious foppery including a lot of the modernist nonsense from Lewis, Pound and Eliot but The Cantos are beautiful

>>10863302
I'm not aware of this... do you have a source?

His antisemitism was an odd thing, anyway. It was reactionary and related to his fucked up ideas about economics and banking. It wasn't a reasoned antisemitism like Eliot's. Pound was great friends with plenty of Jewish poets and helped them to gain exposure and succeed.

>>10863340
>>10863342
See >>10863339. He said it himself while in conversation with Ginsberg at the asylum

>>10863341
>i hate anti-Semitism and pretentious foppery
>but The Cantos are beautiful

Does not add up

>>10863347
Cheers, mate.

>>10863333
He's shit anyway. Read the other modernists.

Just get some kind of collected poems. You probably could start on anything but the Cantos

>>10863356
This, he's just a wannabe Joyce with a dick up his ass

"It is an extraordinary paradox that Pound's sprawling, ignorant, indecent, unmelodious, seldom metrical cantos, embellished with esoteric chinese idiographs-for all I know they may have been traced from the nearest tea chest-and with illiterate Greek, Latin, Spanish and Provencal snippets (the Italian and French read all right to me but I may be mistaken) are now compulsory reading in many ancient seats of learning. If ever one comes across a relatively simple Blake-like passage in the cantos, sandwiched between direct quotations from history textbooks and snarling polyglot parenthesis , this is how it sounds. Forgive me but we are all adults here..."

Start with the ABC of Reading to get an overview of his poetical stances, then read the selection by Sieburth.

Ezra Pound is the only man who can fairly be called 'the greatest writer of the 20th century'. I do not care what people here think about him. Most posters here are monolingual (bilingual at best) anyway, so their opinions do not even count when they talk about poetry. You cannot even begin to fathom the influence he had on world poetry, including in many countries you wouldn't expect. He was the single greatest influence on post-1950's Brazilian poetry, for instance, but Americans don't even know that.

>>10863376
>muh brazilian authors
vai tomar no cu, lixo.

He was the Rupi Kaur of the 1900s
Seriously look at this shit

>>10863376
Pounds legacy is extremely comic, (no less serious), but does have comic elements. I first encountered his poetry on a born again Christian site...Goodly Fere...and think of Casa Pound in Italy...just a funny thought. Greatest? Not sure...but among the greats, there can be no doubt

>>10863376
"...even Whitman's barbaric Yawp was hardly as barbaric as that. But remove the layers and layers of cloacinal ranting, snook-cocking, pseudo-professional jargon and double talk from Pound's verse, and what remains? Only Longfellow's plump, soft ill-at-ease grandnephew remains!"

>>10863369
Graves couldn't write great poetry and his Greek Myths reads like children literature.

His poems are honestly mediocre. I've read them.

>>10863369
>Forgive me but we are all adults here...

Beautiful

>>10863335
>Richard Sieburth
I've thought of getting a compilation done by him with an essay by TS Elliot. I read that the Cantos should be tackled after earlier works, both due to complexity and context. Is that correct?

>>10863376
Thanks, already had the ABC of Reading on my list. Are you brazilian as well? I heard a lot about him growing up, although he was very briefly discussed in literature class, but I always felt some magnetism towards him

>>10863396
I agree with this. Graves was shit, but Pound's use of Greek was also shit.

>>10863396
Not an argument

>>10863376
>Ezra Pound is the only man who can fairly be called 'the greatest writer of the 20th century'.

Imagine unironically being the person behind this sentence

>>10863403
No. Fuck outta here. Pound's rewriting of Homer has been the best yet.

>>10863396
that's rather convenient for you isn't it.
even if he is a bad poet, he knows a damn sight more about everything than pound does

>>10863407
>only knows English

>>10863387
Is the Waste Land comic? Is the later poetry of Yeats comic? Is Pasolini's poetry comic? Is Gerardo Mello Mourão's poetry comic?

You can spread adjectives as much as you want, but that doesn't mean anything.

>>10863388
A lot of adjectives without any serious argument.

>>10863406
Name a single better writer. I'm waiting. Fucking moron.

>>10863414
Jk Rowling. You can pull better writers than Pound out of a second hand bin

>>10863413
>Is the Waste Land comic?
Yes

>>10863413
>Is Pasolini's poetry comic?

