/lit/ - Literature

What is your advice to someone entering university?

Doesn't look like. Prove it. And why do you waste your time on this board? Also, if this board ended, where would you waste your time?

>>18574725
Have you fucked any of your students?

>>18574725
Any underrated works this board never talks about that you'd recommend?

>>18574747
>lecturer
>students

>>18574725
What are your thoughts on Barth's The Sot-Weed factor re: the book as a parody of early modern picaresque works and/or the authenticity of its language. I've heard one or two people vehemently decry the latter.

>>18574734
The morons who make fun of you in school for being a try hard are mostly gone, and they continue to be weeded out the further you get in your schooling. You're responsible for your education, and at undergrad it really, really doesn't take that much effort to stand out. Do the assigned reading. Note down anything and everything you come across that interests you and pursue it in your free time. Enjoy it. You won't always, sometimes it will be incredibly dry and boring, but try to enjoy it, and go back to the things that made you love the subject in the first place. Go to your professors and ask them about things in greater detail.

>>18574738
I've been on 4chan unironically since 2009, at this point I don't think I'll ever leave. I spend less and less time on /lit/ though since after a while it's just the same thing again and again. Occasionally you get a great post, or something insightful, or a particularly talented piece of prose, but most people don't know what they're talking about.

>>18574747
Nope, not yet. I've only been a lecturer for about 18 months, I'm from the UK and the job market is really tough, so it's lots of short-term contracts in the beginning. I've just accepted one at a university in Germany next year that I'm excited about, then hopefully back to the UK to keep climbing the rungs. It definitely does happen but seems more trouble than it's worth. I also genuinely love my girlfriend. How gay is that?

>>18574793
And where would you waste your time if 4chan ceased activities?

>>18574761
People rave about Death in Venice and Magic Mountain, but Buddenbrooks is the best thing Mann ever wrote. I think John Fowles is underrated - you should check out The Collector, it's short and gripping and a good intro to his work. Goes well with Sabato's The Tunnel. Diary of a Country Priest by Bernanos is equal to Brother Karamazov for me in terms of spiritual profundity, and East of Eden works well if you're after the family saga themes of TBK and Buddenbrooks. Javier Marias is another contemporary writer I see very little discussion about, but whose works are excellent. I've assumed you just wanted fairly modern recs.

>>18574804
I wonder how much longer 4chan has left? I guess anons would migrate to some other anonymous image board site like 8kun?

>>18574818
Not OP by the way.

when would you consider the early modern period began and ended? I know that many works can often be considered to overlap different periods but where would you place your boundaries?

>>18574818
So reddit is not an option? You are sticking with this kind of thing, even if it turns inot shit? And have you noticed a decline in the overrall quality of this board throughout those years? Can you point a year that it dramatically changed?

>>18574815
>>18574793
Not the person who asked the questions but thanks, I appreciate this.

>>18574815
How do you see Joseph and His Brothers comparing?

>>18574780
I'm afraid I'm only superficially aware of the novel. From what I've heard it imitates 18th-century writers (my research is mostly concerned with works before that century). I'll have to give it a read at some point though - I take it you'd recommend it?

>>18574804
Maybe Reddit. Dread to think. I mostly browse /his/, /pol/ and /tv/ these days.

>>18574854
I got half-way through while I was doing my PhD and abandoned it. For some reason it just wasn't gripping me in the way his other stuff does. It was a stressful period for me, though, and I was used to reading verse all day at that point, so I'll probably pick it up again. Wouldn't read it before Buddenbrooks, though.

>>18574837
No problem.

Post your shelves.

>>18574887
Sure, 1/4

>>18574979
2/4

>>18574986
3/4

>>18575000
And misc, 4/4. I also have more specialist books in my office.

>>18574725
After finishing your BA you could have gone into law, finance, advertising, or a ton of other career paths earning vastly more than you are now.

Why did you choose to go to graduate school, grind for years and pay thousands for a PhD, for a job with mediocre pay?

>>18575099
cultural capital

>>18575126
KEK

>>18574725
Brit lit or American Lit?

>>18575099
Because I would rather do what I do for mediocre pay than anything else. I don't believe the accumulation of wealth is the only measure of success in life, or even the most important. I have friends who are in Engineering and Finance earning great salaries and hating their jobs, spending all their time at work, and breaking their backs to buy slightly bigger boxes to live in.

I count myself extremely lucky to have a genuine passion for English. To be able to still read Shakespeare and have it move me on a deep, emotional level is a real privilege. I get to spend my life immersed in what I love more than anything else, studying it, and sharing it with others.

>>18575133
English Lit, so both. But Renaissance, so Brit Lit primarily.

>>18574986
It's interesting that you have The Cardinal there. My spiritual director told me just this morning that the movie had a large influence on his vocation. I'd never heard of it before and here it is again. Blessed post.

>>18574725
Great,too bad that's not a real job.
Coming from a stem masterrace.

>>18575140
Which one would you prefer? Satirical anti establishment (Church) Lit or oldschool Neo-Platonic Lit?
Cause I'm a PhD dude who's witnessing his own screws coming loose absorbing everything at once. To make things worse I read a combo derived from The Phenomenology of Spirit and Blood Meridian at once which basically erased my prior notion of prose.
When I write now all I can see is someone else scribbling on the paper. I think I'm borderline schizo.

What's your knowledge of the Greeks? What about philosophy? How many languages can you read? What do you think about the Bible?

How do I go about getting a book picked up and sold by a college bookstore? I'm guessing you get to assign texts, but do you have to pick from an approved list by various publishers that have a deal with the university or what?

>>18574725
Was Joyce the GOAT novelist of the XX Century? Was there any other competing him or getting close?

>>18574725
Do you own pic?
Also, what are the best Shakespeare comedies?

>>18574725
do you write? what do you write?

>>18574979
Dont you feel the first part of 2666 is about making fun of people like you?

>>18574725
Hey kid would ya like to buy a bridge, one previous owner, only dropped once.

Tell me about Gaudeamus.

>>18574725
>early modern literature.
The fuck does that even entail? Why can't the anglosphere use normal periodisation of art?

>>18574856
The novel takes place in the 1690's and while a lot of the novel takes explicit influences from some 17th century writers(e.g. Samuel Butler) I suppose a lot of people do liken the style to Tom Jones or Fanny Hill(though perhaps a lot less euphemistic).
As for recommending it. It was a terribly funny read but it got the point of being a touch self-indulgent, if not just masturbatory, in it's content and length.

I am curious as to why the cut off at the beginning of the18th century? I've always been confused by the different scholarly demarcations of 'the early modern'. Ive see some people cut it off at 1789 and others much, much earlier.

>>18575013
>Guns, Germs and steel
pseud

Sorry chaps, had to run for a few hours.

>>18575163
It's great. I'd also recommend Viper's Tangle, Graham Greene's four Catholic novels, and of course Bernanos.

>>18575170
Yeah, i feel you. Take care of yourself. Set aside time when you can to just be in nature, do simple things, play video games. I found that helps. Also calming down and reading short stories, Turgenev, Chekhov, Hemingway etc tends to reset my prose-brain.

>>18575175
My knowledge of the Greeks is very good. I specialise in the English Renaissance (a tricky term, but for now let's call it that) where there was a huge revival of classical literature in Grammar schools and the like. The Liberal education was based largely upon the Greeks and some Romans (Cicero was significant) and can be seen in much of the work from the time. Shakespeare (who attended Grammar school) fashioned Julius Caesar from Plutarch's Lives, for example. I think the Bible is a masterwork of great literary value as well as an authentic spiritual text (I'm unironically Catholic). My research, without going into too many details, is actually around how Renaissance writers blended classical themes with the prevailing Christian religion. You see this in Shakespeare, Marlowe, most of the Elizabeth an revenge tragedies really, in Paradise Lost, and of course Dante is the master of blending these together in the Divine Comedy. He seems to take Augustines view that pagan gods existed but were demonic in nature.

>>18575212
I know this is blasphemy but I'm not a huge fan of Ulysses or FW. To see what Joyce accomplished with Dubliners and Portrait, I would much rather he'd written more 'conventional' novels with the beautiful prose of those earlier works and the depth of experienced he'd accumulated in his maturity. I find Woolf rivalled Joyce in Dalloway and Lighthouse, overdid it a bit with Waves, jumped the shark with Orlando. Proust supercedes both as the master prose artist of the 20th century IMO.

>>18575224
I do not. Merchant is my favourite of his comedies, though it is certainly a very dark comedy for Shylock. Merchant of Venice is, I believe, one of the few occasions on which Shakespeare entered his creation, in forcing Shylock to convert at the end. Completely unnecessary in the context of the play, he's been defeated, publicly humiliated, lost his daughter and stripped of all assets, to have him convert borders on cruelty and suggests something about Shakespeare's character in making the decision. There was a fair bit of antisemitism among Catholics at the time, and I do buy it to the theory Shakespeare at least had Catholic sympathies. Shadowplay by Asquith is a good book on the topic if you're interested.

>>18575298
I do write, I've had a handful of short stories published in literary mags and journals, I've contributed a few articles to prominent newspapers (Guardian, Independent, Times, Catholic Herald) and I've had academic papers published in journals...(cont)

>>18575298
... And I'm currently working on my first novel. Bolano was unsympathetic to academics, probably due to his counterculture stance and his natural rebelliousness, which is a shame because in researching the Juarez murders he showed the same obscure interest, tenacity, and obsessiveness that drives most (genuine) scholars. Still like him as an author.

