/lit/ - Literature

>>11083896
bumping

>>11083896
bump again

>>11083896
I've not been reading much literature lately but I can give you philosophy:
Critique of Pure Reason (if you read nothing else read this)
The World as Will and Idea (unabridged)
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Meditations on First Philosophy
The Tractatus

>>11083896
>Madame Bovary
no

>>11083896
It looks like a fine list. Ulysses doesn’t appeal to me so much because it is not a novel of ideas but aesthetics. I would sub it out for The Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace.

>>11085599
Any prerequisite reading to this or can I just dive right in? The only philosophy I've read is Nicomachean Ethics and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations

>>11085965
If you want to read it "in order": Meditations -> Enquiry -> Critique -> World as Will and Idea -> Tractatus. It would not be a bad idea to read some Plato. Timaeus, The Republic, Phaedo, Apology are some of the major works. It wouldn't hurt to also read Aristotle's Politics, Metaphysics, and Prior as well as Posterior Analytics. But you don't really "need" any of that, dive into whatever appeals to you the most.

The Republic
Les Mis
Annotated Bible(I’ve heard good things about the Oxford one)
Unironically Man and His Symbols

>>11083896
fuck, that show was so fucking good

>>11085693
retard

>>11085965
As the western literary cannon is defined by a continuation of the tradition set by Homer, the western philosophical tradition is defined by a continuation of Plato. In fact all of western philosophy can be seen as a response to Plato. It is absolutely required that you read Plato. Get a thick edition with many discussions and enjoy - he is a fun read.

Gramsci's prison notebooks.

>>11085965
>The only philosophy I've read is Nicomachean Ethics
Pick up the Complete Plato. You literally cannot understand Aristotle without Plato.

>>11086503
Should I also pick up complete Aristotle or just reread NM a lot?

>>11083896
>no eastern thought

Some basic intro eastern thought that you could bring

>Analects of Confucius
>Tao Te Ching
>Dhammapada
>Bhagavad-Gita

If you want some big doorstopper eastern texts to bring I'd heavily recommend the Yoga Vasistha.

nice list might want to consider adding something like Gravity's Rainbow or a Nietzsche text

>>11086537
>Yoga Vasistha
I like that this has been seeing an uptick of interest on this board of late. Good days.

>>11083896
>to become a real savant
Assuming this means you want actual philosophical knowledge and not pointless 20th century French meandering:

Holy Bible (NRSV)
Aristotle's Organon (and Physics and Metaphysics if you can)
Plato's Complete Works (or at least: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, and Timaeus)
Proclus' Theology of Plato
Plotinus' Enneads
Aquinas' Summa Theologica

That should be more than enough for 18 months. If you want more or aren't yet a true believing Christian:

Kant's CPR
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
John Duns Scotus' A Treatise on God as First Principle

>>11086524
the "basic works" is good enough, he has a lot of animal stuff that can be skipped. For the Ethics it's essential to know his teleology, actuality/potentiality, and some methodological quirks he has. The problem is it's spread across a few works (categories, physics, metaphysics, de anima), and you definitely need Plato for these. A scholar could point out a handful of sections rather than have you read all of it. Also you may have noticed the end of the Ethics leads right into the Politics so you should get on that.

>>11086557
Same. We should get some sort of eastern thought general going. There's quite a surprising amount of people on this board that know what they're talking about. It's just sad that it'd probably turn into an east vs. west argument or drug use vs. no drug use sidetrack, but it'd be worth a shot, and I feel like all the smart anons that aren't /pol/ or robots hang out at night.

>>11086595
yes and we hate you

>>11086595
There has been some guy posting Traditionalist threads recently some of which have been good but they have also attracted people who just want to argue against the ideas of the school.

Eastern thought threads including but not limited to western people who engaged with eastern thought (e.g. Guenon, Schopenhauer etc) would probably be better and cause less bickering. I will probably make some soon after I compile enough related links to pdfs of primary texts.

>>11085599
>>11086005
>>11086045
>>11086483
>>11086347
>>11086503
>>11086579
>>11086590
Here are the philosophy list contenders. Is it possible to narrow this down to 5 books? Or even focus ONLY on Plato and Aristotle but know them very very well? I'm assuming 1800 pages of Plato, including analysis, will take longer than 1800 pages of literary fiction, so if I could keep this within a ~4,000 page count that would be ideal.

