/lit/ - Literature

No, it is a shit book, brainlet.

>>18500550
>im a lit student
>i will buy

>>18500550
>am i dumb for thinking i can make a change,
Yes
>or that they haven't already read it?
Even if they haven't read the book, I guarantee every English professor in the country is familiar with the "canon wars"
>will i get kaczynski'd?
No
>will they at least find it cute?
They'll probably just be confused as to why you're giving them a list of books everyone has heard of already

>>18500550
give to me instead, OP. those cunts are brainwashed and wont even read it.

>>18500550

Give them his Greatest English Poems instead. That's a more endangered tradition.

>>18500550
Waste of money. Even if the teachers wanted to read your book and teach it to their class, they'd have to jump through the hoops of several higher-ups.

>>18500575
This

>>18500561
No, it really isn't, and your assertion is likely proof that you haven't read it.

>>18500672
they have complete control over their courses in our department apperantly
>>18500575
>in the country
not US or UK
>>18500563
might print out important sections about the school of resentment and make a manifesto out of that

>>18500550
Where do you go?

>>18500840
id rather not say but its in eastern europe and the situation is pretty much the same here, maybe slightly better since only less than half of a given course's material is politically chosen and we've read many writers from the canon too. but that still feels too much. its just hopeful enough that i believe i could make a change. maybe im naive to believe so

>>18500550
there's a big change many of them have already read it, I'm also a lit student and I know some of my professors have. Bloom is not as controversial as you'd think. If you do this you'll just look autistic.

>>18500550
Not a good idea. Your idea about excerpting a passage about a specific topic is better. They will be more likely to read and be impacted by a shorter message. Best to do it anonymously.

>>18500550
good bait
I like

>>18501044
i dont find him controversial at all. i think he is reasonable about this. i am very autistic when it comes to aesthetic value and i take it very seriously. plus there are way bigger autists in class so i dont think ill be memorably autistic. i might pay a philosophy student to distribute them just in case tho
>>18501058
ye im leaning towards that. its less about the book and more just about the message coming from a student. maybe theyll even think its multiple students. i just dont want it to come off as a creepy manifesto or anything

>>18501127
>i dont find him controversial at all. i think he is reasonable about this. i am very autistic when it comes to aesthetic value and i take it very seriously.
Why not just bring it up explicitly with some of your professors? You probably will get more out of it if you do so rather than just giving a copy of the book they will probably not be interested in reading if they haven't read it yet.

>>18500550
The members of your english department probably know of Bloom; if they don't, they're one Google search away from being told to mock him. You're going to spend money on a futile struggle.
If you end up being radicalized by your love of literature and hatred for plebs, I'll read your manifesto, OP. Being passionate about literature is the best way to handle PC culture and their policing and proselytizing.

They've undergone religious conversion and thus have the zeal of the converted. Their God is equity, the adversary is you. You might as well give the God Delusion to a born again Christian.

Good goy, buy multiple copies of (((Bloom's))) book

>>18500550
Literally nothing but old dead white guys. The "canon" is a tool of White Supremecy.

>>18501301
This. Couple years back I did the math and - surprise, surprise - nearly 1/5 of the rec books have been written by chosen ones. Plus he basically ignores any Catholic writer and all of medieval christian literary heritage yet adds a shitton of modern crap. So uch for "western canon". Bloom fanboying is the sign of a midwit.

>>18501351
>Plus he basically ignores any Catholic writer
>the man with Shakespeare at the heart and center of his canon ignores catholic writers
Come on, anon.

>>18501015
wtf eastern yuros are forced to read niggers now?

>>18501375
>hey, he put the one in which can't be ignored even with normies

>>18501351
>he doesn't know that Bloom disowned the long list
Out of the 26 presented authors in the actual book, only 2 are Jewish (Freud and Kafka).

>>18501495
The second most important author Bloom often talks about is Cervantes. Then, Dante. Out of 26 authors who Bloom quotes as canonical, most of them are Christian and a fair number of them are Catholic.
The problem with Bloom is anglocentrism, not a crypto hate for catholics, you stupid fuck.

>>18500550
>implying you have the money to do that
>implying any serious lit department wouldn't already be familiar with the book and have copies in the library
>implying anyone would be "won over" by Bloom's tirades

>>18501127
>i am very autistic
Yeah, that much is clear.
The problem with actual, medical autism, is that the person is incapable of successful communication. Just giving a book is precisely an autistic sort of communication.

>>18501351
You got some shit math.
>all of medieval christian literary heritage
Which masterpieces does he ignore?

