/lit/ - Literature

>>15970751
shit opinions and no one asked faggot, delete ur thread while you still can retard

>>15970751
Is this what burger education looks like?

>>15970751
superbly based

>>15970818
samefagging already OP?

>>15970764
I'm more qualified to talk about this than your salty limp ass, so deal with it nerd.

You're too much of a coward to stand up for anything in particular.

>>15970826
getting really noticeable because this guy has been making slight variations of the same threads for weeks and using the same reaction pepes. Even the image dimensions are identical.

>>15970914
enlighten me with your qualifications then, fag

>>15970924
Which threads? I liked pepe but I've never used a pepe ever.

>>15970928
Attempt to and fail at refuting the OP, instead of your weaselly de facto ad hominem.

>>15970751
I'm sorry, OP, but as a fellow Anglophone who happens to know several European and non-European languages, I must politely disagree. I suggest that you focus your efforts on learning to appreciate what is good in other traditions. If you succeed in doing so, you will come to a full understanding of what is good in your own tradition and be much the better for it.
If, on the other hand, you continue as you are now, you will forever remain an imbecile, a representative of all that is bad in the Anglo tradition.
The choice is yours.

>>15970950
What is good in other traditions in your opinion? Which works, books, or otherwise? I'd say there's value in other language's sounds, but meaning is more important, and English absorbed the best of other cultures. Almost all of the rest becomes superfluous.

Being a polyglot and being open minded doesn't make you special, you only made weak assertions.

>>15970966
To clarify, English already absorbed in translation the best of works from other traditions. Most people can't into them, and the average /pol/tard is a dipshit, but they're worthwhile traditions. Nobody intelligent would argue against that.

>>15970966
>>15970980
These are both me, and do try to respond adequately, but so far you seem like you're just doing a muh relativism angle.

Also, if you don't respond decently, I'll be left to assume you're a pseud, and likely a monoglot, and that the things I said are right.

>>15970751
Imagine thinking 'it is alredy translated' is a good enough argument for not bothering learning a language like Arabic, Sanskrit or Chinese.
I am not even comenting on what you said on Spanish/Italian.
Fuck off this board. Anglos are a fucking disease.

>>15971079
cope hahaha

>>15971079
Who said anything about not wanting to learn a language you pussy? If you want to try go ahead, but 99% of you will fail. I was talking about each language's literary standing.

>>15970966
>>15970980
It's not actually possible to absorb the best in other traditions unless you've taken the time and effort to steep yourself in them. The greatest authors in any country are in conversation with a great many figures that came before them in their own country, in their region, and in the world at large. They are also often engaged in individual projects with regard to their own languages. These conversations and projects cannot be understood without an understanding of the language, the history, and the major literary figures and texts of the country in question.
For instance, someone who has no understanding of the history of Japan and the Japanese language and cannot read any of her classics in their Classical Japanese originals, has no hope of understanding even half of what Mishima Yukio is talking about in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy. The translation does not do justice to anything in the original, partly because all connotation is lost in translation, but also because Mishima uses each and every single register of the Japanese language in his text. It is not possible for the reader of the translated Spring Snow to fully grasp the impact that turning the page of a book published in the late 1960s and finding a letter written in perfect Edo-period epistolary style has on the reader of the Japanese original. The fact that this novel depicts the 1910s makes no difference to the reader of the translation. To the reader of the original, it is of great significance to the tetralogy and a testament to Mishima's genius. Similarly, references to Shinpuren, to the Bakumatsu period, to the Showa Restoration, to direct imperial rule, and so on in Runaway Horses become mere curiosities in translation.
Here's a good way to test whether or not these texts have actually been absorbed by the Anglophone tradition. Do you see English authors referring to Mono no Aware, to the Man'yoshu, to The Way, or to the synthesis between the aristocratic and warrior classes that, to Mishima, was representative of the Meiji project? If not, the texts you refer to have been translated, but not assimilated.

>>15971102
Spanish, French, German, Italian, Sanskrit and Arabic have a greater literary tradition than English. You wouldn't know because angloids like you have received a subpar, chauvinistic education.
Farsi is one of the most beautiful languages on the planet, but a monolingual retard like yourself couldn't even bother to listen to some recited poetry.
Again, fuck off this board.

>>15971129
>English authors referring to Mono no Aware, to the Man'yoshu, to The Way, or to the synthesis between the aristocratic and warrior classes that, to Mishima, was representative of the Meiji project? If not, the texts you refer to have been translated, but not assimilated.