Vanno verso le Terme di Caracalla
giovani amici, a cavalcioni
di Rumi o Ducati, con maschile
pudore e maschile impudicizia,
nelle pieghe calde dei calzoni
nascondendo indifferenti, o scoprendo,
il segreto delle loro erezioni...

>>10863414
Rubén Darío is far superior.

>>10863402
Graves didn't make any proper arguments either.

>>10863406
No one else influenced poetry as much as he did.

>English poetry

>>10863423
>No one else influenced poetry as much as he did
What a preposterous unfalsifiable claim. Please explain one way in which he "influenced poetry [sic]"

>>10863411
I've read Homer in four languages and Pound's was the best one.

>>10863422
Ruben Dario is certainly not superior. His poetry is very sensual due to his mastery of meter, but he doesn't have much to say, and he cannot get at the heart of things.

>>10863421
He has good poems. Selecting the worst passages doesn't mean much. Homer sleeps too.

This thread is really getting on my nerves.

>>10863429
>I've read Homer in four languages and Pound's was the best one.

I challange you to compose a single sentence in those languages that couldn't be shit out of Google translate

>>10863413
“Comic ELEMENTS” (no less serious)

You are a fag

>>10863429
Mastery of meter is all that matters desu.

>>10863432
Pound fans are cancer and need to be snubbed out on the spot

>>10863429
>>10863429
>Selecting the worst passages doesn't mean much.
>Implying that's bad

>>10863414
Bлaдимиp Maякoвcкий

>>10863428
One way? Sure! As a poet, he was one of the founders and the most read practitioner of the imagist movement, which gave a new emphasis on the role of the image in the writing of poetry, putting it on the forefront. This involved the rejection of empty adjectives and the rediscovery of certain traditions, such as that of Chinese poetry, which Pound translated (doesn't matter if accurately or not) into English to general acclaim.

That was very influential among many poets, including TS Eliot, who was the author of what many people consider the best poem of the century (which would be a mess without the help of Pound, il miglior fabbro), and who in his turn influenced many others. Even in my country, Brazil, we have a poet in whom the influence of Pound's love for the unadorned image is felt very deeply: João Cabral de Melo Neto, winner of the Neustadt Prize, a very rare feat for someone writing in a language which few people understand.

>>10863401
Yes that is definitely correct - you have to get an idea of Pounds poetic systems, and track their development before moving on to the cantos

>>10863438
You are cancer you fucking faggot. If you are so butthurt GET THE FUCK OUT ALREADY. NOBODY gives a single shit about your meaningless rants, I asked for a recommended compilation, not your sorry ass crying about bullshit. Stick a knife up your ass you piece of shit, get out already.

ITT: Usury Defense Force

>>10863227
Get his complete works. It's worth the read for sure!

>>10863453
Oh wow, imagery? In poems of all places? What an innovation

>>10863456
Your pet poet is a clownish fraud. Try actually reading instead of being a touchey asswipe

>>10863267
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly seas, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.

>>10863434
Ho letto Omero in quattro lingue e Pound mi sembra di essere il miglior tradottore di quello grande poeta. Non parlo l'italiano perfettamente, ma devo dire che c'è una grande differenza tra il parlare e il leggere una lingua.

Yo no hablo Espanol con perfeccion, mas, como soy brasileño, para mi es mui facile entendere la poesia Española. Quiero tu perdon caso io tenga cometido algun error. Se tu sabes hablar español o portugues, sabes tambien que hablar una destas linguas non significa hablar la otra perfetamente.

I've read Homer in four languages etc.

Li Homero em quatro línguas, incluindo o português, que é a minha língua materna.

J'ai aussi lu un peu di Homere en français, car Pound a parlait qui la meilleur traduction di Homere etait quelle dun poete Francais, but my French is very rudmentary, even though I can read it with moderate ease.

>>10863471
Tiresome drivel. Overproduced

>>10863454
Thank you. I think I'll get his ABC of Reading and this compilation https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Translations-Second-Directions-Paperbook/dp/0811217337/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521428948&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=richard+sieburth+ezra+pound+elliot

>>10863476
Your argument seems unrefined.

>>10863472
If your Spanish is that bad I'm sure you can't get the nuances of Góngora or Darío. Not trying to be an asshole here, my Portuguese is as bad as your Spanish, but I'm not comparing writers that I can understand with those that I can barely read.

>>10863472
So you read Homer in two a half languages, OK.

