/lit/ - Literature

>>12238150
No, but at least I can see, faggot.

i cant remember anything

>>12238150

Why would you memorize poetry when you can just grab the book or look it up online and read it whenever you want?

>>12238150
i have memorized 800 verse fragment of mahhabarata. And i don't even speak sanskrit. And i'm also not joking rn.

>>12238167
Oh, a bobolyne.

I’ve memorized the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and many, many other (smaller) poems
I think my next goal is to memorize some of leaves of grass

>>12238150
I unironically have the raven memorized and recite it to myself at work when doing the rounds. Also have In The Bleak Midwinter memorized and some william blake songs

Of course.what is this? Who are you people?

>>12238150
I still have The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock memorized because of Poetry Out Loud in high school.

>>12238262
Hey, I also recite the raven at dull moments during work. The line "Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly," allways gave me a bit of trouble.

Aside from that, i know a handful of poems by Rilke, Trakl and Morgenstern

>>12238150
I have no idea how people achieve this. I can barely remember my tax code and my cell phone number.

Why am I such a brainlet?

>>12238365
It's fairly easy. Can you remember songs?

>>12238375
I've only listened to classical and jazz for years so I wouldn't know. Whatever songs I learned from listening over and over, I forgot. I forget things really quickly in general. I also studied Japanese years ago and with just a few years without practicing I forgot every single thing.

Only this:

Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate;
"To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers and for the temples of his gods.
For the tender mother who dandled him to rest, and for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast
For the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame to save them from false Sextus that wrought the deed of shame
Break down the bridge sir Consul, with all the speed ye may
I and two more with me will hold the foe in play,
In yon straight path a thousand may well be stopped by three, Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?"

Then out spake Spurius Laertius, a Ramnian proud was he;
"Lo, i will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee."
And out spake strong Herminius, of Titian blood was he;
"I will abide on thy left side and keep the bridge with thee."

"Horatius," quoth the Consul; "As thou sayest so let it be."
And straight against that great array forth went the dauntless three
For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife nor limb nor life in the brave days of old
Then none was for a party, then all were for the State
Then the great man helped the poor and the poor man loved the great
Then lands were fairly portioned, then spoils were fairly sold,
The Romans were like brothers in the brave days of old.

If you haven't memorized poetry in at least 4 languages you're a complete pleb.

>>12238150
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkc56z0z4qw

I've started doing this recently and it's surprising how easy it is. Ten minutes of reading and trying to recite it from memory is enough to commit a short poem to heart. Keeping it in memory is just a question of repeating it once a day, and it doesn't even have to be that frequent after a while.

If actors (brainlets) can memorise entire plays, how hard can it be?

I knew this girl in high school who could quote Shakespeare in English (while it's rare to find a fluent speaker here) and had the most incredible tits
I met her later in life and she still knew the parts and was still incredibly hot
Upbeat, playful and sexy all the time without being slutty
Jesus she was prime wife material, I think she used to like me too

>>12238478
where did you grow up?

>>12238478
>without being slutty

I have a german poem memorized and can kinda translate it off the top of my head
I have the first few lines of Hamlets to be or not to be speech memorized
I should memorize one in english for some good pseud points

I'm soon to work on embedding La Belle Dame sans Merci by Keats into my soul.

>>12238488
Italy

>>12238495
Always smiling and bubbly, dressed well, had a sexy voice/manner of speech and was confident with her body but she never acted vulgar. You can't picture that?

>>12238517
Nope, because i've known a few of those really warm, nice, outgoing girls but they all turned into massive sluts.

>>12238517
>not a slut
you’re dumb

>>12238150
You have had sex, right?

No, and people who judge others for not doing so are beneath me.

>>12238546
Yeah, who hasn't? The frequency is what matters.

>>12238539
>>12238534
She was a good girl like most of the girls in my class. Is it really that rare to find a woman that isn't a public toilet in the US?