>>18575471
Renaissance, but early modern is a longer time period and is more often used since the Renaissance came to England slow and late. Realistically my area of focus is from like 1500-1650.

>>18575508
Sounds good, I'll be sure to check it out. My personal specialism is around the incorporation of neoclassical elements with Christian themes in early modern literature, much of which occurred at the end closer to the Middle ages than the end closer to the Englightenment.

>>18576022
It was a gift from my brother who really tried, and a pretty fun read even if flawed.

Do you have any controversial views? Are you ever demoralized by the current state of academia?

What are your top 3 to 5 works I should read from the Early modern period?
If you need to split up fiction and nonfiction I won’t be offended

>>18576061
>Completely unnecessary in the context of the play
Is that you, Harold? Are you back to protect the canon from those unworthy of it?
Anyway, nice thread, OP. I have no questions, but I’m commenting to let you know this is one of those threads that make me keep coming back here.

>>18574815
Second John Fowles
Haven’t read The Collector yet but The Magus was lit-kino. The atmosphere it creates is very memorable

>>18576061
>He seems to take Augustines view that pagan gods existed but were demonic in nature.

what do you know about .. em "official stances" of the catholic church about this? Do they think like some religions , for instance some african religions follow real gods (maybe evil) or wood gods?


Have you follow the thread of AI produced text? what do you think? does it makes you anxious?

>>18576090
By the current standards of academia I'm pretty much a Nazi. One I will say here is that I don't think everyone should go to university, and I dont think everyone should go to school past a certain age. I guess that's not really controversial any more. But the overall quality of education could be drastically improved if younger children were apprenticed to people who, unfortunately, no longer exist due to technological advancements. I don't think all races are the same, and believe they have inherent natural strengths and weaknesses. I believe in objective morality.

>>18576096
Does Shakespeare count as one? All of Shakespeare. Paradise Lost. If you want something dark but easier to understand than PL, try Duchess of Malfi. Marlowe's good, try Doctor Faustus, the OG pre-Goethe telling of the myth. The Spanish Tragedy. Bits of The Faerie Queene and Donne's poetry is worth a look. It really is astonishing, staggeringly so, that between 1587 to 1665 England produced Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne, Jonson, and Milton. If you want a general primer on Shakespeare, who remains in my view the greatest writer in the English language, then you can't go wrong with Shapiro's 1599 and Bate's Genius of Shakespeare. In terms of criticism I love AC Bradley, even if his views are dismissed by plenty of academic philistines these days. Personality has to be taken into account when studying Shakespeare. As they say, Hamlet would have seen through Iago in an instant, and Othello would have taken action and killed Claudius straight away. As much as I like Eliot as a poet I do not think him a very good critic of Shakespeare.

>>18576103
I wouldn't go so far as to say Shakespeare invented personality but I loved Bloom and that was one of many insights I took from him. Some excellent, excellent interviews with him on YouTube that I enjoy watching sometimes when I can't sleep. He knew the joy of it.

>>18576109
He is terrific at building atmosphere. The collector is stifling, puts you in the head of a deranged lunatic. Creepy and satisfying.

>>18576116
I'm not sure if there is an official stance. The CCC seems worded in a way that emphasises unity and cooperation these days (part of the problem IMO). I'm sure if you asked Cardinal Sarah he'd tell you in no uncertain terms - highly recommend his books. In terms of AI text I'm not particularly worried, I have yet to read something written by an AI that moves me in the way a work of great literature does. They can produce at best a verisimilitude that is like a sheet of ice over a lake with no water. There's nothing there underneath and it won't connect. Apologies, I'm tired, but you get what I mean. Machines cannot think in the abstract from which all great art proceeds. It is logical for parents to allow a child to die in order for them both to live, it is illogical for both parents to die saving the child, but humans do the illogical. Could an AI ruminate on the afterlife in the face of suicidal ideation like pic related? It's too human.

Have you read Gormenghast? Did you like it?
What writer is your favorite essayist?
Which living writers do you like?

>>18576194
I haven't read gormenghast. I don't tend to read genre fiction. That isn't out of misplaced elitism or snobbery, I just don't tend to have the time these days since I have to read a lot for work, and generally prefer literary works anyway. I did enjoy LOTR and some of James Herbert's work when I was at school.
My favourite essayists are Montaigne, Woolf, Orwell (though hit or miss - 'Hanging' and 'Shooting an Elephant' are great, as is his critique of Tolstoy's dislike of Shakespeare, but I found 'Fascism in Britain' and some other pieces lacklustre), and I find DFWs essays enjoyable to read but don't get anything particularly profound from them. As far as living writers, I enjoy Cormac McCarthy, Javier Marias, and Karl Ove Knausgaard. I like remains of the day and Ishiguro's prose generally, but he seems to recycle themes a bit much and there always seems to be something missing in his work that I can't place. Purely subjective ofc. I think the greatest writer of the last fifty years was WG Sebald, though. Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz are among my favourites.

How old are you? Not asking for an exact number of course. And what do you think you'll be doing for the next 15-30 years? More of the same?

Based thread thank you OP

What poets do you like? Also have you ever read Hobbes and Burke?

>>18576242
I'm 31. It would be great to secure a permanent, tenure-track job at some point, at a semi-decent University. I actually prefer teaching to research, which is unusual in my experience among academics. I almost went the high school teaching route, but my interests were at a higher level than I would be able to discuss at high school. I did tutor high school students for an income throughout my BA, MA, and PhD though. It would of course be brilliant to have my novel published and be able to sustain myself with that, but Im not delusional.

However, if you have a well-received novel or two you can segue into being a creative writing professor. I've met a couple of these and let me tell you, they have it easy. As an English Literature academic I can only talk about English Literature, and since I specialise in a 150ish year span I only talk and teach on a select few writers. Thankfully I have Shakespeare, who sustains infinite discussion. But Creative Writing professors can talk about Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Proust, Henry James and Mann all in the same lesson if they wanted to, without having to speak the language. Total freedom, not purely in the sense of lesson plans and teaching style (all academics have that) but because creative writing will never be solely academic they have free reign to do whatever the hell they like and, generally, the good writers in class will produce good stuff anyway - the work shopping among students is what increases the quality. So, yeah - getting a couple novels published and transitioning to a creative writing gig would be great longer term.

>>18574725
I'm not sure how things work in the UK: is a lecturer like an adjunct? Or is it more like a tenure-track assistant professor?

If it's the former, how bad is it? I'm getting a PhD in English now (I do 18th C British) and I want to know if I should kms if I don't get a tenure-track job.

>>18576293
I wish you luck, anon.

>>18576255
Shakespeare, Browning (Childe Roland), some of Coleridge, Keats, Dickinson, Tennyson, Yeats, Eliot

>>18576300
The former. Generally you're expected to to contract work for a couple of years. Being willing to relocate is a big plus, hence why I'm taking the opportunity to much about in Italy for a while (since I also like Dante and Italian history). I would recommend 'The Professor is in' by Karen Kelsky, I found it pretty helpful in strategising career-wise. Publish as much as you can and get whatever university - level teaching experience you can.

Do you like any contemporary writers or books written after 2000?

Are the students twats like they are on Twitter?

Are you not planning to marry?

>>18575099
Good programs actually pay you to get a PhD, usually ~30k a year at an elite university. It's still a terrible decision financially, but not as bad as paying for a useless degree.

Did you do well in your PhD? By the way thanks for your answers anon, very nice thread.

>>18574979
also , why 2666 why the numbers?

please sempai I want the secrets only you teachers know revealed.

>>18574725
Tell us about the effect Winesberg, Ohio had on things to come.

>>18576323
Austerlitz by Sebald, 2666,and the My Struggle series by Knausgaard come to mind. Atonement and Saturday by Ian McEwan. Wasn't No Country for Old Men post-2000? I like plenty of non-fiction written since 2000 but assume you meant fiction. I am ambivalent towards Elena Ferrante, I feel quietly certain it's really a man writing. When Ferrante is good she/he is good, at least in comparison to other contemporary work, but she/he can also be pretty bad.

>>18576335
Some always are. The majority are average, doing English Lit because they didn't know what else to do and felt they had to go to uni. There are pletty of SJWs, but thankfully most of the texts I teach don't really hold up to their ideological lenses, or afford enough for them to spin it into a University-level essay.

>>18576346
I would love to marry my current girlfriend, however things have been tough recently. She stuck with me through my BA, the brief spell I spent as a police officer after my BA (literally 1 year), my MA and my PhD, all while earning lots of money in procurement. She's undecided whether she'll come with me to Italy and I think it'll put a strain on our relationship regardless. If we do end up breaking up it'll hit me hard, although it does open up literally the whole world career-wise. I don't know if I'd ever marry if that happened. Difficult to think about.

>>18576347
Yeah, i got funding and ended up paid about £27k a year doing my PhD in the UK. Not a great salary by any means but far from minimum wage, and I was able to save about £900 a month of it.

>>18576354
I did, thank you. I am in the process of reworking it into a book that will quickly go out of print and never sell a copy, but will look good on my CV.

>>18576379
They whispered it to me after I successfully defended my thesis. If I told you I'd really have to kill you.

>>18576061
What Greeks would you recommend reading to then get references in Renaissance Lit?

>>18576415
Essentials would be Homer, the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), certainly Aristotle (Rhetoric, Poetics), Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, and Plutarch's lives. If you enjoyed what you read I would then add Hesiod (as a contemporary of Homer), Aristophanes (comedy), Plato, maybe Herodotus if you enjoy the wacky history side of things, and whatever other Greeks and Romans take your fancy. But the essentials should be more or less sufficient, and if I had to narrow it down to 5 authors it would be Homer (father of Western literature), the three tragedians (birth of drama) and Aristotle (first literary critic, established theatrical conventions).