Mishima isn't that deep, and the man isn't that admirable. Even if he's sophisticated, and had personal takes, they might be interesting, but redundant, and still pretty marginal. Doesn't bear real weight compared to what's already known in nonfiction. If Mishima is your trump card, find a better one, because he was a hash brained lunatic and is a bad choice for representing the best of what another tradition has to offer. Everything you listed is available across nonfiction, and doesn't need to be absorbed through fiction.

>>15971149
They don't though. Shakespeare beats the piss out of most of those, has some shortcomings against the best in German, Italian, and Sanskrit, but as an author, is more well rounded than any one other in any of them.

>>15971169
>Mishima isn't that deep, and the man isn't that admirable. Even if he's sophisticated, and had personal takes, they might be interesting, but redundant, and still pretty marginal.
Not only does none of this bear any relation to my original post, it's also wrong. Mishima is a literal phenomenon in his home country.
>Doesn't bear real weight compared to what's already known in nonfiction
What is this supposed to mean?
>If Mishima is your trump card, find a better one, because he was a hash brained lunatic and is a bad choice for representing the best of what another tradition has to offer.
I used him as an example. More important, he is not a "hash brained lunatic" any more than Edgar Allan Poe, T.S. Eliot, or Ezra Pound were.
>Everything you listed is available across nonfiction, and doesn't need to be absorbed through fiction.
The first thing I listed is a literary concept. The second is the oldest collection of Japanese poetry. The third is a Confucian political concept. The fourth is Mishima's own conception of the Meiji project, a conception that the Japanese historical establishment does not share. Only one of these things can be grasped through non-fiction, but, unfortunately for you, that "non-fiction" consists of several thousand years of textual exegesis conducted entirely in Classical Chinese.
I regret engaging with you. You are not only a fool, you are a fool who refuses to be educated. Please delete this thread and leave this board. Don't come back until you have learnt some humility.

>>15971198
You're a weeb and not aware of current Japanese perceptions. Mishima is widely considered an embarassment to Japan, even among the right wing. Even when he led his coup, people just wanted him to fuck off. Suicide was the only way for him to preserve what dignity he had left.

>he is not a "hash brained lunatic"
He was a self hating homosexual, fucked rampantly with depraved criminals, transsexuals, and led a coup against the government only thinking one step ahead. If you defend him knowing this, you're an insane pervert yourself.

Mishima didn't know Classical Chinese, and absorbed that tradition through nonfiction, proving my point. The rest is either already translated, or available in nonfiction, or is marginal. No one wants a lesson in politics, which can hardly be called tradition, from a buffoon like Mishima, unless they're doing it for narrow particular interests. You're the monoglot fool of a pseud here, and should seppuku after this embarrassment.

>>15971231
>You're a weeb and not aware of current Japanese perceptions
I live in the country.
>Mishima is widely considered an embarassment to Japan, even among the right wing.
Is that why his books are sold in every major bookstore in the country? Is that why there are still books, documentaries, papers, TV shows, and movies made about him and his books to this very day?
>Even when he led his coup, people just wanted him to fuck off. Suicide was the only way for him to preserve what dignity he had left.
No.
>He was a self hating homosexual
No.
>fucked rampantly with depraved criminals, transsexuals
No.
>and led a coup against the government only thinking one step ahead
No.
>If you defend him knowing this, you're an insane pervert yourself.
No.
>Mishima didn't know Classical Chinese
No.
>and absorbed that tradition through nonfiction, proving my point.
No.
>The rest is either already translated, or available in nonfiction, or is marginal
No.
>No one wants a lesson in politics, which can hardly be called tradition, from a buffoon like Mishima
That's not what I said.
>unless they're doing it for narrow particular interests.
Culture is itself a narrow, particular interest.
>You're the monoglot fool of a pseud here, and should seppuku after this embarrassment.
I think you're projecting. The fact that you recognized neither Mono no Aware nor the Man'yoshu tells me that you don't actually know anything about Japan and are just pretending to for the sake of trolling.
Seriously, stop posting and get the fuck off this board.

Honestly, I was ready to argue, but this is a really good list. Chinese and Japanese are arguably more important than any of those middle eastern languages though (from a literary standpoint).

>>15971253
I'm not projecting. You're just a know nothing pretender and I called you what you are.