>>10863481
There's just nothing going on. He's on a ship, alright. Where is the actual person here?

>>10863459
Are you serious? Compare the imagery of Byron - perhaps the most well-regarded poet the during the 19th century - to that of João Cabral and you will see the 'Pound effect'.

Not only that, but my comment explicitly states that there was a tradition which also cared a lot about images, and Pound helped to spread it to an audience which had not been very much familiar with it in verses which many people thought very attractive, and which influenced writers from the North of Britain to the South of Brazil.

>>10863437
It really isn't. I can write alexandrine and sestinas with ease and they still read very badly. You don't know anything about poetry if you think that.

But don't take my example: just look at the Brazilian parnasians, such as Olavo Bilac, and you will see that knowing the craft doesn't necessarily mean that you can create beautiful things. You can learn a lot from him, but reading his verses is just quite tiresome.

>>10863496
>Compare the imagery of Byron - perhaps the most well-regarded poet the during the 19th century

Ok, I'm out

>>10863480
Sounds good - I’ve actually been taught by sieburth himself, an Intro to E.P. Class

>>10863485
Góngora's Spanish is quite easy for me, specially because it was so close to the Portuguese of Portugal's poets at the time.

Darío uses some words which I don't understand and have to search for in the dictionary, but it's not too much of a problem.

But really, you don't need to speak a language in order to read it. If you tried to read Portuguese you would see it very clearly.

Also, my Spanish is better than that. I'll give an example: when I wrote 'entendere' I was just under the effect of having written an Italian paragraph a few seconds before, because in Italian the 'e' is usually added in the end of verbs. I know fully well that the Spanish verb is 'entender', which by the way is the very same thing in Portuguese.

why is people comparing poets rofl

>>10863502
He was. Any book collector knows that! The 19th century editions of his books are all around the second-hand shops, unfortunately.

Longfellow was also very well-regarded. And Tennyson.

Keats was seen as a worse poet than all the three of them.

>>10863227
no matter what anyone in this thread tells you, Pound is NOT A PSEUD. He was one of the best poetic minds of the last two centuries. (And, if it matters to you, he was redpilled af.)

Start with Cathay. That collection, and some passages of the Cantos, esp. Pisan Cantos, are the heart of his achievement.

But Cantos can be safely ignored for the immediate, or even long term, future. Read his translations and remember that, in the hands of a master of verse, translations are ORIGINAL WORKS OF ART.

>>10863528
>Pound
>master of verse

>>10863521
I don't know. OP's question was so innocent and honest! However, saying good things about Pound leaves quite a bunch of people mad, probably because he made poetry writing more difficult for everyone else, since he rejected the low-effort sonnet machines of the day, and also because he supported Mussolini, and left-wingers nowadays are very intolerant - Pasolini wasn't like that!

>>10863528

Pound's definately not a psued. He was one of the best critics of his generation even if his major poetic project failed magnificently.

>>10863522
Byron may have been more fashionable among casual readers for a time but Wordsworth was by far the most heralded of the English Romantics

>this much bootyblasted anons itt
I hope the Cantos gets spammed 24/7 now

>>10863510
Wow, that's marvellous. Was that at NYU? That's what's on his wiki at least

>>10863545
>I hope the Cantos gets spammed 24/7 now

Please do, nothing could do more to expose the fool

can anyone explain this or no

>>10863529
He was.

By the way, Graves complained about Pound's lack of meter, but Pound actually wrote a lot of metrical poetry, including many translations from such difficult authors like Arnaut Daniel and Guido Cavalcanti. According to William Carlos Williams, when Pound was in university he actually used to write one sonnet a day, which would throw into the fire at the end of each year.

Graves was just being ridiculously dishonest.

>93 posts
>18 posters
SEETHING

>>10863538
Maybe. But I said 'perhaps', and it's certainly arguable that Byron was considered better even among well-educated readers. He was also much more influential than Wordsworth among foreign poets.

>>10863555
graves didn't lie that was part of his poetic law.

Fuck Ezra "I wish I was European so bad" Pound. He was the Bukoowsky of the early 20th century

>>10863401
>I read that the Cantos should be tackled after earlier works, both due to complexity and context. Is that correct?
Absolutely that is correct. The Cantos should be read with an understanding of his life, his writings before the Cantos, as well as a background in the classics and history (particularly, you should read the Odyessy and the Divine Comedy before attempting them). You might want a copy of A Guide to the Cantos of Ezra Pound to accompany your reading of them.

