/lit/ - Literature

Aeschylus >>> Sophocles

>>16585375
based

>>16585375
Mann and Hesse didn't deserve the Nobel prize

>>16585375
That's not saying much though.

>>16585375
>faggot1 better than faggots2-10
what a controverial take anon! do you have a take on the best rupi kaur poem too?

All philosphy beginning with Socrates was a mistake

>>16585477
Dumb frogposter.

>>16585375
vonnegut is very overrated. probably not that edgy around these parts

>>16585375
You don't need to "start with" anyone if you're slightly smarter than the average midwit, because any and every piece of knowledge or wisdom can come from any and every book.

Also
>1984 is actually an instruction manual, as intended

>>16585579
most books contain 0 knowledge and wisdom. start with the greeks

>>16585375
Pomo writers all get boring as hell after you read like a handful of them.

>>16585375
>there is nothing inherently wrong with pedophilia
>rape, sexual abuse and suffering in general is mainly "socially constructed" (dictated by norms, techniques etc)
>refutations are irrelevant in philosophy
>those who dont "understand" modern art should be silent about it and those who think art has degenerated or declined in any form should be shot
>/lit/ should make it mandatory to read wiki on marx before posting in marx threads and they should be limited to one at a time

>>16585375
Latro in the Mist series > Book of the New Sun

Nietzsche sucks.

>>16585375
Literature should value Truth over Beauty

>>16585677
>NOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST OWN A BUILDING AND THE RENT OUT THE SPACE!!!! IT'S NOT FAIR!!! YOU LITERALLY DO NOTHING!!! NEVER MIND THE FACT THAT YOU HAD TO AMASS THE CAPITAL TO OUTRIGHT OWN THE BUILDING AND THAT YOU STILL HAVE TO PAY PROPERTY TAXES AND OTHER FEES ASSOCIATED WITH MAINTAINING A BUILDING!!! NOOOOO YOU CAN JUST DO THAT

>>16585375
>second best Nobel pick of the 10s.
who's the first one, then

>>16585677
Nice nose

>>16585375
slavery is good

>>16585758
Vargas Llosa

>>16585760

no post on /lit/ should be left with no replies

I'm racist.

Everyone is bisexual

>>16585747
why are you proving his point

Audiobooks are underrated. The Greeks mostly heard Homer audibly

The world is better than its ever been. The only real issue is disillusionment, which the people claiming that the world is going to shit are contributing to

>>16585375
Men are superior to women.
Mass literacy was a mistake.
The Roman Catholic church understood human nature a lot more than we credit, should have kept books away from peasants.
Taleb is a pseud.
Pynchon was assassinated after he wrote M&D.
Slavery is okay.

>>16585848
The world was clearly better in 2000 than it is in 2020 though

>>16585848
Doesn't mean that the world is that great. Social relations are worth than ever and anti-depressant use has only been going up and up.

Blood Meridian is ruined by too many pages describing the terrain.

>>16585630
No you're just a midwit. Name one book and I will name you one wisdom in it.

>>16585375
Heraclitus is the greatest Greek philosopher.

>>16585961
Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur

>>16585992
Tricky, but doable.

>the land of milk and honey is another term for utopia. By naming her collection of "poetry" 'milk and honey' she (possibly unknowingly) underlines the nonsensical and unrealistic endeavor that is poetry and also female writers.
There

>>16585375
America has the best literature.

>>16585677
>cringe
>cringe/based
>very based
>holy based
>based

>>16585801
Aw lol

>>16585677
nice dubs, shlomo

I returned to YA books around June and enjoyed rereading the Percy Jackson series. They're not as bad as people say

>>16586023

>>16585375

Having a monogamous marriage, starting a family, working a rewarding vocation, and having faith in life’s most fundamental questions is the only path to internal tranquility.

>>16585677
Oh look, a Paedophile Marxist Molester who enjoys modern art.

Against the wall, comrade.

Philosophy is not only useless, but actually detrimental to good living.