>>If you defend him knowing this, you're an insane pervert yourself.
>No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihiro_Miwa
Mishima's drag queen lover.

>If you defend him knowing this, you're an insane pervert yourself.
Yes, and a dishonest one at that.

No you faggot, I've read the Manyoshu and have been referencing mono no aware regularly for a long portion of my life. Take your dishonesty to the Japanese chans, you clearly don't belong on even this shithole.

>>15971275
Too obvious.

>>15971274
I think they stand up pretty well, but Chinese doesn't have anything that Europe doesn't have in a different but at least as good version, and modern Japanese lit is good but is self-admittedly a response to the stronger European tradition.

>>15970751
>English is the best language
>Speaks English and probably no other language

Lmao

>>15971169
You are a moron.
He is telling you exactly why you can't appreciate Mishima and you proceed to tell him he is not that great.
Unless you spend ~10 years of your life learning japanese and reading its literary tradition you will have no idea how good he is.

>>15971197
Shakespeare was considered a piss poor poet in his own time. He was a playwright for the plebs and normies and gained popularity that way. Shakespeare was the George RR Martin of his time.

Definitely nothing compared to Christopher Marlowe, William Blake, or John Donne.

>>15971319
lmao faggot weeb

if youre not that pseud youre just another boring weeb

>>15971253
>>15971329
>>15971319
Spotted the contrarian pseuds.

If Sanskrit had some really grand works not translated, I'd admit being wrong, but I've looked into it. But as for everything else, and especially the tranny brained Mishima faggot monoglot-no-aware pseud who put up the most fight among the bugmen, as far as I can tell, every other untranslated work is marginal.

>>15970751
Have you ever tried reading a translation of a book that was originally written in english? If you've read enough of them you wouldn't have bothered to create this retarded thread.

>>15971418
English has everything that the other languages don't. The closest runner ups are French and German. Might have been Spanish too, but if they don't have something, they just learn English.

>>15970818
>if something affirms my views it's based

>>15971390
Why would you even bother reading translated works? Obviously writing (especially poetry) won't retain its true greatness when it's translated. Either learn a new language or reserve the right to judge the literature of other languages.

I know Spanish, French, and am in the process of learning Arabic, and can tell you right now that the English translations are a weak shadow of the originals. Your critiques are meaningless if you can't even read the literature from these languages in the original text.

>>15971429
There's form and sound beauty that can't always be converted to English, but that doesn't carry the entire tradition. My point was that English is greater than any other, which is true, and can't be disproved because it's true.

>>15971129
My question is: do any any of those special-things matter to a Westerner?

When I read something that tries to convey meaning, I want to know what the meaning is. That's my ultimate goal with reading the work: to know what it means. What you've said regarding Mishima would imply that there are layers to his message that only the Japanese will understand and that's interesting but ultimately, do those extra layers matter if you're just a Westerner that wishes to know what this author was about?
Since I am reading a work of another language and culture, it would make sense that the translation is unable to capture everything but do I need to capture everything? As long as I get the gist, considering that it's a teaching made by and for foreigners, it would make sense that I don't get everything. I think the gist is sufficient. You're focused on the full experience though, on "assimilation", but why go that far?

If, as you say, the writer made his work for his people, a people that have their own age-old tradition and I, as a foreigner, did not live the life of that age-old tradition, why do I need the full-message? What could I possibly gain from a lesson that's been tailored to someone else?
To go as far as you exalt, to "assimilate", one is no longer merely seeking teachings of a teacher who just so happened to be born in a foreign location. One would be studying the development of Japan itself and I don't think that's what people want when they're willing to read a foreign philosopher.

Imagine a teacher who discovers 4+4=8 but his culture is one that counts in Base-3. I just want to know the result and how it was deduced so I can implement that into my own life. You however, insist, that by not knowing Base-3, I do not get the enormity of the discovery and the true experience of the revelation.

Quite simply: I think anything lost in translation wasn't necessary.

>>15971479
>If I don't understand it, then it wasn't important
You are stupid.

Lmao reply again when you bring back cases to your fucking near-isolating language. Idiot.

>>15970751
>everything worthwhile already got translated.
I don't think you get it dumbass

>>15971479
I actually agree with him that the embedded meanings are worth learning, but he and Mishima are so self destructive and harmful, and he was already so full of incoherence, I didn't want to respond to him the way you're doing. Mishima's talents were impressive, and the translation of the Sea of Fertility definitely does warrant necessary encyclopedic levels of annotation for itself as a work, and Mishima's prose and techniques made great use of the language that English cannot replicate as directly, but you're also right that it's not necessary to most competent readers.