>>10863528
Yeah, it was obvious early on their butthurt is politically induced. I have been wanting to read his works for a long time, and ironically I found out about his criticisms of usury and the like right after adding some compilations to my reading list.

Do you think it would be overkill if I got both Cathay and >>10863480 ? And should I read him in the order of publication? I'm aware some authors are better approached in a different order

>>10863559
One has to innovate to be influencial in a proper sense. I barely consider Byron a poet

>>10863547
Yea it was at NYU. And it was invaluable...sieburth is such a great teacher, and it shows in his writing - his excitement and eager engagement with Pound is contagious

>hey dude can I borrow money? I'll pay it back with a little extra for your lost capital
>Yeah sure that sounds fair
>Pound: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>10863584
Lololol aaaand scene

>>10863376
>He was the single greatest influence on post-1950's Brazilian poetry
Tell me more about that. Source?

>>10863584

>poundfags only like him because other people don't

>>10863568
Well I have also been wanting to read the classics for some time, but I think I should do it sooner than. I considered learning Latin to read them, but I'm not sure whether that would be a wise time investment for someone who doesn't work with language. It deeply saddens me how a classical education fell out of favor in the last century. We traded some really educated people for a mass of """educated"""" autobots whose only function is not setting their workplace on fire.

>>10863501
This is a very old argument that means very little.

You are familiar with the fact Chapman knew little Greek and actually had to use a translation (Pound's very own Andreas Divus, some say) in order to make his translation, right? You know it, don't you?

I believe you also know that Keats wrote a sonnet about Chapman's translation while no poet of his stature has ever written a sonnet about Lattimore or any other of those Anglo scholars whose names I don't remember and whose translations aren't as poetically gifted as Chapman's...

The best Iliad I've read in English was Logue's, which isn't a translation and whose author didn't know a word of Greek. I've also read a Homer translation by a Brazilian classicist and it's clearly worse than the one made by Odorico Mendes in the 19th century, even though his Greek was much better than Odorico's.

>>10863584
So >>10863457 was right after all. Good god you're pathetic

>>10863595
Look for the names of João Cabral, Mário Faustino, Haroldo de Campos and Mello Mourão. Even today, a young poet: Dirceu Villa.

Just read their works. All sources I can provide you would be in Portuguese anyway.

>>10863600
>while no poet of his stature has ever written a sonnet about Lattimore

Yes, among all those poets of stature writing sonnets these days

>>10863600
Would you recommend Logue's Illiad for someone who has never read it before? Or should I look for a more faithful translation?

>>10863603
Its not our fault Latins can't into finance
Me hablo hombre, more IMF help por favor!!

>>10863612
me dá um link aí, irmão br? Sou uruguaio, mas gosto das poesias brasileiras.

>>10863376
>He was the single greatest influence on post-1950's Brazilian poetry, for instance, but Americans don't even know that.
Only because of that faggot Haroldo de Campos. Nobody takes him seriously anymore. Concretismo is widely known for being one of the biggest mistakes in brazilian literature.

>>10863575
Who cares?

I don't think Byron is great either, and what I meant to say - and said in clear words - is that Pound's influence helped to clean the poetry world of people like Byron and Longfellow, giving their place in the canon to the likes of Keats and Fitzgerald (whose trans. of the Rubaiyat was possibly the favorite book of Fernando Pessoa).

Byron was considered one of the best poets of the 19th century DURING the 19th century and this is a simple fact, and pretty hard to deny. He was very admired, by everyone from the great Goethe to an obscure Brazilian poet named Alvares de Azevedo.

>>10863623
Wrong.

Look for Mario Faustino, João Cabral and Mello Mourão, three widely different poets, of which only the first one was more or less associated with concretismo for a period.

Even Tolentino's friend Olavo has praised Mello Mourão , and very intensively so.

>>10863600
robert graves wrote a very good translation of the iliad if you wanted to read it - maybe the only good english translation (except perhaps for butler's)

>>10863333
get Personae

>>10863356
faggot

>>10863628
>and this is a simple fact, and pretty hard to deny.

On the contrary. He was popular among popular readers but that was about it. What you're accusing of being the work of Pound was already well developed by the French symbolists almost a century before him. Its a ludicrous mythical history you seem to have found orbiting him

>>10863646
Are you talking about Jules Laforgue?

>>10863376
>but Americans don't even know that.

