/lit/ - Literature

>>17116541
You. Ah, shit. Another great example of your compelling literature.

>>17116569
Silly fellow, I was referring to you, not me. By "me", I meant "you".

>>17116541
Hmmm... I got this one
1. Aeschylus
2. Horace
3. Sophocles
4. Cervantes
5. Tolstoy
6. Dante
7. Homer
8. Chekhov
9. Montaigne
10. Moliere

Some might say that Twain and Milton are better, and I would agree with them. Heck, even Chaucer is better than Shakespeare. But we have to admit that they weren't as influential as he was. Furthermore, it is hard to compare another anglo that came after him, because all owe a huge debt to Shakespeare.

The thing is that Shakespeare is easy to trump when you go at it pound for pound. He made up a lot of words, he reworked a lot of previous material, and most of his characters are kinda meh, but the great ones are really great.

>>17116662
Is that list in order? If so, why do you put Aeschylus at the top?

>>17116696
No order, Aeschylus was just the first that came to me. I was 16yo when i read the Oresteia, and I remember thinking to myself: "shit, this is way better than shakespeare"

>>17116662
>Tolstoy
>Chekhov
>Montaigne
>Moliere
>better than Shakespeare
Not in the slightest. You miss the point, as so many do, that Shakespeare was more or less most likely the greatest dramatist to ever exist. Horace and Cervantes for example, are doing something very different. As for the other key dramatists here, Aeschylus and Sophocles, the argument could be made that they are superior to Shakespeare. But it is so close that a question of superiority becomes almost pointless, except for Shakespeare's technical development above them which as Wagner put it made the chorus unnecessary; but as I said, this does not necessarily say Shakespeare is the superior.

Shakespeare has become the supreme plebfilter for internet art pseuds. If they cannot appreciate him as one of, if not, the greatest, such as those on /tv/ calling film superior to theatre, or retarded Spaniards of a different blood to Cervantes altogether, then they are mere pseuds!

Shakespeare is a hack

>>17116711
>I was 16yo when i read the Oresteia, and I remember thinking to myself: "shit, this is way better than shakespeare"
Why do you think he is better? This seems to me a case of an immature mind being unable to understand a different style.

>>17116541
my neighbor

>>17116799
Pseud that you are! “More or less the greatest dramatist of all time” I hope for your sake that you are ESL, because otherwise you’re IQ is room temperature at best. And you dare presume that I was filtered by Shakespeare? You say that Shakespeare is the best dramatist of all time, but In over 100 rambling words you fail to state a simple reason for why he is such. Let me do it for you: You believe that Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time because he created modern man. He speaks to us like very few writers are able to do. But so does Montaigne, and he is more witty, Moliere is way more funnier and relevant, Tolstoy and Chekhov’s character are far more rounded. I appreciate him, and will never deny his influence upon the modern world, but I am not going to worship him like some pseud. Instead I will engage with him, wrestle with him, fuck in the ass and breed him with my seeds (as all great writers do).

>>17116815
It seems that you are wrong. I could write a treatise on why Aeschylus is better than Shakespeare, but a single sentence will suffice: Aeschylus deals with civilizations while Shakespeare deals with individuals. We can more easily imagine a singularity hive-mind enjoying Aeschylus than Shakespeare. By the time I read Aeschylus, I was already done with: Marlowe, Chekhov, Ionesco, Beckett, Shakespeare’s major plays, Pirandello, Caragiale, Oscar Wilde. And that is only in terms of theatre. Mind you I was one of those weird kids that I was reading Dante when I was 14, after having deduced his importance by reading Papini. Aeschylus was an eye-opener: while Shakespeare was drawing on a huge tradition, Aeschylus was forming it

>>17117012
Cope of a projecting autist. You give no reason why Shakespeare is supposedly inferior to the others (prior to this reply now), but expect my reply to deal with anything other than that awfully ranked ten. Where there is something to be found of examining your view, and my correction of it. I don't believe Shakespeare "created modern man," stop throwing these cliché platitudes which pass for intellect in your own mind onto me. In all your descriptions of Tolstoy and Checkhov, you suppose the stylistic accentuation of a specific kind (which is so common in moderns; lost the divine and only the everyday) to make them greater than Shakespeare on the whole, but, to think in the silly style of your own, one could remark: "Yes, yes, but who has all such a level of wit, comedy, characterisque and so forth?"