>>18574979
What do you think of Ishiguro?

>>18576461
>>18576237
>I like remains of the day and Ishiguro's prose generally, but he seems to recycle themes a bit much and there always seems to be something missing in his work that I can't place. Purely subjective ofc.

>>18574725
What is your favourite Shakespeare play? What are your top 5?

>>18576492
Hamlet is my favourite and probably my favourite piece of literature of all time. For my top 5 I would add the other three tragedies and Julius Caesar. My BA dissertation was on the use of rhetoric in Julius Caesar and Hamlet.

Tips for a student? Things to avoid? Thanks for doing this btw.

>>18576502
What did you argue for the presence of rhetoric in Shakespeare? How did Shakespeare view the classical tradition of rhetoric? Is that distinct from renaissance appropriations/reimaginings of classical rhetoric

>>18576502
Prove it, post a screenshot of one of the pages.

>>18576502
What do you think of Rhodri Lewis - Hamlet, or the Vision of Darkness?

>>18576509
Read, read, read. Do your own research. Be prepared that sometimes things will seem boring, but if something piques your curiosity jump on it. Familiarise yourself with the key players and ideas in literary theory, and the critical traditions of various texts. Routledge do good critical source books for various works. When you first read something, though, read it 'blind'. Connect with it, let it move you as it was made to. Approach your professors, build relationships with them. Develop your own ideas. Read, read, read. I also recommend keeping a reading log. Once you've read something, summarise he main arguments of the piece and write them out. Then analyse their argument. Then, finally, write a response - to what extent do you agree? To what extent to you disagree? Why? This will greatly help your essay writing technique.

>>18576522
Sure, pic rel is the start

>>18576521
Shakespeare was Grammar school educated and thus well versed in classical rhetoric. The master example of this can be found in Brutus and Mark Anthony's speeches in Julius Caesar. We don't know what Shakespeare thought or felt about it, but it was exceptionally skillful of him to make Brutus' speech so compelling whilst working in subtle flaws to his delivery. For example, look at the opening tricolon of each speaker: Mark Antony's 'Friends, Romans, Countymen' possesses a kind of internal logic, it expands from intimate friends, out to Romans, and finally countrymen. This natural progression is reflected in the 1, 2, 3 syllabic structure. Brutus, on the other hand, opens with 'Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers'. The syllabic structure is jarring in comparison, 2, 3, 3, and seems to indicate that Romans and Countrymen are exclusive from Lovers. This reflects Brutus' key failing, that his rhetoric is if anything overly polished, reliant on logos and tight linguistic structure rather than pathos, and his tendency to think in abstract terms quite separate from his emotions.

>>18576540
I found it one of the best pieces of modern Shakespeare scholarship I've read in a while, refreshingly invigorating, even if I disagree in varying degrees with Lewis' interpretations. Bradley remains my favourite Shakespeare scholar.

>>18576592
>Shakespeare was Grammar school educated and thus well versed in classical rhetoric. The master example of this can be found in Brutus and Mark Anthony's speeches in Julius Caesar. We don't know what Shakespeare thought or felt about it, but it was exceptionally skillful of him to make Brutus' speech so compelling whilst working in subtle flaws to his delivery. For example, look at the opening tricolon of each speaker: Mark Antony's 'Friends, Romans, Countymen' possesses a kind of internal logic, it expands from intimate friends, out to Romans, and finally countrymen. This natural progression is reflected in the 1, 2, 3 syllabic structure. Brutus, on the other hand, opens with 'Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers'. The syllabic structure is jarring in comparison, 2, 3, 3, and seems to indicate that Romans and Countrymen are exclusive from Lovers. This reflects Brutus' key failing, that his rhetoric is if anything overly polished, reliant on logos and tight linguistic structure rather than pathos, and his tendency to think in abstract terms quite separate from his emotions.
Fuck me. This entire thing flew right over my head. Where can I read more about this?

>>18576645
Which part would you like to know more about?

>>18576657
Everything, really. I’m a complete total beginner, though, having read Shakespeare but no essays about his work. If you can point me in the right direction to better understand him, I’d appreciate it.
The subtle differences in speech caught my attention the most.

>>18576675
Bate's 'Genius of Shakespeare' followed by Emma Smith's 'This is Shakespeare' is a good primer.

Follow it with A. C. Bradley's 'Shakespearean tragedy'.

The rhetoric is really a specialist area that I was interested in at the end of my undergrad, since it was a big factor in the historical context of neo-classicism. I knew I was interested in how Greek and Roman thought influenced Renaissance literature, and I went on to develop that interest during my MA and PhD.

>>18576151
Are you anti gay marriage?

>>18576725
Yes.

>>18576151
What is some good early literature on settlement and the new world?

>>18574725
thoughts on stein

>>18574856
>I mostly browse /his/, /pol/ and /tv/ these days.
What’s it like being a right leaning individual in academia? Do you have to hide your views from your co-workers to avoid ostracisation? How bad is it pozzed-wise? Also where abouts in the country are you based?

What's your opinion on the current 'interdisciplinary' approach to literary analysis? For example, something like Frederick Crews' The Pooh Perplex (1963) satirized a process of interpretive criticism wholly reliant on pseudo-disciplines like psychology and semiotics. That strain of criticism seems to have blossomed rather obnoxiously. There have been many threads on Shakespeare's "queer coding" this week. Do you think Whig deflation in humorist works (like Sellar/Yeatman's 1066 and All That [1930], say in the vein of Voltaire's anti-Panglossianism) may have had a net-negative impact on lasting scholarship? I haven't read Bradley (thanks for the rec, btw), but his wiki notes that his approach has been intermittently disregarded - have you found that to be the case?

thoughts on the school of resentment? and if a student -hypotethically- wanted to take action against the problem in question in his department, what would be the best course to take?

>>18576719
Awesome. Thanks. Do you recommend Bloom’s The Invention of the Human? Not in an academic sense but more as a conversation about Shakespeare with the man who was fascinated by him.

>>18574725
This is actually a serious question:
Do you not see the future of English literature as increasingly grim when the Anglosphere is having the native people become a minority in all of its countries?

How have the works of the early modern period influenced the novel you're working on? If you don't mind, could you share an excerpt or tell us a bit more about it? Will you shill it on /lit/ once you get it published?

You obviously love Shakespeare a lot, but is there a work by him or even a single line from one of his works that you hate? If not, which work or excerpt is your least favorite?

Do you enjoy the /lit/ humor threads? Pic related, wanted to post it, an instant classic.

And I also wanted to say how much I enjoyed your thread. I mindlessly browse /lit/ a lot and this thread helped me realize how shit most of the posts really are. Godspeed anon.

>>18577050
Are you that Eastern European anon who wanted to fight back and use Harold Bloom’s works as his weapon of choice?
Not OP. I do remember that thread, though. Based anon revolting against mediocrity.

>>18574734
>What is your advice to someone entering university?
Be black. Be transgender.

This isn't a joke. Any Fortune 500 company will hire a bottom-of-its class black tranny from Buttfuck U before a top-of-his-class white man from Harvard.

>>18576392
Marry her anon.

If you're unironically catholic, go ahead.

You have spent enough of your life reading un-pozzed literature to know a man should enforce his will on his circumstances, and not merely react to what is handed out.

T. Anon who broke up with the girl who stood beside him in thick and thin. Regret it everyday

bump desu

Do you read the Shakespeare threads on here and what do you think of them?

OP, if this thread dies before you reply to the remaining questions, please make a new thread tomorrow. Would love to hear all of the answers.

Best Odyssey translation?

>>18574725
Have you ever slept with a student?

This thread was really good. Never leave us Professor anon.

>>18577083
maybe...

>>18574725
What does the future or our society and academia look like? The youth looks hopeless, in my opinion. I work at a college and it saddens me.

>>18574725
Do you think you deserve a job that is, essentially, reading and discussing classic literature all day? Isn't your job effectively the 19th century equivalent of a let's play?

How do I develop an ear for poetry? Even when I know the metre I stumble over the words, and free verse is impossible for me to "get".

>>18574725
What do you think of Gertrude in Hamlet?

>>18577656
Keep fighting the good fight, anon. Don't do anything drastic, though. And, as I've said before, if you ever write a manifesto, I'll read it.

>>18574725
Did Alan rape Malyne in the Reeve's Tale?

>>18577761
based motivator anon <3

>>18575013
Did you convert to Catholicism?

>>18574725
What are your thoughts on Latin American Literature?

>>18577125
Anon why did you do it, if it's not too painful to answer

>>18576151
>I dont think everyone should go to school past a certain age
Why is this? and how old?

>>18574725
How did your first course go? Was there anything you wish you knew beforehand?

>>18574725
do you think universities today are beyond saving

thanks for the thread, what would you say is the best way for a total plebian like me to get a 1st for my eng literature undergrad, I kneel profchad....

is gravitys rainbow anti-semetic?

>>18576761
Based. Too many Christians forgot their principles.

Thread is pretty good but the way OP writes creeps me the fuck out. Comes across as the type of person who'd shank someone in an alley and feel absolutely nothing.

>>18578789
he's kind of weird. He goes on and on about muh Catholicism gays bad but apparently he's been dating (stringing along?) this girl for over a decade and breaking up with her is still a strong possibility.

>>18578789
That’s exactly the kind of person you have to be to be an entry level academic in lit crit.