>>18500550
you should leave them kaczynski

>>18501253
It would be so much less autistic too just have a discussion with some people about this, especially since many probably are sympathetic to Bloom and would like to foster a middle ground

>>18501580
this, please don't do this OP, the only thing they'll find cute is your autism. there are better and less pseud ways to make a difference

>>18501253
>>18501690
>>18501715
as >>18501580 has observed, im not the best communicator. buying books was a sort of reckless abandon idea, but printing out a section maybe? again, ill find a way for it to be anonymous. im either gonna speak to them casually after class or im gonna go full anon. and again, the idea is to show that students do care, not to introduce them to an already popular personality.
>>18501392
and the political stuff isnt relevant at all here. not that relevancy is something to be strived for, but its uninteresting AND irrelevant. im not a racist btw
>>18501301
lol. there is one jewish writer that i wish bloom shilled harder actually.
>>18501351
>Bloom fanboying is the sign of a midwit.
im not fanboying him. my stance on aesthetics would even be more radical than his and would even alianate most who were on my side on this issue. but for now the enemy is the school of resentment. either that or apathy.
>>18501274
>If you end up being radicalized by your love of literature and hatred for plebs, I'll read your manifesto, OP.
thank u. i dont think it would amount to much more than me calling everyone who doesnt fully agree with me gay. i think its best to focus on what you love instead of fighting what you dont and writing a manifesto would be feeding the bad side too much

>>18500833
Dubs speak the truth.

>>18501335
White supremacists sleep resting their heads on pillows, too. Pillows are tools of white supremacists. They are also nice and comfy for you and me.

Bump before bed

>>18500550
Please don't do it.
For your own sake.

Thank you.

>>18500575
>They'll probably just be confused as to why you're giving them a list of books everyone has heard of already
I think they'll immediately recognize it as a statement on the canon wars. It might even generate some gossip that will trickle down to the student body and those who weren't aware of the canon wars already will think about it and make up their minds. If OP is lucky it might even generate a fashionable debate topic in the life of the department.

>>18502557
But if you want that outcome OP you better try starting a debate in a way that isn't guerrilla creepy. Who knows how crazy the mailbox guy is and what he will send next?

I've read almost everything he's written and I'll just mention that it's interesting that he rarely actually expresses what his real list of greatest authors actually is. He's always trying to appease that school of resentment by trying to make his lists somewhat diverse. I don't think appease is the right word. It's like he's trying to show the world what real multiculturalism looks like. If you simply follow his own words when he mentions that a certain author is better than another, you'll see that those are not his 26 best authors of all tine. Not even his list of top 100 in his book "Genius" is accurate. His list of the Canon at the end is better but he does mention that he forgot a few authors and his list of modern writers is full of writers he doesn't actually like but felt pressured to add because everyone else likes them. And there's this huge amount of writers he actually likes but almost never mentions, such as fantasy writers. Maybe because he sees them as B+ and separate from the greats.

School of Resentment is made up nonsense. Ironically, Bloom represents the failure of all English departments to do the job of imparting critical thinking skills upon students, insomuch as he forces one kind of interpretation down your throat, this is the 'correct' way to read literature. Same thing applies to depts who push strictly feminist or gender or postcolonial readings. To say that there's only one kind of interpretation, one mode of analysis, is teaching people what to think, not how to think

>>18500550
Why don't you give them the Iliad and the Shakespeare Sonnets when you are on it?
Don't be ridiculous. Everybody knows who's Harlod Bloom and what he was defending. It's like I (as a ESL) went to an American high school and give Webster dictionaries to the students.

>>18501519
>Freud
Mind you, Freud it's not even a literary writer.

>>18502924
He was an essayist; that counts.

>>18502929
Essay is a fake literary genre, a degradation of the Philosophy writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqlQptbI8hM

>>18502716
>truth is subjective bro like everyone has something to give man you have to see it through different lenses
No.

>>18502944
Do not listen to Maestro. Hispanics are shit at doing philosophy, our philosophy is to be found instead in the literary essay, something we're actually good at.

>>18502944
Essays are superior to most philosophical texts because essayists generally have a real point to make. Philosophers engage in 10% thought and 90% masturbation. Also stop spamming your gay youtube channel on this board you fucking ugly spic.

>>18502964
So what is the Truth of literature then? What makes something more aesthetically beautiful and valuable? What makes one reading more valuable than another?

>>18500550
nobody will read it unless you make them work for it. Start a Literary Club and gift one to each joining member. Actively promote. Otherwise it's not worth it.
t. edited, wrote and published (out of my own pocket) a student literary magazine for a year, nobody cares.