>Plato's Complete Works (1800 pages)
>Aristotle's Basic Works (1500 pages, but I'm told I can skip a lot)
>Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (784 pages)
>Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea (1400 pages)
>Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy (72 pages, is this correct?)
>Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (151 pages)
>Tractatus (150 pages)
>Tao Te Ching (100 pages)
>Summa Theologica (559 pages)
>Gramsci's Prison Books (2000 pages)

What about Kierkegaard and Nietzsche?

>>11087843
>Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy (72 pages, is this correct?)
Hah, Descartes famously hated long books. Also, my Summa comes in 5 hardback volumes. Unless the text is very small, I doubt they fit the full Summa in 559 pages.

Here's what I would recommend, Opie:
>Plato's Complete Works
Everything I've read from Plato is a pleasure, and there are few (if any) dialogues I recommend skipping.
>Descartes' Meditations
You're skipping Aquinas and the Scholastics, but for the most part (to his detriment, I might add), Descartes tries to make a fresh start for philosophy and a clean break with its past.
>Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding
I can't recommend this work enough. It is a big, serious system of empiricist philosophy — it has major flaws, but you'll have to find them yourself. Honestly, a great tool for sharpening your claws and identifying weak-ass arguments.
>Berkeley's Principles of Human Understanding
Reading this, you'll confirm whether or not you hit on Locke's crucial flaws. Berkeley tears Locke a new asshole, and much of Hume is borrowed directly from Berkeley. He's also funnier, IMO, and easier to understand than Hume.
>Hume's Enquiry
Terrifying and brilliant. His takedown of causal reasoning is one of the highlights of the history of philosophy. Kant read this, and thought, "Oh shit, if Hume is right, then the sciences are totally groundless!"
>Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Having read all of the above, Kant should not be as difficult as people make him out to be. He has some flaws that you can uncover, but for the most part, it's a beautiful piece of reasoning. All the pieces just... *fit* cleanly into place. Satisfying.

What are your translations for Kierkegaard? He's one of my favorite authors, but I think the above is more than enough philosophy for 18 months. You should counterbalance this stuff with some good lit.

>>11087843
>he's going to read the shorter summa
not gonna make it

I would probably go all in into Kant.

>>11089912
ya blew it kid

>>11083896
>5-10 books for 18 months
you’re not really reading if it takes you that long to read 10 books much less 5

>>11090051

>>11090051
You might very well spend 18 months on Plato's Republic alone.
Reading isn't about the amount of pages you read, it's about the amount of pages you understand.

>>11083896
>What 5-10 literature and philosophy books would you recommend someone know cold, obsess over, really dissect, to become a real savant?
First of all, you have to decide what you want.

Fiction is about entertainment - even if you're talking about classical fiction like Ulysses, Moby Dick or Madame Bovary, in the end it's about entertainment. Therefore, if you read fiction, you're training you're aesthetic taste, that's all.
If you read philosophy, you want to learn something. Decide what you want.

>Plato's Complete Works
Πολιτεια/Republic is by far Plato's most important text. If you only have 18 months, you don't need to read his complete works (and you won't understand a lot of it in such a small amount of time), but make sure you read the Republic (and maybe the Symposium).

>>Nicomachean Ethics
Good choice. The two other books by Aristotle which are still relevant today (I mean, really, really relevant) are De Anima and the Metaphysics (but Metaphysics are incredibly hard to understand).

>Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Like Plato's Republic one of the most important philosophical books ever.
If you're interested in Ethics, make sure to read at least Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Moral", too, which is Kant's most important book on the subject.

>The Tractatus
No. The Tractatus is just a weird book and Wittgenstein's influence isn't based on it. It's kind of interesting but not mandatory.

>Tao Te Ching
I'd recommend the Zhuangzi along with it, which I personally prefer to the Daodejing. But it's only understandable in a commented edition.

>>11088419
What about Aristotle? Did you intentionally leave him out and if so, why? Same question for Schopenhauer.

My Kierkegaard Either/Or is the Hannay translation

>>11090364
>>11088419
So far I am DEFINITELY bringing Nicomachean Ethics (my only Aristotle), The Republic (my only Plato), and Critique of Pure Reason. As far as literature, still Ulysses, ISOLT's first 3 volumes, Madame Bovary, and Moby Dick. Should I replace Moby Dick with Shakespeare's four great tragedies?

>>11087843
>>Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea (1400 pages)
Shit, what edition are you looking at? I got the unabridged and it's only 800. Does the edition you're viewing include his other key texts?