>>18578797
kinda of sad that someone with a masters and PhD in English lit is still considered entry level academic, and he's paid what, 30k a year? He could've made the same at Wendy's unironically

>>18574878
Cheers

>>18578806
You can get more literary criticism done and published while working at Wendy’s. The only thing you can’t do is rape Edith.

>>18576321
That's how you spell much?! I always thought it was mooch.

Thanks for the great thread OP.

>>18574725
What books would you recommend an 18 y.o. to read so that he may come in terms with their beliefs? Moreover, I would very much appreciate if you would send me an email at stroustrup@ctemplar.com, so that I may contact you at a later date.
Thank you.

>>18578872
*his
I'm dyslexic

>>18578020
I got to cocky and didn't realize what I had. Being with a beautiful woman can go to your head.

If you've invested the best years of you life with her, which OP has, she takes all the investment ( time, memories et al) with her when she leaves.

Do your catholic forbears proud OP. Ring on finger and knock her up.

OP here, sorry folks I had to go to bed. Didn't expect thread to still be up.

>>18576896
To a certain extent you have to play along, just like irl. Tenure doesn't even mean job security for life any more. In terms of controversial views I may say something that goes against the majority of current critical theory, but say something too extreme and you're in trouble. There are plenty other Conservative academics but we're spread thin among left-leaning ones. However the best academic is one who truly loves their subject, all else is secondary. I'm usually based in UK but will be in Italy for the next academic year.

>>18576964
Literary criticism is by nature interdisciplinary, the most common contributing fields being philosophy and history. I think it's essential. People like to disregard Bradley because he places a lot of value on personalty analysis in Shakespeare's plays. However, this analysis is just common sense in most cases, and as I explain elsewhere in this thread Shakespeare cannot be divorced from personality.

>>18577050
There is a definite school of resentment and sadly it seems to be growing. There are calls - even among academics - for certain authors to be culled from the syllabus. Nevermind the fact that these authors have created some of the greatest works of the human mind. What can you do? Blackpill answer - nothing. I have every faith it will eventually swing back the other way. Realistically, share your passion with people you love, and will young people, and keep it alive that way. Enjoy it yourself. If you feel touched on an emotional level reading the sonnets, nobody can take that from you. And you'll intuitively understand how ridiculous and unfair it is for people who have never been touched on that level by literature to say those works should be outlawed for abstract, political reasons.

>>18577062
I prefer Bloom's compilation pieces, best poems of the English Language, Western Canon, etc. I don't agree wholly with his theory that Shakespeare invented personality. Perfected certain archetypes and story arcs that are recycled in western media, yes. The Shakespeare book of his that I enjoyed the most was 'Hamlet: Poem Unlimited', which is an essay collection.

>>18577063
I see the issue as not one of multiculturalism but one of quality control. Works should be elevated and studied because they are of high quality. There is clearly a measure of objective quality in literature which is easily seen when you take two extremes - say Anna Karenina in comparison with a cheap supermarket thriller, or Sonnet 73 compared with a speech in a poorly written romance novel. However, thanks to a proliferation of bad literary theory and an 'inclusion at all costs' attitude propagated by mediocre academics and the cultural zeitgeist, we are now questioning whether objective quality even exists in literature. What we need are authentic literary critics in academia who are able to objectively assess quality...(cont)

I'm a dyslexic reading proust, any advice for reading stuff above your reading level?
And any secondary literature on Proust you'd recommend? Thank you.

>>18577063
... Italo Calvino's 'Why Read the Classics?' is a great book on WHY a Canon is important, and why quality control needs to be maintained without racial pandering.

>>18577080
The novel I'm writing is about the disintegration of a family, and a protagonist who prefers the imaginary world to the real one. The family disintegration in the first part represents in many ways the rejection of classicism by the later Romantics, who elevated the Self and held imagination superior to reality, which, In my view, is a flawed way of thinking about the world. Those are a couple of the themes it explores. I won't post any here because I know that plagiarism checkers some publishers use trawl through cached pages and all 4chan threads are still archived. I am less of a fan of Shakespeare's comedies. I can appreciate the are good technically in the same way I can appreciate Aristophanes is good technically, but I will always prefer tragedy. /lit/ humour threads are okay, but get old when you realise how rare new funny content is. The issue with /lit/ is that think it's mostly high school seniors and undergraduates with no real life experience. That was fine when I was a high school student and undergraduate, but when you start exploring texts on a deep level and start accumulating life experience (heartbreak, illness, loss, happiness, travel, financial worries) and grow in maturity, texts hit different. I never appreciated Hamlet's soliloquy as much as I do now until I myself went through a phase when I felt suicidal. Deeper readings and connections to works really do 'unlock' as you 'rank up', I. E. Age. And therefore most discussion on /lit/ is inherently superficial at best. Things are both simpler and more complicated than you think they are aged 18 or 21.

>>18577091
Both truth and falsehood in this. I find on 4chan there is an extreme mentality that if you are white you won't have any success in the literary sphere. I am a straight white male who is working in academia alongside many other straight white males and females. I have had short stories published. My cousin, a straight white male, has published a novel. There is still plenty of opportunity and it baffles me how people think competency is somehow an irrelevant factor now. No company in the world will keep on someone who can't do their job.

>>18577125
I do plan to, or did. I'm 31 and friends are married so feel like I should get a move on. But I feel you grow more cautious with age, too. I am possibly not even halfway trough my natural life, she has been a part of it for years but people change too. I don't believe in 'the one', I think there are lots of people you can be compatible with and falling in love with someone makes them 'the one'.

>>18577428
There seem to be a few schools of thought when Shakespeare is posted here. You have the staunch denialists who blame his popularity entirely on a kind of Borges-tier conspiracy by 19th century figures like Goethe and Schiller... (cont)

>>18577428
... Simply reading Shakespeare's plays with serious attention and thought is enough to judge their value. When you study them in detail and understand what he's doing with wordplay, characterisation, etc you are stunned by his creativity and ability. You have people calling Shakespeare gay, which I do not believe he was, although he perhaps might have been bisexual. People turn to the fair youth of the sonnets. But close male friendship, intensely close, was a natural part of classical life, and mirrored in art through figures like Achilles and Patroclus. The revival of classicism in the Renaissance meant that many in Shakespeare's time likewise had intensely close male friendships that were devoid of a sexual element. There are male friends who today would go to great lengths for each other, die for each other. The difference is we are less literature, sensitivity is seen as a weakness, and declaring your feelings marks you instantly as gay, whereas in Shakespeare's time expressing your feeling eloquently and being well-versed in arts and literature was seen as a positive. Then you have occasional posters claiming Shakespeare was Catholic, who I am sympathetic too. Again, I recommend Shadowplay for anyone interested.

>>18577437
In translation something is always lost, the dactylic hexameter of ancient Greek verse doesn't ring true in English, so as long as the story remains intact I don't mind. I own Fagles.

>>18577452
Nope, though have had obvious (clumsy) advances made.

>>18577701
Defeatism won't get us anywhere. Overall things are bad, but I have faith they will swing the other way soon enough. The kind of exclusionary politics that would ban Homer, Shakespeare and Dante from schools has a lifespan. Those authors, archived on the internet, will last forever even if all physical copies of their works are destroyed. You can go back over 2000 years to Homer, to the Bible, and see that humans really haven't changed very much in terms of character, and I dont believe we'll change all that much in the next 2000 years. Eventually someone will rediscover the works, connect with them and fall in love with them as we always do with great literature, and they will outlive shifting cultural perceptions.

>>18577705
Ha! I like that. I see academics like myself more as gamekeepers or gardeners. The Great Torch is lit and someone has to keep it burning. At university you engage with a text on an exponentially deeper level than you do in High School, and it's not just about reading books, it's about analysing the work in terms of aesthetic (prose) value, judging it in its socio-historical context, studying the author and various literary movements, and - most importantly - grappling with the ideas the text raises. No text studied at university is considered solely for entertainment value. What is this author telling us about life? Do we agree with them? For this reason we work very closely with history and philosophy departments... (cont)

>>18576151
Regarding you being a "Nazi" academic, how out are you? My parents both have PhDs, and one is a dean. They both know my thinking quite well, but to my classmates, they think I think that all races are the same, gay pride yay, etc. I mildly challenge a professor or course material sometimes, but that isn't that often.

I am simultaneously too tired and too excited to remain in school. I have been in undergrad far too long, but my parents, obviously, push it and push for a master's too, although they would accept if I don't. I've stuck around because of the pressure and the bankroll. Plus, my classes can be very helpful in my learning (related to languages). Anyways, I am debating the master's, which would be in a literary field, similar to yours. Do you have any comment on your life in academia?

>>18577705
... And many Literature students also take philosophy classes. The discourse at University level is clearly something I consider of high importance and unlocking those ideas - and helping students unlock them - is, I think, vital to producing high-quality members of society. Also, there is a degree of selfishness - I love my job and think I am good at it, and enjoy it. But 'don't become too focused on one thing', 'don't be obsessive' or 'don't bear a grudge' are banal platitudes, and meaningless, compared to having a student read and pay attention to Moby Dick.

>>18577753
I prefer metrical to free verse. Start with the sonnets. Sonnet 73 is one of my favourites. I also think Keats' Ode to a Nightingale is a good starting point, Stephen Fry does a good reading on YouTube so you can hear how it is said. Poetry is written to be spoken aloud. She walks in beauty by Lord Byron is also a good beginner's one. 'A Poetry Handbook' by Mary Oliver is the best beginner's guide to 'getting' poetry, and it's very short, only around 100 pages. The best poems are those that sustain multiple readings.