Americans don't even care

>>10863468
>feels the need to police who is allowed to be posted on a literature board

>>10863623
Oh, I forgot to mention Cunha Mello, a man whom Tolentino called 'the greatest poet currently writing in Brazil'. He was clearly influenced by the imagism of Pound too, even if that influence was indirect (I don't know if he ever mentioned, explicitly, any Pound influence, but he mentioned João Cabral). Pound's views are clearly there.

>>10863622
There aren't many links. If you want to read BR poets, just search for 'x poet antonio miranda'. Example: http://www.antoniomiranda.com.br/brasilsempre/joao_cabral_melo_neto.html

As you can see, that site usually has translations too, when they are available.

>>10863656
vlw!

>>10863650
Baudelaire, Verlaine, you can take your pick

>>10863569
Not overkill at all.

ABC of Reading is brilliant, but not required reading for enjoyment of Pound. It is very prescriptive. It is essentially a reading list of his devising, meant to give you the bare minimum to have an intelligent opinion on the world of poetry. Spoiler alert: if you can't read poetry in at least 3 languages, he all but calls you a pseud. (Hence the hilarity of 4chin nobodies calling him anything but a master.)

If you want to truly "get" Pound, you may enjoy drawing from some of the 20th centuries greats and tracing the inestimable influence Pound wielded AND WIELDS to this day in poetry. I recommend the essays of Robert Creeley, or Denise Levertov, or Charles Olson (if you're an absolute madman!), or Robert Duncan, or maybe even Ed Dorn --- these are the Black Mountain Poets, and Whitman-->WC Williams-->Pound was their trinity. (Funny, because Pound thought Whitman pretty fucking awful: "How many lines of Whitman are ACTUALLY GOOD?" he wrote.)

>>10863646
Yes, Pound was very popular among intelligent people. I've cited Goethe and a Brazilian poet. If you google it, you can see he was also admired by Flaubert, Stendhal, and many others.

''Really I profoundly value only two men, Rabelais and Byron, the only two who have written in a spirit of malice toward the human race and with the intention of laughing in its face. What a tremendous position a man occupies who places himself in such a relation to the world!'' (Flaubert)

And maybe the French did it first, I don't kow, but Pound helped to spread those views anyway, and also the works of many poets whom the French probably weren't very familiar with, such as those of the great Chinese poets. If today we have complete translations of Propertius, Arnaut and others in Portuguese, as well as translations of Chinese poetry and whatnot, that is due to the influence of Pound.

>>10863634
I'll check it, but I think his verse is mediocre. Some good moments, certainly, perhaps even a few great ones, but overall... Underwhelming. I was expecting more, given his erudition.

>>10863620
Get lost kike. Don't you have some cuckold interracial porn to watch or something?

>>10863569
>>10863666

Forgot to say:
People love to rag on him for his political views, but they were really quite astute. He was really big into Confucian ethics and was a singularly devoted guy. If you think the way it seems like you think, which is unshackled by political predetermination, you will find his thought on politics and his speeches to the people of Italy quite engrossing.

>>10863662
That Byron mattered to Baudelaire is attested to by a number of references scattered throughout the latter’s work and letters, references which, while faulting Byron for garrulousness, praise him for having the thing that makes poets: “une diabolique personnalité” [OC 2: 232]. Perhaps the most interesting of these references occurs in a well-known letter that Baudelaire wrote to his mother in July 1857, shortly after Les fleurs du mal had been published and while the storm of controversy that was to culminate in the prosecution and expurgation of the collection for obscenity was rapidly gathering:

On me refuse tout, l’esprit d’invention et même la connaissance de la langue française. Je me moque de tous ces imbéciles, et je sais que ce volume, avec ses qualités et ses défauts, fera son chemin dans la mémoire du public lettré, à côté des meilleurs poésies de V. Hugo, de Th. Gautier et même de Byron.

>>10863660
De nada.

>>10863569
>>10863666
btw a VERY interesting way of seeing the unbelievable gap between Pound and other translators, compare the translations. It is astonishing what a poet who CARES the way Pound did -- about the original verse and about the potential of translation -- can accomplish.

>>10863666
Thank you very much.

Reading poetry in different languages was a goal I had already set myself, but I'm not ready for it yet. I can read in Portuguese and English(perhaps Spanish), I've been doing some self teaching in German, it's not nearly as hard as people make it out to be. I want to learn French in the future, but from what I've seen all it would take is learning some vocabulary

>>10863528
>Pound is NOT A PSEUD
One cannot dislike Hart Crane and not not be a pseud.