>>12238150
Stars, I have seen them fall
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky

The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault
It rains into the sea
And still the sea is salt

reminder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHoAQW_DBI4

Now that you mention it, I forgot about those Nicanor Parra verses just now

>>12238552
>Is it really that rare to find a woman that isn't a public toilet in the US?
Yeah, American girls are über sluts. They have fucked entire football teams by the time they reach their 20s.

>>12238645
"La olvidé, sin quererlo, lentamente/Como todas las cosas de la vida"
The feels. Parra was great.

>>12238172
post vocaroo

>>12238566
This absolute degenerate of a Hitchens couldn't properly cite a poem without such a dry performance, he even slips up on the words at times.

>>12238150
>wasting your precious? memory on words other people wrote
>remembering things bound to such a limited structure restricted even further by the highest violence: words
>allowing yourself to be influenced by people that are not yourself to any degree
>having such pride in this quintessential self-slavery to the point of being condescending to those that do not murder themselves in the way you do
How does it feel to epitomize evil? Do you, even for a moment, believe that you are at all suffering when you think? When you interact with society? Or are you so enslaved to everything that exists to the point that you believe you are a superior being solely for participating in a system designed to murder living things to every extent excluding only the metaphysical concept described as "life"?

Answer me, slave!

>>12238770
I don't entirely disagree with you but what do you think about STEM people who memorize mathematical formulas?

>>12238770
Shoo-Shoo

>>12238770
You don't waste memory, you exercise it, my little dumb friend.

>>12238805
this

>>12238779
They are solely reductionist concepts to observe how things exist. They have use, utility, obviously, but they are still committing violence against the section of the universe that is being observed.

>>12238770
>overreacting like a bitch
>missing the point
You must be a Burger.

>>12238805
>>12238808
you’re both stupid and should be ashamed

>>12238833
retard.

>>12238836
bitch.

I have Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" memorized, along with several Shakespeare soliloquies and monologues.

As I pass through my incarnations of every age and race
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Marketplace
Peering through reverent fingers, I watch them flourish and fall
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all

>>12238833
woah kiddo, you're expressing yourself in a pre-existing language instead of one of your own creation. be careful, you might lose your individuality

>>12238836
Just making it worse

>>12238856

I'm still searching for a girl named Zoe while in Athens to sway her with Byron's 'Maid of Athens'


Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Zoë mou sas agapo. *
2
By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Aegean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks’ blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Zoë mou sas agapo. *
3
By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love’s alternate joy and woe,
Zoë mou sas agapo. *
4
Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Zoë mou sas agapo. *

>>12238864
you’re really fucking stupid and beligerent. worse than a /pol/tard

>>12238884
You should stop--you're embarrassing yourself, I'm afraid, and your digital footprint sinks past isometrical limits.

>>12238884
>belligerent
You came into a perfectly civil thread and started calling people slaves who epitomized evil. Do you have any self-awareness at all?

>>12238556
Houseman?

>>12238906
wasn’t me, just responding to the insipid notion you don’t have extremely limited capacity for memorization and that you can “exercise” memory like a muscle.
>>12238899
based sociopathic midwit

>>12239008
>and that you can “exercise” memory like a muscle
but that's a fact.

>>12238770 (me)
>>12238811 (me)
>>12238833 (not me)
>>12238884 (not me)
>>12239008 (not me)
Why do you
>>12238805
>>12238808
>>12238815
>>12238836
>>12238850
>>12238864
>>12238873
>>12238899
>>12238906
All react so eagerly to attack the message that you are inflicting violence upon yourselves? Is it so destructive to your foundations as a living creature to be told that you are wrong? How are you unable to imagine these concepts to an extent just long enough to consider whether it is truth or not? You appear as wounded animals, attacking the first thing that draws near. Instead of attacking the person describing the ill, consider the message, lest you drown eternally in the quagmire of self-destruction.
>>12239071
I agree with this notion

>>12238440
Based Macaulay poster. I have the first 500 or so lines of Horatius memorized, hoping to finish it off after I graduate in a few days. Have you read his other Lays? Prophecy of Capys would be good to memorize too.