>>16586120
How is this controversial in any way whatsoever

Folio Society and Easton Press books are ugly and pretentious for the most part.
There's nothing wrong with listening to audiobook recordings of "light" fiction, and in many cases a narrator can add a lot to the story.
Most science fiction is garbage, but on average it's better than fantasy. In the hands of a good author a sci-fi story has the potential to say something about the real world, whereas fantasy stories are bound to be copies of copies of copies of ancient literature written by people hopelessly disconnected from the culture they're copying.
"Self-improvement" is a massive meme unless you treat it as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. People who read for no other reason than "improving themselves" will never get anywhere.
Most "hard" books, fiction in particular, aren't actually that difficult to read. The vast majority of "hard" novels get the label either from critics who want to feel superior, or from pseuds who want to have an opinion on a book they haven't read.
People who bash others for reading "hard" books or accuse them of being pretentious or attention-seeking are absolute cretins. They're ironically bigger cultural gatekeepers than the "le white male pretentious MFA man" strawman that lives in their heads rent-free.
Anyone who tries to lower the status of canonical literature and raise the status of pop culture by comparing the two ("The Illiad is just ancient Greek Avengers guys! Epic poetry is gangsta rap!") deserves to be kicked in the head, or worse.

>>16585375
>The Awakening by Kate Chopin ruined a generation of women

contemporary american postmodern fiction is unironically good

Women are just as good at poetry as men

Contemporary literature ows a huge debt to feminism.
Foucault was always right about power.
"Young adult" novels are a perverted initiation ritual into the kinkiest, most depraved sexual adult fetishes.

>>16586641
>"Young adult" novels are a perverted initiation ritual into the kinkiest, most depraved sexual adult fetishes.
False. I never read YA as a kid and I am into sissification

Americans have never written anything worth reading

>>16585579
I don't think you understand why people are told to start with the greeks

>>16585794
He said nose in the same way I say you are gay.

>>16586779
thats mean and not fair :(

Borges sux

>>16585794
>

>>16586015
cringe subhuman pseud

>>16587037
>no argument
Cope

>>16586850
To get a grasp on the evolution of western literature, no?

>>16585677
> Marxist who likes modern art.
Yes that is indeed a controversial oppinion. How does it feel knowing you support the most bourgeoisie artform to ever exist? Something that any prole instinctively hates and is designed to divorce them from any ability to appreciate art, Stalin would have shot you and I totally agree. 10$ you are a Trotskyist.

>>16585375
I think plays aren't real literature, including Shakespeare, not that I don't enjoy his work.

>>16585375
-Almost all reading is faggotry or degenerate
-Only a selected few should be literate, like it was before the printing press was invented.

>>16585677
Let me torture you in my basement and we can see how much suffering we are able to socially construct.

I don't know about controversial but here's some that I would expect to be fought on
>Current Marxist thought has little to do with Marx and impeaching Marx's economics has no effect on it
>There are incredible writing talents that have emerged from the African American population
>Philosophy is useless as dogma
>Religion is beautiful when it concerns itself with humanity
>Traditionalism is a cope
>Empiricism and Materialism are closest to the truth
>Modern art was fantastic and groundbreaking until Conceptualism
>Morality is baseless and subjective
>Discipline is a better road to happiness than hedonism
>Life is an unqualified good

The average normie reader has more valuable and interesting thoughts than the majority of /lit/ posters

Misinformation is here to stay. We have to accept the ignorant but see them also as equals. At least with regards to access to education, health resources, food and shelter, electricity, internet.
Our thinking that we’re better than others because we know more is killing us. Most of it is delusional and trivial. We could very well see each other in the Other. Choosing not to is not a struggle, the good strife. It’s the bad kind. Thanks, Hesiod.

Too many people mistake “first” with “best”.A trailblazer deserves props but often the ideas/novels/whatever that they revolutionized have been expounded upon and done better by the so-called copycats

The Gospels are the only books of the Bible that contain genuine spiritual wisdom.

The vast majority of the human population should refrain from reproducing.

The schooling system should purely be science, math, and physical activity.

I think giving women more power has done more harm than good and they generally offer little beyond aesthetics/reproduction.

>>16587644
1) yes
2) no, you're buying into a vision of society that has been sold to you by bill gates and steve apple
3) maybe, depending on who (you) are and what your evidence is

>>16585579
This has gotta be bait.

>>16587636
I challenge you to name a copycat that is "better" than its original. I naturally expect you to explain what makes it better

>>16587642
What about Job and Ecclesiastes?

>>16587662
A broad example but movies;the “moving train” is not the pinnacle of film

>>16587300
Can you name one legitimate, respected definition of literature that doesn't include plays?