>>18577760
I believe that Gertrude is guilty of self-deception and acted in her own interest to secure her position in the state. She loved Hamlet her son but I am not convinced she held much of a flame for the late King. By acting in a purely logical, self-preserving manner (common of Shakespearean villains) I am unconvinced Shakespeare had much sympathy for her. I always really enjoyed Joyce's theory that Hamlet doesn't represent Shakespeare, but Shakespeare's dead son Hamnet; that the ghost of Hamlet Senior is Shakespeare, absent (as good as dead) in London, while his wife Gertrude/Ann Hathaway has an affair back in Stratford. Hamlet junior shows ambivalence towards Gertrude, but his ultimate farewell as she lies dying is 'wretched Queen, adieu!' - none of the Shakespearean sympathy left, there.

>>18577986
Yes, I was raised Catholic from birth but with poor catechism and left the Church for some years after confirmation. Reading the works of GK Chesterton, Thomas Merton, Newman, Augustine, and finally the philosophical framework underpinning the faith (Aristotlelian teleology, Aquinas etc) brought me back in my early twenties and I am now teach confirmation classes twice a month.

>>18578000
I've enjoyed almost every latin author I've read. Unpopular opinion is I wasn't sold on 100 years of solitude, the 'magical realism' goes too far for me sometimes. I prefer realism, and psychological realism especially. The Tunnel by Sabato is great and I like Borges and Bolano a lot.

>>18578030
Some people just aren't meant for it. We have (had?) an exam called the 11+ in the UK, which was essentially an IQ test taken at age 11 to measure your academic potential. If you scored above a certain threshold you were permitted to apply to Grammar Schools. Not everyone is suited to academic study and the presence of 'disruptors'... (cont)

Have you ever gotten in trouble for your beliefs?

What do you think about Homer?

Thoughts on the JQ? Probably less of an issue in bongland

>>18578030
... Who are themselves experiencing disruption by being forced to study subjects they will never fully comprehend, weighs the whole experience down. I recommend reading 'In Defence of Elitism' by Roger Scruton, its an essay available online.

>>18578094
My first lecture? Or course I personally studied? My first lecture was a little nerve wracking but as a PhD student I was used to helping teach classes so it didn't feel completely new when the training wheels came off.

>>18578133
No, see other responses. Also I will add that certain Liberal arts colleges and Catholic universities remain excellent. I'd love to teach at a university in New England.

>>18578268
It would be remiss for me to give any advice since I missed a 1st by 3% due to chronic, debilitating illness (I was hospitalised 3rd year). Just put the effort in, READ THE CRITICS and decide whether you agree with them. Start the essay early and polish it over time as you would a short story. Read it to someone else.

>>18578789
Thanks, anon.

>>18578796
Do I go on and on about 'gays bad'? Someone asked me if I support gay marriage and I said no, although I don't necessarily believe homosexuals should be deprived of tax benefits available to married couples. Also you don't know anything about my relationship, and it is irrelevant to literature, but if you must know I was ready to marry years ago but my girlfriend doesn't want to until I am in a 'stable career', I. E. A permanent position.

>>18578806
If it matters I'm not entry-level, but regardless
>>18575134

>>18578872
Come to terms with what beliefs? Sure, I'll shoot you an email in a bit.

>>18578938
Dyslexic reading is tough, I used to tutor dyslexics through GCSE. You're a rare situation where I would probably recommend audio book for ISOLT. My favourite Proust primer is actually Czapski's 'Notes on Proust in a Soviet Labour camp', very short and easy to read and sets you up nicely for his work.

>>18579012
I've written a bit about it in my last few posts. My personal views are my own and I would never discriminate against a student, black or white, straight or gay, transgender, whatever. As far as I am concerned all human beings deserve to be treated with dignity. I have my own philosophical beliefs around what I believe to be right or wrong, but you have to be professional. After all, allowing your own political ideology to overtly colour your teaching is what has caused the current situation in academia to arise. If a student falls in love with literature they will want to preserve it, which is an essentially Conservative view. So I aim to be a kind of Cupid-figure first, and teacher second - analysis holds up better once they've been 'hooked', if that makes sense. Go for a masters if you enjoy it and think you will do well in it. Literary masters opens lots of doors in journalism, publishing, advertising, etc. But has to be right decision for you.

Every academic has his sugar momma

>>18579071
Not trouble, but there have been tense moments. I reacted with exasperation to a colleague when I heard the Divine Comedy was being doctored in Scandinavia to remove references to Mohammed being in hell. It isn't because I think Mohammed specifically should be said to be in hell, but more of a larger response to the prospect of great literary works being altered - who decides what gets cut, and why? Someone else in the room loudly stated that they thought literary works should 'change with the times'. Thankfully she wasn't an English academic. I also butted heads a few times with my PhD supervisor.

>>18579075
I like Homer a lot. He is in many ways a cipher, like Shakespeare, and like the bard (and later, IMO, Tolstoy in the realm of prose) his works contain 'all of life'. He also gives us our first soliloquy in Western literature. Though his work was clearly the first visible glimpse of a long poetic tradition likely stretching back in some form to Sumerian myth and Gilgamesh, they are in themselves remarkable achievements. The plot of the Iliad is beautiful in its simplicity. I'm not entirely convinced Homer was the sole author of the Odyssey, but it isn't my realm of expertise. I do like that some have sworn Homer had to be a doctor, because of his medically accurate descriptions, and others say he had to have been a sailor because of his geographical accuracy in describing various routes, and others take him for this, or that... Clearly a great soul and expansive mind, reflected in vast works of countless characters that fed the Greek dramatists and later writers for countless years.

>>18574725
Imagine having rifles in your classroom

>>18574725
What books would you recommend for cultivating greater knowledge of English peasantry, folk songs, art and such for kids and homeschools?
Im always scanning through archive org for such stuff.

what books on literary theory would you recommend? also do you heavily annotate, underline, and write in your books?

>>18579168
The books of Illiad were multiple fragments put together by different bards over time and finally put together at the cusp of the Golden age of Athens, actually its decline into an Empire, as propaganda for the new dictator ship of Democrates and his sons.

>>18578955
re:the future of English literature when Anglos will be a minority in all of their countries, this seems well-read but ultimately naive desu
the issue of quality control is ultimately irrelevant when you have a population which is going to be so overwhelmingly foreign and disconnected that the idea of an English canon is going to become absolutely meaningless to them
Why would they give a shit about quality, let alone read the books which you might use as a metric, when they have absolutely no connection to the people and events which those books describe, when the characters and settings are totally alien to them?
The whole idea of an English canon is something that you can talk about only if you actually have people who are connected to the canon in the first place. But if you go to London, where certain areas are now heavily Indian or Pakistani, for example, why would they not just want to forget about the English canon and replace it with something that reflects them instead?
This is basically why you have this push for inclusion at all costs being bought into by plebs, because they don't feel any connection to what is essentially alien culture to them.
Immediately you can see Rudyard Kipling getting all but erased for obvious reasons, and there's no reason that these other works will survive, let alone inspire anyone else, when the people who are directly connected to it are gone.
To talk about it as an issue of "quality control" is putting the cart before the horse.

>>18579194
I'm afraid I wouldn't be the best authority on that subject, but I'll text one of my colleagues and ask for you.

>>18579222
Eagleton's 'Literary Theory' and Bennett & Royle's 'Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory' are the two texts I recommend to students.

Any good contemporary poets?

>>18579232
I feel your take is overly negative and defeatist. I share your concerns but ultimately there will always be people like you who care about quality. You taking the effort to make that post shows you care. That's a good thing. Will English speakers become minorities in their countries? I doubt it. England isn't all London just as the US isn't all New York. There are areas of England, especially I the affluent, well-educated home counties, where minorities are scarce and non-English speakers are almost unheard of.

Literature has always been something of a niche pastime. All the arts are. The number of people who read for pleasure is very low anyway, the number of those people who read fiction lower still, poetry lower still, the number of those people who routinely buy books lower still... The quality control will come from that domain, has to. Roman literature survived the fall of Rome. What is Greece like now? Far more 'overrun', as you put it, than the UK. We still have Homer, Sophocles, etc. I have every confidence the Canon will live on because there are objective metrics by which their value can be measured. People aren't going to cease to be human, and as long as we are human those works will speak to us. We can be forced to read certain works but we can't be forced I feel certain things, you can't force someone to be moved. And, as I mentioned, the archival of great works on then Internet means they can never be totally erased.

What threads do you usually post in on /lit/? Do you post/browse much at all?

>>18579314
>Will English speakers become minorities in their countries? I doubt it.
Not the anon you're talking to, but if European countries including England don't do anything about it, they WILL become minorities in their own country. Europeans have a rate of reproduction of about 1.5 while e.g. Muslims have a rate of 3.5. Even if the UK doesn't take any more immigrants, your grandchildren will be minorities if nothing changes (i.e. no deportation).

Sure, they'll still be English-speaking because they'd be 2nd, 3rd generation etc. But not ethnically European. People who dismiss it as a far-right conspiracy are very naive.

>>18579343
kek, it's funny because half of OP's favorite works are translations. I wonder how the Greek scholarship scene is like, all the Homer fans are reading non-original texts

>>18579312
None that I care for.