>>15971502
I have faith that philosophy can be well-translated into English and so when something philosophical doesn't make sense to me in English, I can understand that this is due to my own inability.
My issue is when, in order to "truly" understand the author, one has to pick up knowledge of all of the author's cultural baggage. That one has to take a lesson in the history of the country and understand what the views are and how people of this mindset would react to this message and all of this "social" stuff.
There's the message and then there's how the message has to be presented in order for it to be understood.
I believe the message will survive translation and the cultural baggage won't.

>>15971532
This is even worse than your last post.

>>15971572
He's right though, and all your bitch ass can do is meme.

>>15971597
I know this is you samefagging, OP. It's really sad to see how committed you are to your retardation. Please read a book sometime.

>>15971621
I'm >>15971519, people like me and him just have friends, which is hard for someone like you to believe.

Even a samefag doesn't effort post for two different slightly disagreeing posts.

If there's a Guenonposter tier anon, but for untranslated Sanskrit, I'd actually like to be proven wrong about it. Their philosophy for sure is pretty impressive, but they also need a corpus of narrative comparable to English's.

>>15970751
>Posts a picture of a Torah scroll
>Doesn't include Hebrew

Retard detected

>>15971908
nope, just proof english stole away the torah.

>>15970751
>Mahabharata
>boring

nice opinion retard

>>15971426
Monolingual retard spotted. If you had read some english translation of a seminal text from your native language, you would have been aware of the limits of a translation, no matter how good.

>>15971647
lmao definitely samefagging

>>15970751
Russian

This thread made me want to learn Latin. Is random grammar textbook and LLPSI enough?

>>15970924
>pepe police
fapwit

>>15972031
That made me reread the OP, I made plenty of typos but guess no one wasted time calling me on it.

>>15970764
Found the chink/nigger/Spic/Frog/dunecoon/Greek/Persian/Kraut/slope//dot head/ who is seething at English superiority. Do not worry, I understand your anger and forgive you.

>>15972203
Shut up faggot poltard, Anglo language belongs to everyone else now.

>OP insults every other literary tradition
>OP effortlessly solos the subhumans who crawl from the muck to defend their lesser cultures
Bravo

>corpus of flat romance
I have a vague notion that persian can lend itself to media like japan's sometime in the future. japan was always good at imitation and you can see the same sort of thing in a lot of iranian stuff, whether modern literature, older literature, or movies or whatever, it flatly imitates the higher qualities of those works. it's not deeply inspired or whatever, but it's competent. and iranians aren't like other middle easterners culturally. there could easily be some kind of media explosion there if the political situation loosens up.

I mean with hedayat, the most compelling thing about him is how effectively he imitates modernist existentialists. his francophilism ran deep and there was no attempt to act in any way counter to it.

imagine an iranian anime studio or videogame industry sort of "copying" the latest trends like hedayat did last century. maybe a lot of iranians have that type of copycat energy and they will give us a whole shit ton of flat but competent media to consume just like japan.

This thread was a pretty good demonstration of anglo superiority ngl.

>>15970779
the answer's very sad

>>15972522
Turkey maybe (they have more liberal movie and video game industries), even Brazil, but Iran... no, they are still too Muslim and conservative, and have to focus on the threat of nuclear war by Americans.

>>15972527
As OP, I honestly think that English's status can be easily stolen away, especially now that AI's can be made to do 99% of the work. Just mix together Dante, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, and you have a titan writer who can't be exceeded for another 500 years.

>>15972545
I mean something that would come as like a "cultural explosion" in the vein of post franco spain. hopefully not strictly partisan/political though i.e wouldnt contradict the general conservatism of the people.
but after being pretty isolated from the world, and again given their artistic inclinations in general (which are distinct in certain ways) I think there could be a sudden outburst of lots of popular persian language media in the future sometime.

again by distinct in certain ways I mean that copycat/imitative quality. you can even see this in their modern architecture, it's very "presentable", maybe even too much given the gdp and other stats it just looks too clean, like they care about appearances too much. anecdotally you will hear people say this about iranian people as well, that they're superficial in a visual sense.

>>15972550
Stop talking about shit you are not educated about.
No, watching YouTube videos by popsci celebs and reading online articles doesn't make you educated.

What the fuck happened to this board.