>>11091152
>So far I am DEFINITELY bringing Nicomachean Ethics (my only Aristotle), The Republic (my only Plato), and Critique of Pure Reason. As far as literature, still Ulysses, ISOLT's first 3 volumes, Madame Bovary, and Moby Dick. Should I replace Moby Dick with Shakespeare's four great tragedies?
No, why not drop vol 3 of Proust and replace it with Lear and Hamlet? Those will illuminate quite alot about Ulysses and Moby-Dick, too.

Personally, I would drop all of Proust except maybe vol 1 if you get the Lydia Davis translation (are you really invested in literary modernism? think about this and decide) and take instead Great Expectations by Dickens, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and either a collection of Ibsen plays (signet's vol 1 is fire) or Tristram Shandy.
What else are you into? Daniel Heller Roazen's The Inner Touch might be a good contemporary take on all that dense philosophy you bring. Personally, as a student of aesthetics I'm more partial to Kant's Critique of Judgment than Pure Reason but this board thinks otherwise. Trust me on the novels tho

>>11091177
It's interesting you said that because I actually read Swann's Way already and halfway through Within a Budding Grove. I'm not super invested in literary modernism I just loved Proust's writing and Nabokov said it was one of the best novels of all time. But I have a criminally low amount of Shakespeare and Dickens under my belt and I like your suggestions. I also have an Ibsen play collection I got for $0.50 since James Joyce said Ibsen wrote the best dialogue he ever saw.

>Don Quixote
>Shakespear's 4 great tragedies
>The Illiad
>Ulysses
>Eugene Onegin
>Swann's Way
>Beckett's trilogy

>>11083896

If you want to understand modern/contemporary lit:

Tolstoy, either War and Peace or Anna.
Dostoevsky, either the Brothers K or Crime and Punishment
Chekhov, Selected Stories/Major Plays
As much of Zola and Balzac as you can see yourself finishing. Ideally four major works from each of their cycles.
Dickens, either Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, or Great Expectations.
George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Jane Austen, Pride and Punishment or Emma.
Flaubert, Madam Bovary
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Henry James, Portrait of a Lady.

If you want to understand western literature generally:

A large historical poetry anthology such as The Norton Anthology.
Homer. Iliad and Odyssey
Plato, Complete
Virgil, Aeneid
KJV
Shakespeare's Complete Works
Montaigne's Essays

>>11091237
Finally /lit/ appears. Add
>Montaigne's Essays
>Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
>Emerson's Essays, First and Second Series

>>11083896
I think you're bringing too many monolithic literary works and that you'll end up feeling trapped by them. For some reason though I don't think the same is true for philosophy or say even if you brought a mathematics book or some language learning project. Like I would feel obligated to finish all of those fictional works by the end of the 18 months and would ruin the relaxation required to enjoy those vast works of art. Personally though if I had the opportunity to do my own thing for that amount of time I would probably bring Proust or Henry James because they are both authors who are devoted to intense and meticulous character study. I'd probably also bring Confessions and Wittgenstein and I guess the Bible too then. I'd also bring my Spivak Calculus which I want to finish and my Math Logic book which I haven't started. I suppose that Wheelock's Latin wouldn't be a bad choice either as I haven't picked it up since last summer. I guess I'd take some of the more technical philosophy books with me too, like Frege, Sellars, and Dummett as they can really engender an obsessive attitude and require a lot of time to parse. And to finish it I'd take Kant because all the philosophers I've mentioned are a response to him.

>>11091386
>>11091250
I should clarify what it is I'm looking for exactly: I want to be well grounded in literature and philosophy, at least enough to be a strong literary fiction writer. I really don't care about being published, I just want to create great art. I'm afraid I don't know what true great "art" is until I've delved into some key classics. I'd like to use this 18 months stretch to kill this fear and build a solid foundation in literature and philosophy while I practice writing. I'll have very limited space so I want only 5-10 books.

I simply have no education in philosophy, and only took two literature classes in college. I was always a great writer in school and it was the only thing I was ever really good at. I've read a few books in the last two years: Odyssey, Swann's Way, Crime & Punishment, Brothers Karamazov (first 300 pages then stopped for some dumb reason), Hamlet (didn't get it and watched the movie w. subtitles like a pleb), Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist, Kafka's major works, some Chekhov, some Borges, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, first 350 pages of Ulysses, Siddhartha, Infinite Jest. Started with IJ, then Siddhartha, various short stories from above authors, then after reading A Portrait of the Artist I decided I want to get into writing literary fiction since I was always a great writer in college. The only philosophy I've read was Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Nicomachean Ethics.