Let me post a quote that may clear your mind:

>To the French, as representatives of modern civilisation, Shakespeare, considered seriously, to this day is a monstrosity; and even to the Germans he has remained a subject of constantly renewed investigation, with so little [142] positive result that the most conflicting views and statements are forever cropping up again. Thus has this most bewildering of dramatists—already set down by some as an utterly irresponsible and untamed genius, without one trace of artistic culture—quite recently been credited again with the most systematic tendence of the didactic poet. Goethe, after introducing him in "Wilhelm Meister" as an "admirable writer," kept returning to the problem with increasing caution, and finally decided that here the higher tendence was to be sought, not in the poet, but in the embodied characters he brought before us in immediate action. Yet the closer these figures were inspected, the greater riddle became the artist's method: though the main plan of a piece was easy to perceive, and it was impossible to mistake the consequent development of its plot, for the most part pre-existing in the source selected, yet the marvellous "accidentiæ" in its working out, as also in the bearing of its dramatis personae, were inexplicable on any hypothesis of deliberate artistic scheming. Here we found such drastic individuality, that it often seemed like unaccountable caprice, whose sense we never really fathomed till we closed the book and saw the living drama move before our eyes; then stood before us life's own image, mirrored with resistless truth to nature, and filled us with the lofty terror of a ghostly vision.

CONT

>>17117293
>Aeschylus deals with civilisations while Shakespeare deals with individuals.
What an apparent miss-sighting of the whole issue. If you can read any further into the work than a plot-description, the unmistakeable similarity of a social sight ("focus" in mundane terms) which lies in the background (though evident like your mothers behind, also a swine!) of Macbeth, to Sophocles' Antigone is undeniable. The same as the change of an empire, is no less than that of a mans mind for their poetic relevancy, revelation and originality.

Even in your simple view of things, a Dante altogether should be considered the superior to any other, just by chief fact of his focusing on what is "biggest" in life, like the philosophy of a pig: "Hrumph", he says, "piggest and biggest must surely be importantest!" Your need to mention you were reading the classics at 14, which is not "weird" and something almost all educated men before the 20th century had done, just confirms to me your immaturity. I reckon you're perhaps 16 yourself, and have read less than you suppose, but have indeed read Aeschylus and some Shakespeare.

>>17116662
Why do namefags, as a rule, always have awful takes?

>>17117307
A purposeful misreading of my post. Let us use Gass as our starting point:
>The true alchemists are those that transform the world into words.

Shakespeare was maybe the first to transform our interior worlds into words. That is why the romantics worshiped him and that is why moderns do so as well, because we are caught up in the individualism. No small feet.
But let us then look at Aeschylus, look how he transforms the neigh unexplainable process of how we went from vendettas to litigations. It is not the size of the subject-matter, but it’s complexity. Reading the Orestia can save one from having to read sociology, jurisprudence and history, but reading Shakespeare saves one from reading existential philosophy. Aeschylus characters are just as interesting as the Bard’s, and their discourses equally compelling. You called me a pig, but you arguments are built upon insults and fueled by your seething anger. My view, misguided as some might call it, is based upon a vast cultural baggage, a love of all the authors mentioned, whereas yours is based upon a ready-made idea fed to you by the current cultural zeitgeist.

>IN exact measure as any art-tendency draws near its prime, does it gain the power of closer, plainer, surer shaping. In the beginning, the Folk expresses by cries of Lyric rapture its marvel at the constant wonders of Nature's workings; in its efforts to master the object of that marvel, it condenses (verdichtet) the many-membered show of Nature into a God, and finally its God into a Hero. In this Hero, as in the convex mirror of its being, it learns to know itself; his deeds it celebrates in Epos, but itself in Drama re-enacts them. The tragic Hero of the Greeks stepped out from amid the Chorus, and, turning back to face it, cried: "Lo!—so does, so bears himself, a human being! What ye were hymning in wise saws and maxims, I set it up before you in all the cogence of Necessity."

>Greek Tragedy, in its Chorus and its Heroes, combined the Public with the Art-work: the latter held before the Folk, not only itself, but also its own judgment on itself—as it were, a concrete meditation. Now the Drama ripened into Art-work in exact measure as the interpretative judgment of the Chorus so irrefutably expressed itself in the actions of the Heroes, that the Chorus was able to step down from the stage and back into the Folk itself; thus leaving behind it only actual partakers in the living Action. (012) Shakespeare's Tragedy unconditionally stands above that of Greece, in so far as it has enabled artistic technique to dispense with the necessity of a Chorus. With Shakespeare, the Chorus is resolved into divers individuals directly interested [61] in the Action, and whose doings are governed by precisely the same promptings of individual Necessity as are those of the chief Hero himself. Even their apparent subordination in the artistic framework is merely a result of the scantier points of contact they have in common with the chief Hero, and nowise of any technical undervaluing of these lesser personages; for wherever the veriest subordinate has to take a share in the main plot, he delivers himself entirely according to his personal characteristics, his own free fancy.
- Wagner's Opera and Drama

How can anti-Shakespeare fags even cope with failing to understand the nature of drama?