Do you know this, also from Macaulay? Epitaph on a Jacobite

To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away.
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languished in a foreign clime,
Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting place I asked, an early grave.
Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.


>>12238150
Some fragments from Byron, Shelley, and other romantics, Chesterton's Lepanto, some Goethe.

>>12238550
>who hasn't?
he asked, on a zimbabwean radio amateur forum

>>12238566
based

>>12238856
Ok I don't want to come off as a twat, but do ppl actually have to actively try to memorize stuff like Byron's so we'll go no more a roving? I read it twice over and it's glued in my mind already. I am just trying to figure out if I have a good memory.

>>12239251
Very nice

>>12238150
No. I can't memorize fucking anything. I have the memory of a goldfish. I will reread the same book for the third time and get halfway through before realizing I've read it before. I read no-fewer than two books a week. Swear to god I can't name a single character out of the last five novels I've read, and every single one of them was within the last two weeks.

>>12239935
there are people with bad memories but this sounds like a health problem anon, go to a doctor and get your thyroid checked

>>12239957
I appreciate the concern. But I'm pretty sure it's just run of the mill, untrained memory. I can remember all the lyrics to every pop song I've ever heard, so I must be ok. Besides: I get to read my favorite poems for the first time, over and over. I know I dog-eared the page. I know I highlighted the title in the table of contents. I know it's gonna be a good'un.

>I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son
>I'm only plucking pheasants 'till the pheasant plucker comes.

bump

Easy way to memorize poems/text of arbitrary length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag4Hdnkig8U

>>12238323
Ive found theres a good rythm to follow in the raven that makes it so satisfying to recite

Much i marvelled, this ungainly
Fowl
To hear discourse so plainly
Though its answer
Little meaning
Little rele, vancy bore
For we cannot
help agreeing
That no living, human being
Ever yet
Was blessed with seeing
Bird above his chamber door
Bird or beast upon the sculptured
Bust of pallas, just above
His chamber door
With such a name
As nevermore

If that makes any sense, idk

I love the part with

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

I remember shakespeare soliloquys and dialogue surprisingly easy but poems i rarely remember in full, even when they move to tears

>>12241125
What makes it easy?

>>12238183
I have the first section of leaves of grass memorized, it’s a goody.

>>12238150
I used to work these construction jobs where it was basically my job to sit in a chair for 14 hours a day and tell people not to go in “exclusion zones” (areas cordoned off with caution tape) during crane lifts. I printed out poems in small font and adhered them to my “site rules and regulations” book, a little coil-bound volume that we were required to keep on us at all times. Over the course of the two and a half summer months during which I worked that job (I had a total of three days off—this was during the oil boom in Alberta, Canada and they couldn’t hand you money quick enough) I memorized a bunch of poems—some Robert Frost, some Shelley, some Byron, fuckloads of Shakespeare, some Whitman, some Keats—as well as some prose, mostly Nietzsche.

The job was incredibly boring, and drained me like only supreme boredom can, but though it was the most mindless of jobs I felt like I wasn’t wasting my life completely at it, because Harold Bloom had assured me about the importance of memorizing poetry, and that’s what I was doing.

After the job ended, and before the new school semester started up, I had over a month to spend however I wanted, as I had made enough money from that job, with all the overtime, to not need to work. I decided I would spend it reading Kierkegaard.

I’m not sure if it was the abrupt change in pace, the isolation, the strange surge of new hormones that comes with finishing puberty and causes latent mental illnesses to manifest, or the Kierkegaard, but after three days of reading “A Sickness Unto Death” I had a mental breakdown, began obsessively contemplating suicide, and had to start taking SSRIs. I’m much much much better now, but I’ve also never been quite the same since.