>>10863685
I've already done some brief reading on his political stances, and I agree with what I've read so far. I've been hearing about him for years anyway, and the description of his "illustrative" style made me want to read his work even more.

>>10863692
I think I'll leave judging different translations for a bit later on, I'm still a bit of a novice to poetry, I haven't look into it sooner because I didn't find a writer that truly interested me.

Btw, thank you for all the valuable information. With those douchebags early on I thought this thread would die before I got any worthwhile recommendations.

>>10863692
Yes. And the criticism about their accuracy are clearly written by scholars who don't have much of an aesthetic sensibility. Chapman's Greek was very imperfect, but he was the one who was loved by Keats. Pound's Chinese might have been terrible, but he was the one who translated the Confucian Odes and published Cathay, two works which provided a great joy for many poets around the world.

A poet doesn't have to know the language he's translating from, he has to know the language he's translating to. If TS Eliot were to translate Gilgamesh from some German or French translation, the result would be much better than a translation by some obscure scholar of no poetic talent who happened to be able to read the original.

>>10863702
You can learn Spanish and Catalan if you can read Portuguese. Just grab the book and a dictionary, and you're good. Start with the stories of Borges, as they are extremely easy. You will pick up some core differences and reading poetry will come naturally to you.

Then learn Italian, as it prepares you for French.

Remember: you DON'T have to master the language. I don't do that. I just learn it up to the point when I can read the great authors with moderate ease, and move to the next language. If you keep reading, fluency will come naturally with the passing of the years (or so I hope).

>>10863702
In order to really understand a poem in English you ought to know Latin and French

>>10863726
Poets have widely different tastes. Are you aware of how many of the greats despised Shakespeare? Voltaire (who actually loved him to some degree, but hated the fame he started to acquire in France, partially because of Voltaire himself), Tolstoy, Shaw, Wittgenstein... Even George Steiner occasionally seems to show a little bit of hidden contempt for the bard.

Harold Bloom's opinion is very far from unanimous.

>>10863729
Why do you read poetry?

>>10863731
I'm native to Spanish, but I can also read English, Portuguese, French, Latin and Greek. Should I try Italian next?

>>10863742
Wittgenstein didn't hate Shakespeare, he just admitted he didn't "get" him because of his latent autism and trusted his worth based on the responses of others he admired

>>10863731
I considered Italian, but I guess I'll adapt according to how many authors in said language I want to read.

>>10863752
At this point in the thread I'm not sure anymore if this is a serious question or just another of those witty douches.

>>10863758
Of course. Just grab a dictionary. You can try Provençal too.

How long did it take you to start reading the great poets in Greek?

I am currently trying to teach myself some Latin. The Vulgata is sort of fine, but Cattulus is still almost impossible for me.

>>10863762
Fair enough, but his feelings were still quite far from the usual admiration that is given to the bard. If I remember it well, he only respected Shakespeare based on Milton's good opinion of him, which he trusted.

>>10863789
Only recently I've become fluent enough to read Homer without any issues, and this is my fourth year taking courses; but you can read something like Thucydides in your first year of learning.

>>10863342
what do you mean by fucking up ideas about banking and economics? i don’t think Jews caused the stock market crash but banking greed and economic instability did indeed cause it

>>10863777
The Italians are better than the French. Dante is difficult and didn't write in 'modern Italian', but the Commedia alone is better than all French poetry and this is no exaggeration. I love French poetry too, from Rutebeuf to Valery, but Dante is richer. Dante has more. There is a whole world contained in that book.

I firmly believe that if you want to be a poet you don't need to read more than Dante. It's surely useful, but you don't need it.

>>10863793
Wittgenstein isn't exactly known for his commentaries in the arts in any case. I'd be interested to know what writers he actually did like along with Milton
He's one of my favorite philosophers but I can't imagine him to have particularly good taste

>>10863794
I see. I once talked to a guy who said you can learn koine and read the Gospels in one month, if you work really hard. It got me wet, to be frank, but I don't know if I would be able to do that.

I want to get reasonably comfortable with Latin during the next months, and then start Greek (perhaps learning a little bit of German first).

>>10863806
I know he used some of his money to finance German poets. Rilke and Trakl, if I remember correctly.