What is your definition that doesn't include plays? If I'm reading a play and never watch it is that literature? What about ancient tragedies, they were written to be performed out loud, are they literature?

>>16587680
Nope.

>>16585720
based medieval nun

>>16587685
To add, Virgil is better than Homer, many Russian authors are better than Pushkin,etc

>>16585961
Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

>>16587693
bland take

It is retarded to compare authors with different prose, subject matter and themes.They all have their own style and voice.If they are acclaimed and you don’t like them, it’s probably because you don’t like their style, not that they’re bad.In a general sense, there are objectively good writers.Once you have that list of good writers, your preference is subjective./lit is too dumb to realize this and everything is either “based” or “cringe” to many anons which shows they can’t appreciate different styles

>>16587566
>Current Marxist thought has little to do with Marx and impeaching Marx's economics has no effect on it
What do you mean by current Marxist thought?
>There are incredible writing talents that have emerged from the African American population
I agree
>Philosophy is useless as dogma
I disagree
>Religion is beautiful when it concerns itself with humanity
I'm indifferent
>Traditionalism is a cope
I agree
>Empiricism and Materialism are closest to the truth
I'm neutral towards this.
>Modern art was fantastic and groundbreaking until Conceptualism
I disagree, I still think modern art is fantastic
>Morality is baseless and subjective
I agree, I still hold a personal moral code however despite recognizing it to be subjective.
>Discipline is a better road to happiness than hedonism
I'm neutral.
>Life is an unqualified good
I disgaree, life is neither good nor bad, it just is.

>>16587210
>the evolution
Every book after them is on a dialectic with the Greeks.

>>16585893
>Pynchon was assassinated after he wrote M&D.

lmao what led you to this conclusion

>>16587861
So...
>yes

>>16585375
Kant is a shit writer. If he submitted his work in a philosophy course today, he'd get a C and get told by his professor that he has good ideas, but that he seriously needs to improve his editing and organizational skills.

>>16587925
the clifflike plummet of later quality of writing coupled with political turmoils revealed in the book

>>16587644
Do you want to live in a world without art, fiction, or music? Do you solely want your everyday life to be composed of labor and having conversations about working?

>>16587651
Came to write this reply but you beat me to it.

2 is Bill Gates wet dream. 3 is a bit cynical, there is some truth to it IMO but I think most intelligent people come to the conclusion that women are necessary for a fulfilling life and if you are not around the "right" women you will develop a view similar to this.

>>16587596
Like what? Give us few hot takes.

>>16585375
Shakespeare is as good as Marlowe, and inferior to the Greek, the Roman, the French and the Spanish dramatists.
Ibsen too is better than Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is not even the best dramatists of the English language: Beckett is (though he also wrote in French).

Shakespeare was a very good poet, at the level of Du Bellay or Poliziano. He is no better than this, however.

Why the fame, then? Why bardolatry?
Well: 1) Romanticism was influential, because Shakespeare is, after Aeachylus, the most "primitive" of the great dramatists, the one who looks more remote, with all of his forests, hidden islands, ghosts, witches and so on, as well as his peculiar barbarian tongue - to understand the romantic aesthetic, just remember that Ossian was considered a very great poem (maybe as great as Homer), and the Inferno was seen as the best part of the Commedia; 2) Shakespeare was the best author of the English language, except for Chaucer, who is hard to understand for foreigners, and therefore all the Anglophiles (such as Voltaire) started praising him, which had a strong effect because Anglophilia was very popular due to socio-political reasons, i.e., the industrial revolution and the development of liberalism; 3) Anglo propaganda and the spread of English as lingua franca; 4) fixation with the "oldies", which prevents us from seeing that even in the English language Shakespeare has been surpassed - Joyce, Pound, Beckett, Whitman, and possibly Melville and Henry James are better than Shakespeare and produced more interesting, innovative, and philosophically deep works, but above all they produced works which are less flawed than Shakespeare is.

Shakespeare's main advantage is how diverse his characters are. He is certainly one of the most imaginative writers in Western literature. But even here the Spanish and Greek dramatists were equally good, and Dante, Herodotus, Tolstoy etc. were superior.

This opinion won't be popular, but it is what I believe.

>>16585375
>Controversial opinions
Incest is okay if the age gap between the two people is two years or less and they're both past the twelve years.