>>18579317
When I started writing my novel I posted in /wg/ but quickly found it to be counterproductive. Usually I will just pop in to offer information on topics I'm interested in, but as I've said above, it got to the point where I'm a bit tired of it. All discussion is fairly superficial and when you've browsed /lit/ daily for any significant period of time it becomes repetitive and stagnant. Especially because the threads are also around the same books and authors. I browse /tv/ and /pol/ because they are regularly fresh, since film/television (which I also love - I almost went into TV and film production after my MA) and politics are constantly changing and generating new topics of discussion, while being balanced out by the kind of repetition that dominates /lit/. I also enjoy /his/, because it's relevant to my amateur interest in history, but it's a slower-moving board and can also be repetitive.

>>18579343
Sure, but I do think something will be done about it eventually. I don't know what. But I'm cautiously confident that literature will survive, even if based only on historical precedent and my faith in the power of the medium.

>>18579357
I do enjoy some works in translation (various Greeks, Frenchmen, Russians) but they're by no means my favourite, and my professional life is centred around English literature. I don't see why that means I can't read international literature in translation for pleasure. IMO, more is lost when poetry is translated. Prose is hit or miss, and non-fiction or philosophical texts can, I think, be translated with negligible loss in quality.

Do you vote? What are your thoughts on British politics?

>>18579115
Since you still haven't sent me an e-mail, I will detail here what I meant. In order to establish myself as a wise and educated man in the future, one must come to terms with their own beliefs and values. Decide for themselves: am I religious? What are my ethical principles? How should I engage in interactions with others? What are my political beliefs? Do I want to have children? What am I giving to this world? What am I taking from this world? What assumptions do I make in my daily life? In what ways have my way of thinking and understanding the world failed me in the past, and what am I going to do about it? How is it that I have come to know what I know? Do I know anything at all? If so, what is the value of what I know? What do I think truth is? What do I think is important in life?
My question is with regard to what should I do to accomplish this. What books would you recommend that I read? What movies?

>>18579388
I've sent you an email and will detail my own recommendations more fully there, I promise. I'm quite busy today but you have my word I'll get something across.

>>18579379
I don't always vote. The UK is an example in many ways of the failures of a two-party system. Labour has made a mockery of itself and I don't see the Tories losing power any time soon. I think I actually voted Green in the last general election. So shoot me. I tend to the right on moral issues and the left on some economic aspects, though I support free market capitalism. I believe multinational corporations and effective cartels are a threat to the free market. I do believe in variable tax rates and would strongly support a decrease in military spending and nuclear disarmament. Call me a cuck but from a philosophical and moral perspective it would be better to be vaporised without also vaporising the countless citizens of the attacking country who had nothing to do with pressing the button. It's interesting that UFO sightings exponentially increased around the time nuclear weapons were developed, but I am by no means a tinfoil hat wearer and I'm not convinced aliens exist.

Idiot here. Do you have any insight about Faust part two? Part one is a comparatively simple and straighforward story, but wtf is going on in part two, gretchen dissapears, time travel, alchemy, greek plays, hre, helen of troy.... Why is it so different from part one, what do I read to get a better understanding of it? Was my mistake that I haven’t yet started with the greeks? Btw submit something to &amp lecturerbro

>>18579058
I'm the anon who said the stuff about it being the equivalent of a "let's play". I like your sense of humour. I also think that it's great to have places where people analyse texts and discuss them. With that said, university, in the traditional sense, feels obsolete with the advent of the internet. Places like 4chan feel like far better places for discussion than university, I've met lit students (all female), and they admit to not having read 85% of course readings, instead looking at online summaries and analyses. They all managed to fly by with high distinctions. On 4chan, people have read the books they're discussing, and they're soon exposed if they haven't. The culture here feels far more conducive to studying a text than that of university.

You've also more or less said that, if not for you and your kin, Melville's work would have been for nothing. That without someone in a position of authority explaining that text, it would have been lost on the world and vanished into obscurity. Who determines that authority, how does that authority curate its texts and decide on a correct way to understand them, and how can I be sure that authority is genuine? I feel like I trust 4chan a lot more than a modern university.

Sorry this didn't end up being a question, keep being based, sir.

>>18575000
>Dietrich von Hildebrand
Very nice, check out his Transformation in Christ if you haven't already

Shame that Preparation for Death doesn't have a better physical print

Thanks again for this

>>18579359
What are your favourite films/directors?

Nice to see some appreciation for John Fowles and Ian Mcewan I've lately been making my way through his books and Saturday is next one I plan to read. It's rare but I never really see Mcewan talked about much on /lit/, have really enjoyed Machines Like Me, The Cement Garden, and Nutshell. What book do most of your students say is their favourite? I'm expecting a lot of Harry Potter tier responses but I would be surprised giving uni level and what country do you think is super underrated for literature and deserves more recognition?

>>18574793
>Go to your professors and ask them about things in greater detail.
I always hear this from professors, about how much they love to talk about their chosen subject. But only one I've met actually showed any level of care when I asked a question outside of class. Maybe it's just me and im stupid and annoying.

>>18579477
>decrease in military spending
>it would be better to be vaporised
So this is the political understanding of Green voters. Mate, if Europeans thought like you, you wouldn't have a comfy academia position or anything to teach for that matter. Leave politics to people with a fighting spirit and stick to your books.

>specialism
fantastic

>>18579480
From what I understand part 2 is far more 'classical' as opposed to the romantic themes in part 1. Goethe starting out an adherent of Romanticism but as he matured rejected that ideology for classicism, and repudiated Werther for example as a result. Faust represents this growth and change and of course there are many classical allusions in part 2.

>>18579486
Thank you. I do of course disagree with you, which is the reason I avoid /lit/ a lot these days. The discussion is nowhere near what you will have in a graduate seminar and self-study using the Internet is no substitute for genuine academic discussion and analysis. Here there are mostly pseuds with superficial knowledge.

>>18579525
I'll check it out, thanks for the rec. Hildebrand and Scruton have aesthetics covered for me.

>>18579526
I enjoy epics with psychological realism, especially looking at the decay of families over time. The Godfather 1 and 2, There Will Be Blood, The Leopard. I also really like Das Boot and Branagh's Hamlet. I like some of Malick's work - I really enjoyed A Hidden Life. Actually, I very much enjoy the theme of the individual at a disadvantage, using their wits to staunchly defend an ideal or ideology in the face of persecution. Work I would categorise under this theme includes The Crucible, Koestler's Darkness at Noon, and the film Man for all Seasons, which I also love. At the moment my favourite television series is probably Succession, which does brilliant things with language (though not quite the level of Deadwood, which has my all-time favourite dialogue). Really looking forward to what Kendall gets up to in S3.

>>18579573
Plenty of undergraduates claim their favourite work is something more advanced than Harry Potter, but still fairly entry level, like Gatsby. A few claim Woolf but upon questioning seem to splutter and I doubt they've fully read her. Occasionally you have a real gem who likes Middlemarch or something, those tend to be the ones to watch. The students who read for pleasure (a surprising few considering these students are studying Literature at university level) always do best. One term a student approached me and asked for things to read over the Summer for pleasure. I suggested Middlemarch and Anna Karenina. They read both and also started 2666. Brilliant student who I will miss. That's the one I came closest to being romantically involved with.

>>18579596
Persevere, I'm sure you're not either of those things anon.

>>18579690
>Persevere, I'm sure you're not either of those things anon.
I like you <3

>>18579690
>Brilliant student who I will miss.
What's she doing now?

>>18579690

It's always entry level stuff like 1984, Great Gatsby, etc. A good way to spot who is seriously into literature and who isn't. Since you're a fan of psychological realism I recommend either Joseph Roth or Emile Zola as thanks for answering my question. I think you'd enjoy either of their works Zola definitely if you're into the theme of seeing a family decay over generations

>>18574725
Hey OP... great thread.

I thought when I started reading that you were me... I've been a lecturer at a Canadian uni for a couple years and think I share the love and passion for the subject that you expressed here. I'm a romanticist by training, but read and love widely in tradition.

I'm happy you've stuck to this thread and answered so many questions. Keep on keeping on, sir. I hope the coming year in Germany treats you very well.

>Effortpost after efforpost

Thank you king

>>18579719
She's an editorial assistant at a small publishing firm in NY.

>>18579751
Thanks for the recs, I enjoy Zola but haven't read Joseph Roth so will check him out.

>>18579755
>>18579778
Both welcome

>>18576392
>They whispered it to me after I successfully defended my thesis. If I told you I'd really have to kill you.

give us a hint, what is behind the window?

>>18576379
>>18579936
What are you talking about? How does it relate to his shelf?

>>18580423
both books are there. and he is a professor, he knows why the curtains are blue.

>>18580436
What books? What curtains?

>>18580449
Bolano's books. The last great writer IMO.

and pic related.

Thoughts on Flaubert?

>>18580469
draw a circle around the whole picture and mark it "what retards think literary criticism is". "x symbolizes y" is how political cartoons work, not literature

>>18574878
>reading verse all day at that point
I’m in a PhD and I hate doing this. I tend to only last several hours then give up. How did you get through it? I’m doing mine on Ezra Pound by the way.

>>18580575
Did it hit a nerve?

>>18580575
Yo did Chad write this?

It seems you have a great knowledge of hipsanic literature, im from argentina and im interested in souther gothic (always be), im writing my first book about the topic, all short stories of argentinian gothic (from the south to the north), theres some authors who usually are connected with that particular genre (mariana enriquez and samantha schweblin)
im trying to expand my knowledge about gothic but im afriad of the biggest works of Faulkner, any advice you can give to me, about my topic, genre or my approach to gothic literature?

What are your thoughts on the Shakespeare authorship question? I'm not knowledgeable about the topic at all so the YouTube videos I've seen promoting the Oxford view have been convincing.