>>18503440
Good on you for making an attempt, brave soul. Don't stop writing!

>>18500550
Did you even read it idiot?
Imagine studying in english dept. and liking this book.
It’s just another one of those tedious and elaborate Shakespeare handjobs from our mr. no talent jew.

>>18502924
Midwit

>>18503440
there is a student magazine. i dont know if theyre still doing it but i could write an essay for them. but then again, i dont think any of the faculty members (or anyone else really) reads it. plus
>i think its best to focus on what you love instead of fighting what you dont and writing a manifesto would be feeding the bad side too much
>>18502557
this is exactly what im going for
>>18502562
but this is exactly what i fear. what can i do?
>>18502716
i dont care if his methods are wrong. i just dont want school of resentment readings. its very real and has little to do with the spirit of art.
>>18503005
what makes something more beautiful than something else is another issue. but it has to at least aim for beauty rather than an irrelevant political statement. i think a line of stylistic influences is a good place to start, though it does have its own issues.

>>18500550
>nearly all academic jews hard at working destroying the Gentile Canon
>one old jew stands up for the Gentile Canon
>gets bullied by his fellow jews
Harold Bloom pbuh

>>18500561
ok buck

>>18500550
>Change the school of Resentment
But me lord, the Merchant of (Not Venice your neck of the woods) desires a pound of flesh for the forfeiture of your grades. Not your heart but your brain.

>>18502716
There is value in teaching people WHAT to think so you have a culture left, you lonesome robot

>>18501335
>>18502224
Goddamn I love being white. You're welcome for the tools.

>>18502716
Unity requires a push for unity of exacting measure

OP here. after thinking and consulting with friends and family ive decided that i wouldnt have the balls to not give myself away when they inevitably ask in class, "okay which one of you creepy autists is responsible for this" but i also recognize that me just going up to them and awkwardly trying to insult their careers would be inefficient too. so ive sublated :) the two options into making some sort of propaganda leaflet with sections from the book and handing them out to professors while trying to look as harmless as i can. any suggestions?

bump

Bump your ass faggot. Just shut the fuck up. Nobody gives a shit about your shitty plan. You didn’t read Bloom. You didn’t read the books he commends. You didn’t read anything from so called school of resentment. So just shut the fuck up.

>>18505649
:( why be like this? i care enough to risk looking dumb af and im hoping a literature board would as well, as some have proven itt. i am using bloom as a shorthand for my position but ive obviously read many of the books he has on his lists and he has blurbs on lesser known contemporary writers that are my favorites too. ofc i dont agree with him on everything. but ive also been made to read from the school of resentment, otherwise i wouldnt have anything against them. their attitude towards classics is very visible on my courses too. if you think the school of resentment is merely "so called" than maybe it is or has been in your education. Its certainly not in mine. if youre suggesting staying apathetic to it, then fine. but like i said, im passionate about aesthetic approaches and the idea of making a difference is hopeful, while the current state of things is kinda depressing and is eroding away at peoples love for the field. youre not obligated to be cynical

>>18504887
>but this is exactly what i fear. what can i do?
Depends on how independent of a lecturer you are. Give an open lecture about the canon. Start a student club for reading and discussing Great Books. Make posts on a facebook group. Figure out a literary canon prank that is harmless and thought provoking and doesn't remind people of domestic terrorism, but of cool campus pranks. I don't know, get a massive paper mache Odyssey on the roof of the women's studies department or something. Get ready to have some arguments when your local canon wars start.

>>18505860
im not a lecturer...
>Figure out a literary canon prank that is harmless
hmmmm

>>18505824
I didn’t mean to offend you but for me Blood is just mega cringe. He writes pages about how much muh Shakespeare invented muh humanity it gets really stale and that’s the part of the reason that the different approaches that put aesthetic concerns aside became very popular in academia because there is nothing realistic and interesting about circlejerking same authors with same glasses forever.

>>18505824
Which critics are you into beside Bloom?

>>18504229
What’s the matter, you tranny? You didn’t like being told to read anything else but YA?

>>18500550
change your major op

>>18506022
Dude was in his 70s and 80s. It's natural that he wasn't writing anything groundbreaking at that age. He could barely go up some stairs.

Almost all thinkers go through this as they age. They just repeat the same things they've said since they were younger

>>18501351
>Plus he basically ignores any Catholic writer and all of medieval christian literary heritage
And that's a good thing. We already have Plato and Aristotle.