>>17117311
I think you are being unfair. The all caps guy is annoying, but his takes aren’t that different from the majority of lot. Butters gets shat on by poltards, but she is quite well-read and gives interesting recommendations. Frater Ass is pretentious, but at least he puts effort in his posts. Same with this Yung Byron fellow. I guess most of our takes are shit, tripfags just shine the brightest.

Summary of this thread:
>OP posts low quality bait
>tripfag takes the bait and offers a decent reply
>anglos seethe and engage with the tripfag
>tripfag engages with the anglos
>everybody LARPS as an intellectual
>I post SNEED
>and call OP a faggot

Damn this namefag nigger got his ass blown out

>>17116541
Anglocucks actually beveling that Shakespeare is better than most German, French, Spanish Greek and Italian writers.

>>17117432
>That is why the romantics worshiped him and that is why moderns do so as well, because we are caught up in the individualism
Bruh did you only read the great tragedies? If you want broad strokes on the nature of society then read his histories and roman plays

>>17117432
Good post.

>>17117562
I hate nameniggers as much as the next anon, but at least he provided his own take and he defended it in a original way. The seething Anglocuck just pasted a shit-ton of text.

>>17117432
Any Aeschylus recs? Haven't read much of his work.

>>17116541
Frank Herbert
Robert Jordan
Terry Pratchett
Winston Churchill
Francis Fukuyama
Samuel Clemens
Dr. Suess
Robert Anton Wilson
Ayn Rand
Herman Melville

>>17117577
It’s not their fault. In a sense, Shakespeare is their first major writer. And they read him in the original, whereas the rest of the world usually reads him in translation.

>>17117650
Honestly, all of it.

>>17117432
I can hear the seethe. What a disingenuous quote, your personal ideas are not without merit, but still so un-thought and arrogant, they're necessarily stupid in their current form. "Shakespeare was maybe the first to transform our interior worlds into words." How uneducated can one be? And the "maybe" does not save you here. And to say I was the one that misunderstood YOUR post! You've so obviously ignored my own to sprout this garbage. Ignoring the philosophical ignorance of contrasting the "individual existential" world from a "collective" one as you do, it's just plainly wrong. They're immature, not fully developed thoughts. All this reads like the words of a 16 year old or younger. Try to be a bit more modest, and hopefully this quote might open your mind up to Shakespeare a bit more:

>Of this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the best judgment not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion, that Shakspeare is the chief of all Poets hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth; placid joyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the constructing of Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart from all other "faculties" as they are called, an understanding manifested, equal to that in Bacon's Novum Organum That is true; and it is not a truth that strikes every one. It would become more apparent if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic materials, we could fashion such a result! The built house seems all so fit,—every way as it should be, as if it came there by its own law and the nature of things,—we forget the rude disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The very perfection of the house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other man, we may call Shakspeare in this: he discerns, knows as by instinct, what condition he works under, what his materials are, what his own force and its relation to them is. It is not a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly seeing eye; a great intellect, in short. How a man, of some wide thing that he has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind of picture and delineation he will give of it,—is the best measure you could get of what intellect is in the man....

CONT

>>17117432
>>17117703
>... Which circumstance is vital and shall stand prominent; which unessential, fit to be suppressed; where is the true beginning, the true sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole force of insight that is in the man. He must understand the thing; according to the depth of his understanding, will the fitness of his answer be. You will try him so. Does like join itself to like; does the spirit of method stir in that confusion, so that its embroilment becomes order? Can the man say, Fiat lux, Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world? Precisely as there is light in himself, will he accomplish this.

>Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valor, candor, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world. No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a perfectly level mirror;—that is to say withal, if we will understand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all. Novum Organum, and all the intellect you will find in Bacon, is of a quite secondary order; earthy, material, poor in comparison with this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness, almost nothing of the same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of Shakspeare, reminds me of it. Of him too you say that he saw the object; you may say what he himself says of Shakspeare: "His characters are like watches with dial-plates of transparent crystal; they show you the hour like others, and the inward mechanism also is all visible."