OP here again.

>>18579936
You have to undergo the Eleusinian mysteries first.

>>18580868
I'm far from an expert on Hispanic literature. As far as southern gothic goes you may find Flannery O'connor more accessible than Faulkner. I'd recommend starting with 'a good man is hard to find'. It's available for free online.

>>18581399
gonna start with Flannery then, thanks!

>>18581399
What books do you like by Javier Marías? I see you have mentioned him earlier.

>>18581728
All Souls is a good starting point, then a Heart so White. From there explore any of his works.

>>18581399
Have you wrote an essay on Vermeer?

>>18580469
Bolaño is not great.

Great thread OP.

>>18581349
fairy tale in the lacunae

>>18581856
What do you connect with in his work? I read Corazón tan blanco and Maria's technical ability is to be appreciated, as are his clever scenes (i.e. the interpreters flirting while 'translating') -- but the narrator is so soulless. I had no emotional connection to any of it.

What attracts you to his work? And maybe, Heart So White in particular?

>>18575013
>>18575000
>>18574986
>>18574979
This is peak pseud. I know because my bookshelf looks more or less the same, and I'm as big a pseud as they come.

>>18578796
>>18578789
You sound like an absolute faggot, fitting the definition of the word perfectly. Go back to Discord.

>>18578789
He types like British academic, surprise surprise. Stupid American

>>18583049
Don’t give the shills attention, they aren’t worth your time anon

>>18581399
Quick question: is MLA universally preferred? What if I submit a PhD application in Chicago? My best professor called chicago "the elegant style."

OP you should create more 4chan threads, maybe a specific thread and lead discussions, or maybe in discord so u can really direct it.

>>18581399
>>18583343
Also, to add on this: what are admissions primarily looking for in the writing sample? Enthusiasm? Deep scholarship? Theoretical conjectures? A structurally new vision of literature? Borderline-schizo ramblings? I've got a 25er I wrote years ago that I want to brush up, but depending on your answer I may have to write a fresh paper (no thesis unfortunately)

>>18583458
Doctoral admissions teams are looking for viable idiots to string along for tenyeared positions for the funding and to teach 1000 tutorials.

>>18583495
You've stated a banality and my question still stands to OP

>>18582540
There is nothing pseudy about it. Mostly just classics and other famous stuff.

Hi OP, can you give us your thoughts on 4chan and /lit/ in general? Do you enjoy posting here with us? Thanks for gracing us with your writings :)

>>18583545
If you got a IIA then realistically they're looking for the ability to form a discipline specific limited research problem resulting in an original contribution to scholarly knowledge within six months. If you can actually form a question which produces an octsk then you're home.

The problem is that you need to:
a) Know what an original contribution is
ai) Know what a *limited* 3 year original contribution is
b) Know what scholarly knowledge is in your field
bi) Know what trivial, repetitive, or unoriginal contributions are
bii) Know epistemology, method, seminal texts, argumentation forms, what constitutes relationship to the external or internal world

Jesus fuck do what every other cunt does and recycle your honours thesis.

And remember originality is one of three:
source of knowledge
method of analysis
outcome or result

Original contribution is trivial, but most people don't understand what knowledge in their discipline is in order to be capable of contributing to it.

* * *

"Oh but I want to go to oxbridge."

Don't. Go there for postdoc. Find somewhere with an adequate capacity to support your research need (on top of the archive, right library, right person to talk to), with an affordability, and just publish like fucking hell. Don't do a sandwich thesis, do a real thesis, but publish two articles a year from year one. This is if you want the job.

If you actually want to be a scholar in your field take 3 years off and become a plumber, then do your doctorate with knowledge of your secure line of funding.

>>18583597
Appreciate the response. And sorry, I'm not euro, what is a IIA? also, thesis wasn't required so I didn't do it. Instead I bought the creative meme and got an MFA

>>18574979
>>18574986
>>18575000
>>18575013
recommend me a book from each pic, only 1 each.

>>18583653
I gave you the Australian/NZ serve. A IIA is an upper second, equivalent to an undergraduate D+, which in points is 80-85 (nobody gets a 96 in the humanities.) Basically the upper second tier of 4th year research students. Which in the Bologna system are 5th year MA students. Or in the US system are "Qualled" MA students.

If you're a seppo they want you to be able to write a 40000 wd masters thesis equivalent, which is your MFA. Except in research MFA is a terminal degree like an MEng. Feel free to consult Big Bang Theory for having called me a fucking euro until you understand the shame of an MEng.

Ask yourself what contribution can a creative make to original scholarly knowledge. Consider the distance between scholarly knowledge and creative expression. What do literary MFAs do that differs from "I wrote and got published my first novella," in literature? What makes you more than a bumper sticker on a Honda? But its your H.

What the fuck is a fine arts doctorate? What the fuck is fine arts research? You should have answers to these if you did an MFA (Res.) rather than an MFA (Prac.) or for fuckssake an MFA (Coursework.)

I'm serious about being a plumber by the way. I didn't trade up and now I'm a labourer. Quite happy with it for how it uses my body, but were I a plumber I'd have additional time for research or fucking my wife.

>>18583701
pic related.

Hey, OP back here for a few final answers before bed. I'm glad the thread has gained the traction it has.

>>18581865
I actually read Marias for the way he structures his stories, rather than any profound emotional connection. I enjoy the imagery he uses, like the doorman who keeps losing track of the year in All Souls. Little memorable details, and a rambling quality I enjoy, though Sebald is much better.

>>18581865
I have not, but I do like the Dutch painters.

>>18583343
It completely depends on what the institution prefers, which should be easy to check. MLA is a safe bet when in doubt though.

>>18583399
Maybe I will a few days after this one dies.

>>18583458
Admissions for what? In the UK I had to do an MA before my PhD, and the application process, statement, and writing sample was completely different. Ultimately you want to be engaging with critics, but using them the shape and springboard your own ideas rather than parroting them. It comes down to excellent knowledge of subject matter (and that sort of erudition shows itself effortlessly in academic writing), as well as original argumentation.

>>18583578
I've posted about it elsewhere in the thread but yes, I have been on 4chan since 2009. Scary to think it. I still feel young as ever so it's strange to think I'm an oldfag now. I enjoy taking part in some discussions, but the superficiality of conversation, trolling, and general immaturity tends to drive me to other boards in my downtime (/pol/, /tv/ and occasionally /his/ being my favourites). I also spend more time than ever on YouTube, watching videos on history and lectures on literature. There's a great lecture series on Greek tragedy called 'The Philosophy of Tragedy' by Michael Davis that I always recommend to students with an interest in Renaissance literature, but it would be of interest to anyone who enjoys English Literature.

>>18583597
I would corroborate this post's emphasis on publication. Even if you only rework an essay and submit it to a magazine of some kind, rather than a peer-reviewed journal, it would help.

>>18583690
Oof. Incredibly difficult to narrow it down, so instead I'll recommend books I dont see talked about on /lit/ as often:

>Middlemarch by Eliot
>Austerlitz by Sebald
>Seven Storey Mountain by Merton
>Conservatism by Scruton

>>18583862
I'd love to hear about your youtube diet anon. I should probably get off of it, but while I'm there I might as well learn something.

>>18576087
>obscure interest, tenacity, and obsessiveness that drives most (genuine) scholars.
Bolano had a friend who did all of this donkey work for him. Did you not know this?

>>18583910
Not OP but here are some channels I watch

MODPO Al Filreis

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmHarT70MY

https://m.youtube.com/c/ManufacturingIntellect/videos

Prof. Tim Mcgee https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCnauxpUUfbSUEF-_if72xIQ/videos

Share some u watch

>>18577091
Even better than either, be Native American. You can write total shit and they'll pick you up. Put some effort in your work and they'll elevate you to best-seller level ASAP. Our society is ridiculous.

>>18574725
How do I get my book published?

>>18584081
win a contest, schmooze an agent, pay, or suck dick (only if u woman)

>>18584081
you dont

>>18578992
have you ever had a student threaten your life? do you carry a firearm?

>>18579171
imagine not

>>18585201
I shoot two or three students a year. One to the chest two to the head. Usually racist right wingers. Some times tankie right wingers. The important thing is to get blood splatter over the TERFS and ask them if they cared if he was a black stalinist.

so do you fuck and shit?

>>18585218
You are a weak cowardly individual, girls dont like you, people pity you and you will never amount to anything in life.

>>18585233
Actually I have Zizek's problem with women.

As far as amounting, what's your high score? I've killed two human beings by instigation, and more by contraception.

>>18585233
projection

>>18578904
>If you feel touched on an emotional level reading the sonnets, nobody can take that from you. And you'll intuitively understand how ridiculous and unfair it is for people who have never been touched on that level by literature to say those works should be outlawed for abstract, political reasons.

>>18585272
I've nearly killed a human being by strangulation do I get any points?

>>18574815
Fowles the most underrated author I can think of. In a world where the nobel prize was for quality rather than Judaism, he'd have won it.

>>18579225
Most of the Iliad was written by Trojans who would thus have been Slavic Aryans. These Trojans later colonised Italy and then England. Aeneus's grave is in Creccio in Italy. the inscriptions are in EtRUScan. Russians can read this.

>>18585907
Your mum deserves better anon.

bumperino

>>18574725
Why does education from 100 years ago always look so cozy yet sophisticated?

>>18585218
I know you thought that was funny, but I’m going to recommend you try your witty remarks full of oversocialized nonsense on twitter.

>>18574815
Okay so you’re a brainlet. Good to know.