>>16588148
I'll complement my post with a good example of why the Romantics loved Shakespeare.

In King Lear, scene one, the King has a crazy reaction after Cordelia refuses to tell him how much she loves him: he disowns her and gives his kingdom to the other daughters.
Tolstoy pointed out that this was entirely incomprehensible, and that the scene makes no sense whatsoever.
What father treats his daughter like that in front of everyone just because she refused to say some words? Why didn't he ask for further clarification? Why didn't he give her some time to think? And didn't he know his daughters well? From the looks of it, one has the impression that he never once talked to them! And, if he did know them well and still acted like that... Well, he is certainly a madman from the start, and not a "wise king" at all, nor anything of the sort, but rather a complete brute, and we shouldn't very much sympathize with him.
And why didn't Cordelia react? She clearly saw that her father wanted her to say a thing or two. Why on Earth didn't she do it? Did the cat eat her mouth? What is the psychological explanation for this?

And yet, it is precisely that sort of naiveté which captured the romantic imagination. The romantics were extremely fond of whatever looked primitive, antiquated, völkisch. That scene in King Lear has all the typical elements of the fable and the old morality tales of ancient times. Everything works in perfect symmetry and simplicity: two daughter say X, but do so dishonestly; another daughter refuses to say it, but in her heart she loves her father. It's all either say or don't say, love or hate, give your daughter a part of the kingdom or completely disown her. There is no in-between, it's all a very simple scheme of things which reminds one of folkloric tales from primitive societies. We accept those faults of Shakespeare because we read him as if we were reading an Homer, Beowulf or some Irish saga, i.e., primitive literature.

The problem, of course, is that Shakespeare didn't live in a primitive society and literature can go much higher than that in exploring the ambiguities of human action. And this is why writers like the Greek dramatists, Plato, St. Augustine, Dante, Cervantes and others, as well as many more modern writers, arrived at deeper and more interesting places than Shakespeare did.
What in Homer or Beowulf is a naiveté indicative of the historic stage in which the author found himself, is in Shakespeare nothing but a fault of style and an incapacity to go further than the simple tales of old. While Cervantes was completely breaking up established narrative structures, Shakespeare was sticking 100% to the stories of Medieval fables which were clearly not adapted to Renaissance thought. In the end, he becomes more artificial than primitive, and reads like an opera libretto: full of far-fetched coincidences, unexplained and downright stupid behaviors, fast changes of opinion, melodrama, cheap puns, blood.

>>16585375
i dont like shakespeare.

>>16588629
That's a fact, not an opinion.

>>16585691
The Latro books are very good... they certainly deserve more prominence compared to Book of the New Sun.

>>16588148
>>16588308
Good posts.

The greatest writers of the 20th century are Musil, Broch, Kafka, Gombrowicz and Hasek.
The best writers of the 20th century were French, not Russian.

>>16587662
Don Quijote
Invented the modern novel

>>16586023
my goodness

>>16585720
truth and beauty are the same

Hermann Hesse is very overrated and shouldn't have won the nobel

>>16587596
shut the fuck up, normie

Aeneid > Odyssey

>>16586222
Absolutely based

>>16588048
Not him, but you can still get an education in those areas without it being state-controlled, which in most cases is better when provided by private institutions.

>>16588727
Weird post. What's the difference between greatest and best?

>>16588896
Wait. Is this her? Is that more shopping than the frog?

>>16588896
>better when provided by private institutions
Not if those subjects are completely eliminated from primary education. Then you'll be teaching Chaucer to a bunch of freshmen who haven't even read Orwell or TKAM and who can't tell the difference between theme and thesis statement.

>>16586015
that's interpretation not wisdom. LOL

>>16588943
Why is it that whenever you show up to a thread you make no contribution whatsoever to the discussion. Can't you at least turn off the trip when you're shitposting? Go to the red boards if you want to post jezebels fuck

>>16588934
Sorry, meant that the French were the best/greatest of the 19th century

>>16588977
What was your controversial opinion, anon?
No one can tell if you’ve contributed anything.

As you well know I have opinions anonymous finds controversial. Did you want me to repeat some?