>>12242029
so this is the power of Kierkegaard

>>12238150
slob on my knob like
corn on the cob. check in with
me, and do your job

>>12238172
Same, but with the Qur'an. I have memorized some 60 pages, and I don't even speak Arabic.

>>12238150
Arma virumque cano, faggot

I had to memorize a shit ton (many hundreds of lines) of the Aeneid in high school and can still do portions of it. E.g., the Death of Priam

>>12238478
Why didn't you fuck her?

>>12242815
She played basketball and dressed brightly and I was sort of a goth who only dated shitty psychopathic chicks so I sort of dismissed her as a normie. I didn't see that she was wife material until later

>>12242845
Man, edgy teenagers who distance themselves from "the normals" ruin many opportunities for themselves.

>>12242845
Did you at least recite sonnet 18 back at her?

>>12242921
We exchanged shirts once in the girls' bathroom and she took hers off behind a half-closed door
she had a sports bra underneath and I caught a glimpse of those magnificent tits
She made a cute pose for me while laughing with my shirt on
When she gave it back it was all stretched in the chest

>>12243995
write about it.

>Borges admitted that he would skim books because he only cared about the plot

>>12243857
no

>>12238150
I know a couple, but I want to know more.

>>12243995
anon didn't you say she wasn't slutty? this sounds pretty slutty

>>12244459
basado y rojopillado

just Poppies in July

>>12242029
Do you still remember the poems?

>>12245689
It was cute. We just switched shirts?

So much depends on the red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater bedside the white chickens.

I don't recall the line breaks. I know a few Dickinson poems too.

>>12246264
Shit tier. Totally embarrassing.

>>12238150
Into my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows
Where are those blue remembered hills
What spires, what farms are those?

These are the hills of lost content,
I see them shining plain.
And happy highways where I went,
And cannot come again

Dr. Pavel I'm CIA
He wasn't alone
You don't get to bring friends
They are not my friends
Don't worry no charge for them
Why would I want them
They were trying to grab your prize
They work for the mercenary. The masked man
BANE?

Viel Wunderdinge melden die Mären Alter zeit
Vin preiswerten Helden, von Großer Arbeit
Von feier und Festlichkeiten, von Weinen unf von Klagen
Von kühner Recken streiten mögt ihr nur wunder Hören sagen

>>12238150
No I haven't. I would like to hear some.

>>12246024
Most of them yes. Also I forgot to add some Wallace Stevens, Yeats, Dickenson and Donne

>>12238150
No, i don't even remember my poems.

>>12246318
actually clever of Hitchens to choose this poem considering his whole schtick is feeling as if he had come of age just to see the ship leave the harbor with no chance of return. I wonder if he's read Spengler.

>>12238158
underated

>>12238164
Can't tell if this is true or dream.

>>12238811
unironically based

>>12238150
I know around 30 songs by heart, if that counts

I can count to 10 in two languages if that's what you're looking for

>>12239071
no its not, you really can't exercise memory like a muscle. and you really do have a limited capacity for memorizing things like trivia. Some people have a greater capacity but you won't increase it significantly by memorizing poems.
>>12239083
nigger

Only one:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

I’d like to memorise some parts of Moby-Dick and various other poems but I currently have other things I need to memorise of greater immediate importance.

>>12247099
I just remembered I also memorised the opening of Lolita:
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

>>12238167
Cringe

It is not bad, let them play.
Let the guns bark and the bombing plane speak his prodigious blasphemy.
It is not bad, it is high time.
Stark violence is still the sire of all the world's values.

What but the wolf's tooth whittled so fine the fleet limbs of the antelope?
What but fear winged the birds, and hunger jeweled with such eyes the great goshawk's head?
Violence, the sire of all the world's values.

Who would remember Helen's face lacking the terrible halo of spears?
Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar? The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar?

Never weep, let them play.
Old violence is not too old to beget new values.