>>17116541
By plots
1. Dickens
2. Brothers Grimms/Perrault
3. All the ancient Greeks
4. Robert Louis Stevenson
By characters
1. Tolstoy
2. Dostoevsky
3. Victor Hugo
4. Melville
By language
1. James Joyce
2. Proust
3. Melville
4. Fitzgerald

namefags always ruin everything. Especially when they try to project a fetid larp of a renaissance man

>>17116541
>there are people who don't know Shakespeare was actually several females writing under a common pen-name

>>17117764
>there are people who don't know Shakespeare was multiple marxist black women, who had their work stolen by whitey.

>>17117764
>>17117772
>There are people who don't know Shakspeare was Francis Bacon

>>17117674
Why did you mix the real answers with memes?

>>17117703
You post huge blocks of text, trying to sell me on Shakespeare, but I am already sold. I like Shakespeare. I won’t suck his like you do because I am not an Anglo. Maybe if we were in each other’s shoes I would be the one needlessly defending Shakespeare, and you would be the one trying to keep up with pasted green text.
Funny how you are imitating me, I know I’ve only been arguing with you.

>>17117737
Fitzgerald instead of Hemingway? I am too tired for another debate.

>>17117432
>but reading Shakespeare saves one from reading existential philosophy
Also this shows how retarded you are, as if these fields cover the focus of the poet, or the poet replace the existence of these fields. And don't pretend as if I was saying that because the focus is bigger, it's better, I was so obviously saying that your view of things is that, to reduce the poet to an overly literal and faux-philosophical view of things. You say it is not about size but you necessarily reduce to that, because you suppose Shakespeare's dramas are just a psychology, whereas because Aeschylus focuses less through the minds of the individual characters you think it is so much larger. A better way of putting it, would be as Carlyle did, that Dante presents the soul of Christendom, but Shakespeare the practice; each no less a poet, or great. And this but one example should ignite within you the knowledge of the enormous brashness and nullity of these particular views. But have a value in that they may lead on to better thoughts and understandings.

And you didn't even respond to my statement that, even thinking in your frame and judgements, that Shakespeare excelled in the general perfection of every sphere. That "wit, comedy, characterisque and so on" which singularly a Tolstoy or Chekhov may excel in, but not altogether!-- For this, though so common an argument, you had no comment for, no reply. Though I do not believe this is the greatest value of Shakespeare either, though a real one.

Your posts are fraught with these childish assumptions which seem colourful and broad in their range to uneducated minds, but explain NOTHING, and only phantasmagorically cloud your own mind. The quotes I provided should help to give you more of an accurate frame of reference.

>>17117786
Oh yeah, and how am I imitating you?

>>17117786
>Fitzgerald instead of Hemingway?
I am speaking about language: it's density as well as it's phonemic. Hemmingway had the superior syntax and structure.

>>17117799
>posts old-timey purple blocs of text which are nothing more than dick-sucking
>calls the namefag retarded.
You anglos are pathetic. You are insecure of your bard that is why you always have to defend him. Do you think an Italian would seethe so hard if somebody came after Leopardi?

>>17117846
>implying I was just writing blocks of text
What a cope. I guess Goethe and Wagner really were seething Anglo' weren't they.

Also I don't think Italians would defend Leopardi as hard because he isn't 1/1000th of a Shakespeare, a Dante on the other hand they would be furious over if someone insulted. But you seem to expect people to just accept your stupid opinions, you're just a moron at the end of the day.

>>17116541
me

>>17117693
Not to mention any English speaking school is bound to nail the idea that Shakespeare is the best into the mind of students. While the students groan and go 'bruh, this shit don't slap" or whatever these retard mongoloids say. Then you have some students who go "what the fuck am I missing?" because once the language is understood, we realize Shakespeare speaks common sense, and he wasn't the first to have his characters deal with deep internal struggles (Gilgamesh, Antigone, Jesus). Even Orwell, when defending Shakespeare from Tolstoy, says the man wasn't an intellectual and he was more interested in exploring a variety of perspectives rather than offering a concise answer to issues. I personally don't understand why Shakespeare can't just be 'great'. Why does he have to be 'the best'?

>>17118067
>I personally don't understand why Shakespeare can't just be 'great'. Why does he have to be 'the best'?
No one's saying that, but it's ridiculous to rank Shakespeare so lowly that Chekhov is better. But it is why I recommended not getting into a "who's the very greatest?" between people like Aeschylus and Shakespeare, as one could just as easily say about whoever you suppose to be better than Shakespeare, "why can he not just be great?" and your hypocricy and practically everyone else' in this thread is made evident by that. Let us consider them as universal equals, though doing such and such better than the other and so on. Literally only a midwit could think Shakespeare is a rank below all these others, he has been part of the highest order of the canon for so long, in the mind of every equal which has come after him. Let us stick to that canon, and hold all these others as just as great. But that said, ridiculous opinions such as ranking Chekhov higher must be rejected. There's no such thing as an equality of all opinions.