>>11091538

Reading for what you're asking for doesn't come from reading through a list. As a writer, your reading should represent explorations in the direction of your aesthetic and philosophical commitments. There is no standard list for a good author, there is only what's useful to them. Usually "what's useful" is some branch or some of the branches of the canon. Are you a realist? A fabulist? Concise? Sprawling? Discursive? Indirect? Do you value an ornate and beautiful style, an authentic voice, an authoritative one, etc. All of these things should be determining the direction of your reading, not some notion of scholarship.

Reading to a list is only useful insofar as it helps you discover, negatively and positively, what those commitments are. You should be at the point where you have some inkling. You just need to stop looking for external validation, some promised path, and decide what you are interested in and stick to it even at the opportunity cost, at the risk of appearing ignorant. That is more important at your stage than any work or works.

>>11091593

To this end I'd suggest you take the 5 - 10 books that have been the most important to you so far, and maybe a couple of aspirational books, and totally master the books you know have developed you. You can then use those as your foundation rather than some books chosen for you by literary influence or scholarship.

>>11091538
If you want to write fiction and you don't really have a diverse reading history I think you'd be better off reading extremely widely until you know what kind of book you want to write and then doing the really meticulous study of the authors and styles you wish to emulate.

>>11091593
>Are you a realist? A fabulist? Concise? Sprawling? Discursive? Indirect?
I'm not sure what those mean and I feel like that is the very problem.
>>11091603
This makes a lot of sense and is kind of how I formed my initial list without realizing.
>>11091611
I have a few ideas of what I want to write but I think you have a point in that I should read more widely. I haven't read any Dickens, barely read Shakespeare, no Dante, no Milton, no bible. I mention Dickens first because I want to write about an orphan who becomes an entrepreneur and someone said "you sound like Dickens inspired you".

To your points, since beginning my reading, the authors that have made the deepest impressions on me from an ideas/philosophy standpoint have been Nicomachean Ethics, Siddhartha, and Brothers Karamazov - "existentialism" as I understand it, and what one should do in their life to be happy. From an aesthetic/style standpoint, mostly Joyce, and a bit of Proust.

>>11091538
AHA. I didn't understand this at first. I am >>11086579 this poster. I noticed before that you dropped the Holy Bible from all your considerations. Bad move if you want to be a writer or erudite or capable of great art. Without even trying to understand God, without that struggle, you might as well smoke some crack rocks and go squat in a hovel with Dutch anarchists spray tagging buildings all day and calling it art. What you want is an aesthetic education. Let me revise the list:

Holy Bible (two of them: NRSV w/ Apocrypha, and the KJV)
Aristotle's Organon (and Physics and Metaphysics if you can)
Plato's Complete Works (or at least: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium)
The Apostolic Fathers
Schiller's Aesthetic Education of Man
Rene Girard's Deceit, Desire & the Novel
Calvino's The Uses of Literature
Campbell's Masks of God (4 volumes)
Philostratus' Heroicus

NOW you can add on whatever memes you want. Start with arguably the first novel, and proceed with masters only.

Don Quixote
The Three Musketeers (& co.)
Aristophanes' Frogs
Boccaccio's Decameron
Chaucer's Centerbury Tales
Garland's Main-Travelled Roads
Dostoevsky's The Idiot
Shakespeare's Sonnets
maybe a Norton Reader or two, as a weak stand-in for a literature instructor
et cetera et cetera, you get the picture

>>11091593
and THIS poster is entirely correct. you're not going to become erudite in 18 months. it's a lifelong process, and a part of living.

>>11091670
>>11091666
So which should I go with? The aesthetic education or reading books that have already influenced my current thinking plus some aspirational books?

The second one's list would look something like Ulysses, Brothers Karamazov, Aristotle's Complete, Plato's Complete, KJV bible, Shakespeare's Complete, Siddhartha, Swann's Way, Great Expectations, Ibsen plays or something

>>11091720
>which should I go with?
a little from column A, a little from column B. fill your hand you son of a bitch. skin that smokewagon. i said draw boy. you're in charge and have final say buddy.

>>11091734
In that case I'll certainly include the books that are in both "columns", so definitely the bible, Aristotle, Plato, and Shakespeare, I feel like I cannot go wrong there. I'll definitely keep Dostoevsky but may go with Brothers Karamazov. I definitely need some Joyce as his style has the most impact on own writing style. I'm saving each of the aesthetic education recommendations though. Thanks a lot!