>>10863802
Couldn't you just read Dante in French?

>>10863777
I just don't think you'd like poetry really. It's written for poets you know

>>10863810
>Rilke
Huh, the mad bastard might be keener than I imagined

>>10863802
Well, my focus isn't 100% on poetry, there are other kinds of works on my list, that's why so far Italian hasn't seemed all that useful, to my interests at least. Also I'm not sure whether it would be reasonable, due to time constraints, for me to expect to do as you folks have been discussing and learn a bit of several languages. Thus my concern with learning the most useful first

>>10863808
If you work really hard you can read Aristophanes and Euripides on your first year. Besides studying the declensions and the conjugations of verbs it is a blast to learn. Given that you're native to Portuguese, you'll have no major issues with grammatical aspects. The only issue I had with both Latin and Greek was the use of participles.

>>10863812
Is that a joke?

The answer is no. Maybe there are good translations, but that's not Dante. You have to read him in the original.

>>10863818
I see. Anyway, you'll gain more from Dante. Just saying.

>>10863837
It would be a lot closer in French than English in any case though, no?

>>10863847
Obviously, but still not Dante.

Spanish and Portuguese would be a lot closer than French too.

>>10863596
he is a pedant faggot and so are all of you
>>10863681
that nigger was pure evil though, genocide is evil by all accounts and so is lying for political gain
>>10863802
Dante is awful you stupid fag
>>10863813
kys

>>10863862
Someone's ego got hurt :(

>>10863413
>Gerardo Mello Mourão
Fuck anon, I got interested in this fella particularly in his O país dos Mourões but I can't find a working link anywhere and even his books available to sell are rare...

>>10863868
my ego isn’t tied to ezra pound or any other author, you are all massive fae cunts who should be shot for abusing high verbal intelligence for nefarious purposes. this is exactly why i think literati should be liquidated, you become screeching harpies, exactly like homosexuals arguing over fashion or women over sex. its unbecoming to a degree that fills me with revulsion

>>10863880

>>10863862
Who was the lier though? ;-)

>>10863878
Estante Virtual.

>>10863517
>But really, you don't need to speak a language in order to read it.

Lo siento, mi negro, pero te acabas de declarar como un pendejo. Vete a comer sopa de macaco o algo así.

>>10863862

>>10863230
The pseud that singlehandedly created 20th c /lit/...

>>10863453
>which gave a new emphasis on the role of the image in the writing of poetry
Wasn't this already done by the french symbolists

>>10864445
bump

>>10864442
>we wuz most important
Imagine actually believing this. Pound fans are Black Israelite tier

Wow, what a terrific thread that was!

>>10863227
Why can't you assholes answer simple questions? OP, this is a solid intro. Ignore the freaks.

>>10863333
checked. fun fact: I discovered last week that my university actually doesn't teach pound because of his anti-semetism

>>10868456
lel BTFO

>>10864079
Não: você é quem se declarou como uma pessoa que jamais teve qualquer contato com línguas estrangeiras, e a prova disto está no fato de que eu entendo o seu comentário, mesmo sem jamais ter estudado espanhol.

O próprio Pound já tocou no tema em sua correspondência com uma jovem poetisa cujo nome agora me escapa.

Rato filisteu.

>>10868787
Uma delicia...

>>10864445
No. Still quite a lot of adjectives. Pound's stuff is different, as it isolates the image and makes it preeminent. You could argue it had happened in Japan and China before, but then again Pound, as Eliot said, was the man 'who invented Chinese poetry', at least for many of us. Pound was also the one who theorized about the importance of the image in a series of critical writings which instructed quite a lot of excellent poets.

>>10868794
Mas é verdade. Como eu apontei acima e você devia ter lido, o próprio Chapman, talvez o melhor tradutor de Homero para o inglês (ao menos segundo opinião de Keats) não tinha domínio do grego.

O que interessa é saber o básico da língua, ter um vocabulário decente e, a partir daí, a disposição para vasculhar dicionários, traduções, tirar dúvidas com falantes nativos, e assim por diante. Faça isso e pronto: qualquer efeito nocivo da falta de domínio desaparecerá.

Isso tudo é conhecimento comum entre literatos e estou impressionado que muitos aqui o ignorem, especialmente no caso dos falantes do espanhol, que já cresceram com a vantagem natural de ter na sua relação com o português a prova irrefutável do que falo.