>>16588036
Very Randpilled

>>16588989
Reminder that butterfly is a tranny and once shat herself for a 4chan post

>>16588989
>Do you want me to repeat some?
Sure, if they're on fucking topic

>>16588995
You are the anonymous who solicited me for feces.
You are the anonymous who shat on some panties and continue to repost it here. On our literature board.
You should be driven from here for that alone, lying sack of shit.

>>16589030
Yeah because you change trip and pretend to be hacked every two months just for fun right. Fucking degenerate

>>16588995
when will you /pol/tards stop this faggotry, butterfly has more based opinions than you have chromosomes.

>>16589045
I wish you took of your trips for all posts instead of just for LARPing you faggot

>>16589033
Liar.

>>16589051
Wasn’t me.

>>16589060
Pretend all you want you fucking tranny. It's been like four years and you have not taken the damn message that no one likes tripfags except imbeciles as big as tripfags themselves

*inhales*

GASKUN WAS A FAGGOT
GASSPOSTING WAS BASED ONLY WHEN IT QUOTED HIM
THE ORIGINAL DAVEPOSTING WAS UNIRONICALLY AN INSIGHTFUL PERIOD OF /LIT/
KOLSTI WAS THE BEST AND MOST ORIGINAL WRITER EVER TO GRACE OUR /CRIT/THREADS
ZIZEK'S GENIUS WILL BE APPRECIATED ONLY AFTER HIS DEATH
STACK THREADS ARE PURE CANCER
/WG/ IS FULL OF ASPIES WHO WILL NEVER WRITE MEANINGFUL WORK, LET ALONE PUBLISH
/LIT/IZENS WHO CRY ABOUT FREE SPEECH IN FACT HAVE THE MOST FREEDOM AND THE MOST SPEECH
THE LAST GOOD YEAR OF THIS BOARD WAS 2015
/LIT/QUARTERLY IS A SEPTIC TANK THAT HAS THREE GOLD BARS AT THE BOTTOM OF IT
PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T GONE TO UNIVERSITY SHOULD BE BANNED FROM THIS BOARD
EVERYONE SHOULD BE BANNED FROM THIS BOARD AT THE AGE OF 25

>>16589070
Is that what you think?
I took the message.
Then I ate it

>>16589088
>I took the message.
>Then I ate it
Then you'll shit it out onto your panties and post it, then regret it and pretend someone else that had the exact trip and name you had impersonated you?

>>16589087
Edgy.
If this were a contest, you’d be the winner

>>16589030
>>16589033
>>16589045
>>16589051
>>16589060
I was gonna say you should all eat shit but really at this point none of you can keep your autism about tripfags in check long enough to consider that you have fucked up a nice thread.

I think Indian literature is important and should be taught in the West.

>>16589101
I beg your pardon.

>>16589070
wasnt her kek. your chromosome count is showing.

>>16589110
Oh you're her retarded orbiter that thinks stoicism is toxic masculinity? I'm sorry it's just that your brand of idiocy is so similar that it's easier to assume that you're just her without the trip on.

>>16589117
haha, does it hurt your brain when you try to think?

>>16589127
>immediately deflects
So I'm right. Please go kill yourself and also note that you're never going to sniff butterfly's shit smeared panties, Mr. "your guys are retards"

>>16589132
damn really, that's all I ever wanted. Ok well, I guess I'll find my gun.

>>16585375
I think you faggots got filtered by Camus because his novels are not as philosophically deep as you thought they would be.

>>16588896
Can we get the original version yet?

Controversial opinion: this is related

>>16585375

>honestly
>what are
>some
>controversial
>opinions
>that you
>have

>>16589166
>>>/b/
>>>/trash/

>>16589210
Reverse image search worked on that one

>>16585961
Nouvelles sous ecstasy

>>16585375
Sexual preferences are social constructs. However, bi/pan/a/any prefixes-sexuality are false. Sexual relations are simply a sort of hierarchical relation. Thus, fucking an athenian twink to teach him philosophy isn't "gay". And "gay" would simply be an aspect of identity and not sexuality and god I want to play with the soft curly brown hair of an athenian twink while we define justice together

>picture of a woman posted
>immediate trannying up the place
God what a fiasco this place is.
Anyway, Faulkner was the best American writer of the 20th century, and perhaps of any.

>>16588025
Starting at the beginning of a conversation doesn't merely allow you to grasp the evolution of said conversation...

>>16585720
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

>>16589384
You're gay