>>12247094
>limited capacity for memorizing things like trivia

It's not infinite but it's finite in a sense that it's inconsequential. You're never going to come up against a wall.

>>12238150
I memorized Lycidas from beginning to end but I've probably forgotten some of it. I know a lot of Shakespeare sonnets and some Donne and Keats.

From Yeats A prayer for my daughter

Considering that, all hatred driven hence
The soul recovers its radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self appeasing, self delighting and self affrighting
That its own sweet will is heaven's will
And though all the bellows may burst, the winds howl and faces scowl
That she will be happy still

>>12238172
different anon here who also memorized quran but sometimes I don't understand what the words are in english

>>12238150
I thought this was a picture of Michael Mckean

>>12247917
why

bump

How do I into poetry?

The Raven, a couple Frost poems, and a little bit of the Aeneid.

>>12238150
I have memorised the "once more unto the breach" bit from Henry V. Pretty arbitrary choice but its still powerful and fairly long. I just learned it off by heart to see if I could

>>12238426
what was the difficulty level of learning japanese? im too lazy to watch anime with subtitles but i'd watch it all the time if i understood it so i wanna learn japanese

>>12250531
It's pretty hard. Get Japanese for College Students Vol.1

>>12241068
Wow thanks, I used to just do this manually in Anki lmao Gonna try this out on some poems from Borges' Poesía Completa.

I remember the first few lines from The Lake Isle of Innisfree because everyone learned it in secondary school here

At work I spend a good amount of time in a noisy engine room, and one of the songs I like to belt out is this creepy old folksong called Fatal Flower Garden:

It rained, it poured, it rained so hard
It rained so hard all day
Then all the boys in our school
Came out to toss and play

They tossed a ball again so high
Then again so low
They tossed it into a flower garden
Where no one was allowed to go

Up stepped a gypsy lady
All dressed in yellow and green
"Come in, come in my pretty little boy
And get your ball again"

"I won't come in, I shan't come in
Without my playmates all
I'll go to my father and tell him about it
That'll cause tears to fall"

She first showed him an apple seed
Then again gold rings
Then she showed him a diamond
That enticed him in

She took him by his lily-white hand
She led him through the hall
She put him in an upper room
Where no-one could hear him call

https://youtu.be/luP9j822aK0

Yes

>>12238452
English, French, German (lots), Italian (little good after Dante), Russian, and Spanish (the finest language for poetry) here. I plan to start Hungarian verse over Christmas. I'm still trying to brave the pronunciation of Danish poems, but we all know Andersen, so it shouldn't be too hard to get started. You?

>>12252801
can you maybe explain or go in depth about your methods for learning these languages? I assume you learn to read and not to speak?

>>12252801
You say Spanish is the finest poetic language: reccomend me some fine Spanish poets (that aren’t very, very well known)

saving this thread again

>>12238426
Do you watch pornography? Studies have shown that it decreases your memory.

>>12255257
Can you point me to those studies? Asking sincerely, I'm trying to quit the PMO addiction.

I have memorized the whole of Earendil was a mariner among other poems by Tolkien. To me, they're one of the best parts of his legendarium

>>12255257
I watch it like twice a week

>>12242029
Good post

for of all sad words of tongue or pen
the saddest are these
it might have been

>>12238150
I memorized the song Katyusha even tho I don;t speak russian, does it count?

>>12238365
One of the reasons is a simple lack of practice. People's memory overall became much worse come the usage of computers. If your phone remembers everything for you, you don't remember how to remember.

Gil-galad was an Elven King,
Of him the harpers sadly sing,
The last whose realm was fair and free,
Between the mountains and the sea,
His sword was long, his lance was keen,
His shining helm afar was seen,
The countless stars of heaven's field,
Were mirrored in his silver shield
But long ago he rode away,
And where he dwelleth none now can say,
For into darkness fell his star,
In Mordor where the shadows are.

Maybe it's pathetic, but it's better than nothing I think.