Also Orwell was philosophically a moron of the kind of Hanslick, with a never-ending stream of intellectualised idiocy. He was a good fiction writer however.

>>17117777
Stratfordians btfo

>>17116541
Joyce

>>17116662
dude... chekhov is probably the best you listed and he's not even close to shakespeare

>>17118383
probably the only person in this thread you can make an argument for

>>17116799
>You miss the point, as so many do, that Shakespeare was more or less most likely the greatest dramatist to ever exist.
His greatness lies in his poetics, not in his works dramatic qualities. In strict drama he was certainly not on par with writers like Aristophanes, Sophocles, Chekov, or Ibsen

>>17116541
Sophocles and Terence were better playwrights... and Shakespeare would probably actually agree with that statement.

>>17116541
The Duke of Oxford

>>17118112
>No one's saying that
Everyone everywhere says that. Teachers, other writers, actors (not that these retards have and reason other than being afraid to disagree). Every High School classroom might have a student or two who enjoys the bard, but most of them are either like "bruh, this shit deadass not slappin" -- or however those mongoloids talk-- and "what the fuck am I missing?" It's like how we "know" the Beatles are the best band, Godfather or Citizen Kane are the best movies, or Bob Dylan is the best songwriter. Any reasoning can apply to those that came before and those that came after. Personally, I think the idea that "the older, the better" is bullshit.
>Also Orwell was philosophically a moron
1) your opinion 2) I don't read 1984 for the philosophy. The point of "even Orwell..." wasn't to say "Orwell, the great genius," but "even someone defending Shakespeare won't argue those points". And let's not forget Shakespeare produced a lot of shit, and a lot of mediocre work:
The Phoenix and the Turtle is a disaster, Troilus and Cressida -- along with Coriolanus -- are poorly paced and fall flat. The Merry Wives of Windsor was a waste of time and Henry VIII was goddamn awful. This isn't to take anything away from him, but the best sure does have a lot of blemishes.

>>17116662
>Chekhov better than BrotherSpeare
nigga wat

>>17117577
This
>>17117693
In germany we often take a translations which depicts the new and old writing.
Face it our school system is hilariously bad and still superior

>>17119166
A version i meant. We read it in English class. No translation.

>>17116799
>Shakespeare was more or less most likely the greatest dramatist to ever exist.

After Racine, Aristophanes and Jarry

>>17117915
Just admit you haven’t read an ounce of Leopardi. He was probably one of the greatest minds to ever live. He was co-signed by all the important thinkers and artists of the 19th century.

>>17118482
Agh the changing goal posts of seething anglos. A few replies higher “he was probably maybe the greatest dramatist of all time”, now he is not so great, but a great poet.

>>17116541
Cervantes and it's not even close.

>>17116662
Based

>>17117703
>"I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius, which Shakespeare enjoys and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits (thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding)—is a great evil, as is every untruth."
>>17120243
based

>>17120446
based

>>17116541
Pushkin
Cervantes
Dante
Petrarch
Baudelaire
Pindar
Tolstoy
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

bump

>>17117577
You forgot so many countries there. But I don't blame you.

>>17117432
>Reading the Orestia can save one from having to read sociology, jurisprudence and history, but reading Shakespeare saves one from reading existential philosophy.

This is idiotic. One could only write this if they've read Hamlet's soliloquies and nothing else.

I'll let Hazlitt speak for me:

>Shakespeare has in this play shown himself well versed in history and state-affairs. Coriolanus is a store-house of political commonplaces. Any one who studies it may save himself the trouble of reading Burke's Reflections, or Paine's Rights of Man, or the Debates in both Houses of Parliament since the French Revolution or our own. The arguments for and against aristocracy or democracy, on the privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty and slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace and war, are here very ably handled with the spirit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher.

(and the above is just one play on one subject, and not even one of his best)

>>17116609
Shit, so you're telling me we're the same person? Talk about a mindfuck.

>>17116662
What do you think about Poe?

>>17120462
>>"I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius, which Shakespeare enjoys and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits (thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding)—is a great evil, as is every untruth."
All this amounts to is "Shakespeare is bad and overrated," wow thanks a lot anon. My quotes actually said something and explained his historic place for the West.