>>18500550
Look OP, change doesn't come from information. You could give all the information that helped you to a slave minded person and it will not enlighten him. Because the truth is: not a book opened your eyes, they were always open, you just didn't notice. That's a thing I had to learn the hard way. There are born plebs out there who can't be saved...and that's most of the people.

>>18506022
im less for what bloom is for than against what bloom is against. stagnation and homogenity are problems to be dealt with. but that in no way justifies what is happening, which isnt just a digression from the point of art, but a complete misunderstanding imo. introduce new authors if they have something new to offer compositionally or something, not if theyre... u know. talk about different authors and approach them with different aesthetic lenses, but the lens has to be aesthetic, not political. its like if someone suggested talking about the physical material of books and the coding of pdf files instead of talking about the content. hell even that would be more relevant. sorry if i got all up my own ass
>>18506239
i liked gary lutz, brian boyd and st joshi. i like what writers have to say about writing the most tho like nabokov or burroughs. we do actually study manifestos or principles of writers like poe, hemingway, elliot, pound, aristo and thats the stuff that i feel like is in the right direction. not "is the sun also rises... racist?!?"
>>18506279
i still like at least half of it and it takes minimal effort for me. plus its better than all other options. and plus theres a cute girl in class :3
>>18506792
surely they must find something beautiful. and if they do, they might realize that its the original and superior reason behind all artistic endevours and that politics is just a parasite leaching off of it. and to their credit this trendy political stuff might just be a way of generating easy content to teach. so if we make them care more by showing them that the students care, maybe theyll up their ambitions and teach what they think is beautiful

>>18506947
If you are studying English why do you write like shit? I know your teachers are bad, but haven't they at least taught you how to capitalize after a period?

>>18506947
>i liked gary lutz, brian boyd and st joshi
Those are surprisingly irrelevant and narrowly-focused critics (in fact I don't see how some of these are critics at all, or better said theorists). If you're in east Europe, I'd expect you to have gotten familiar with formalism, structuralism, semiotics, etc. Seriously, can you link me your department's syllabi?

>>18507039
>implying academic relevance implies quality or insight
Get a grip, you overscholarized cuck

>>18507086
I was mainly looking for where his wider interests lie, with regards to his approach to lit. Something that can be "foundational", so to say.

>>18500550
Harold Bloom is like Dave Meltzer or Roger Ebert. Why would you ever take him seriously? Also, the only novel he ever published was a Voyage to Arcturus copy

>>18500550
I guarantee you they already know about Bloom and hate him

>>18506978
i dunno why you would bother to capitilize if youre not a phoneposter desu
>>18507039
>narrowly-focused
theyre not from school. theyre just the ones i read out of curiosity cause they wrote about writers that i liked.
>I'd expect you to have gotten familiar with formalism, structuralism, semiotics
no. maybe that shows a defficiency in our syllabus but i did just graduate my sophmore year. ill get you a syllabus
>>18507099
>where his wider interests lie
ive looked into them a little now and i cant imagine them being too interesting seperated from good writers. but i do like that sort of underlying Pythagorean structure business if it has anything to do with that. im either interested in extremely up close stuff about sentences (hence lutz) or just the sheer creativity of some works. do you have anything for that?

>>18507106
>Why would you ever take him seriously?
Because he made sense and was right most of the time. He was and will forever be right about the School of Resentment.

>>18507039
as i said they dont have a standart syllabus but heres one from the last lit history course. its not as bad as some from last year

>>18501351
He also shills German writer Thomas Mann, who (((coincidentally))) married a Jewish woman

>>18507368
>if you respect one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century it must be because of ethnocentrism

>>18507235
>im either interested in extremely up close stuff about sentences
Then you'll probably be interested in stylistics and formalism. Look them up.

>>18507345
That's by and large classical, canonical stuff. The only one that sticks out is Du Bois. If this is typical material, you're being a bit melodramatic. What bothers me more is a total lack of more systematic theoretical approaches. Can you just link me the department?

>>18507381
He doesn't support other German writers even 1% as much as Thomas, even Goethe he only includes reluctantly

>>18507405
thanks
>formalism
i like that it
>rejects notions of culture or societal influence, authorship, and content, and instead focuses on modes, genres, discourse, and forms.

im not being melodramatic (its more apparent in the treatment of works, elective courses and previous courses like the short story one where there was a literal who for every stylistically notable writer like carver but i couldnt find it) though if what bloom says is accurate, then this is lot better than the situation in the US. the departments page doesnt have the syllabi and im wary of giving info.
>What bothers me more is a total lack of more systematic theoretical approaches.
can you elaborate? and what is your approach towards lit? do you teach?