>Javier Marias is another contemporary writer I see very little discussion about
So you work at a shit uni or you have never taught beyond the undergrad level. JM is all the rage with MFA cucks.

OP here again.

>>18584081
Write a high-quality novel, use a good editor, query the right agents. Full disclosure, as I've mentioned earlier I haven't had a novel-length piece of fiction published, but my cousin has.

>>18585201
No and no

>>18585224
Yes and yes

>>18587096
I don't know, anon. There are plenty of cosy Liberal arts colleges about. I went to a Grammar school in the UK with smart uniforms, very old buildings, Latin mottos, etc. Perhaps it's simply that education as a whole has become overly politicised, over-subscribed, and attenuated.

>>18587439
If you read the person I was responding to, they were asking for recommendations for authors rarely discussed *on /lit/*. Your hostility and insults puzzle me. I wish you nothing but the best and hope that, if you were in a bad mood when you wrote that post, it subsides soon.

>>18588134
why are you have such an annoying voice? are you butterfly?

>>18587245
Funny’s a bit of a stretch for a bon mot. Ze engleesh have theez thing called “‘umor”

>>18588360
>trying to shit up one of the few good threads on /lit/

>>18578992
>Then you have occasional posters claiming Shakespeare was Catholic, who I am sympathetic too.
>You have people calling Shakespeare gay, which I do not believe he was, although he perhaps might have been bisexual.

Over the years, I've read many articles that address these two issues. I think the best answer to both puzzles is given in Stephen Greenblatt's book Will in the World, with the answers being particularly notable for integrating and making sense of *all* the evidence.

This is a great thread, btw.

>>18588360
meds. now.

>>18588734
And what are the answers, in short?

>>18579477
>will detail my own recommendations more fully there
if the thread is still up by the time you've sent the email, i'd appreciate if you could share those here aswell. am in a quite similar position myself.

Best thread I've seen in a while

>>18574793
>lots of short-term contracts in the beginning
and the middle, and the end. You've chosen the worst time in history to enter the market, senpai.

>>18589204
Sure, I haven't even sent the full answer to that anon yet since I've been busy this weekend and want to put effort into it. I'll copy and paste the reply here. Alternatively send a message to alexanderduggan@hotmail.co.uk and I'll send it across to you too. And for anyone looking to dox me, no that is not my real name, it's the alias used in a Frederick Forsyth novel.

>>18589400
Yeah, that may be so. Although I see the declining numbers of Literature graduate students as a strangely hopeful sign in terms of competition.

How do you cope with death and suicide? How do deal with normalfaggotory and clowning to be a normalfag?

OP have you ever read Junger or Spengler

how do i deal with the psychological effects of war, terrorism, torture etc?

Most bleakest/blackpilled books you have ever read?

>>18589485
>>18589496
>>18589520
Are u ok bro

>>18589470
>declining number of literature graduate students....hopeful sign in competition
There's a decline in literature across the board. Meaning less enrollment and fewer job openings even when the dinosaurs retire

>>18588134
>wish you nothing but the best and hope that, if you were in a bad mood when you wrote that post, it subsides soon.

based

OP, what do you think of RC Waldun?

>>18574725
What are some good English-language literary critics you'd recommend? I'm familiarized with the ones from my tradition but I really only know the better known ones from the English tradition. I know you've already mentioned some regarding Shakespeare, but I was also looking for some that focused on other authors.

>father help me the thread
i pity you all

>>18574815
based taste

>>18591875
>father help me
Father why hast thou forsaken me?

Jesus fucken wept you cunt.

>>18574793
>I've been on 4chan unironically since 2009,

Hol' up. Are you that Isabelle Huppert tripfag?

>>18593337
What are you talking about you schizo? That's not what he meant

>>18578955
It’s weird the extent which many people do the work of demoralize their own ranks for their enemies. There are consequences to promoting this attitude.
Fewer conservative or right wing individuals will enter the academy and the left will continue to consolidate their hold on these institutions.

>>18577091
Sad but true. Wokeism and socialism is destroying us. What a sad moment for America and the west as a whole.

>>18594545
>socialism
Retarded amerishart

What do you think of my poem OP

Free me from my shackle.
Pull me from my stone.
My thoughts are tied like tackle.
The truth it lies alone.

OP here, I am surprised this thread is still up!

>>18589490
I have read both. Spengler is enjoyable but I'm not sure I completely agree with him. My favourite history writer is Gibbon, even if it isn't entirely accurate. His prose is great.

>>18589485
Through prayer, my love of literature, belief in objective morality and an afterlife, and sincere attempts to live a moral life.

>>18589496
I would recommend therapy. I'm sorry if you've had to go through any of that. You might enjoy the Book of Job, the psalms, Shakespeare's tragedies, and/or stoic philosophy.

>>18589640
This sort of thing swings back and forth. It's a natural correction. Young Catholics are returning to tradition after a few decades of laxity, look at the rise of SSPX etc. I have a feeling in 10, 15, 20 years the academies will move towards centre again. In any case, in the meantime, there are plenty of openings across Europe. And being an Englishman (perhaps unfairly) makes me more marketable, I've found.

>>18589858
Lots of zeal. Knows a bit about books. More in love with the idea of writing than writing itself, I think. His problem is he hasn't lived at all so all his work is trite and banal. Nobody wants to read about working in a book shop or having a coffee. Once he's lived a bit, we'll see. Sort of links to my second reply here >>18578955

>>18590140
You can start with some easy ones - take a look at Woolf and Eliot's essays. Johnson and Hazlitt are very accessible. I have a soft spot for the late, great Harold Bloom. If you want a more formulaic approach I recommend Bennett's 'an introduction to literature, Criticism and theory' and/or Eagleton's 'Literary Theory'.

>>18593345
Nope. I've never tripped. I will if/when I make another thread, for those threads only.

>>18593956
agreed. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that. Once you get that elusive tenure it's easier, but the people currently securing tenure track roles are increasingly leftist.

>>18594656
Very nice, good job anon.

As an aside.

Would any anons here be interested in a series of daily threads, where I briefly cover key works of Classical and Renaissance literature? Maybe for people who would like to know why the Greeks and Romans are important, but don't much want to read them.

I would cover key players and works in classical literature before seguing into the Renaissance and doing the same. Perhaps it could culminate in reading and discussing a couple of Shakespeare plays.

Might be a bit educational but I'm willing to effort post if there is interest.

>>18595881
I’d love that. My only suggestion would be to make them on a weekly basis; /lit/ is a slow board after all or, at least, it should be.

>>18595881
absolutely, yes!
quick question: at which university are you going to teach in germany?

>>18595910
Sounds good. Might do the first one on Thursday or Friday, keep an eye out.

>>18595911
I'm afraid I'm not quite comfortable sharing that. You'll always get one lunatic who manages to doxx me and get me fired.

>>18596020
fair enough, what are some german writers you prefer? i just read hölderlin's hyperion and i was blown away by it

>>18595816
What books would you recommend on tradition and culture?

>>18595881
I think the board is too slow for daily threads, but weekly/bi-weekly? I would adore you for it.

>>18596059
Thomas Mann is my favourite German writer, and Buddenbrooks is my favourite of his novels. As a young man I enjoyed Hesse, especially Steppenwolf, but find he's lost something now that I'm older. If you were to read Hesse I would only recommend Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, I think. Goethe is the greatest German poet and, rarely, I find that he is also great in English translation. I didnt particular care for Werther but enjoyed the Shakespearean conjecture in Wilhelm Meister.

>>18596084
That's a pretty big category! For tradition, perhaps Scruton's books? 'How to be a conservative' and 'an invitation to the great tradition' are both good. Scruton's conservatism has less to do with politics and more with the literal conservation of great works. For culture, unironically works from the western Canon - follow my Classic and Renaissance series and find out!

>>18596099
Weekly sounds good, I think I will do it o Fridays because my workload is lighter then. My first thread will be intro and Hesiod.

>>18596150
>That's a pretty big category! For tradition, perhaps Scruton's books? 'How to be a conservative' and 'an invitation to the great tradition' are both good. Scruton's conservatism has less to do with politics and more with the literal conservation of great works. For culture, unironically works from the western Canon - follow my Classic and Renaissance series and find out!
That's really the only name that comes is Scruton. I've been doing a lot of research to find names other than Scruton but not much comes up. Nothing comes up specifically related to tradition and culture. It's usually Tradition + religion or Tradition + politics which I'm not interested in.

>>18596181
Dietrich von Hildebrand has something to say about it, too, although his realm is mainly aesthetics (like Scruton - clearly the study of beauty makes one want to preserve it).

>>18596150
so, it is fair to say that you have neither clue nor taste when it comes to german literature?

>>18596192
Yeah that's the only other name that comes up lol. I have his books on aesthetics. I should email some aesthetics professor somewhere see if he can get me a real specialized list

>>18574725
>>18579236
Wow, first time on this board and I stumble upon a lecturer/academic, what are the odds?

I've just recently been getting into literature as a non-lit student & a non-native, so I'm a newbie still besides having read some of the big names like Wilde and Dickens. I saw your reply to another anon with the Literary Theory recommendations, do you think that's a definite prerequisite to tackle some of the other suggestions on this thread? Also, as a side note, I've just started Mortimer J. Adler's How To Read A Book (any thoughts on that? It seems very good so far, but should I rather allocate that time to Eagleton and the others?)

My current major is extremely demanding so I don't get much time, but there are a lot of books I'm very excited to get into, and want to get the best out of.

>>18596199
Probably! Sorry, my realm is English.

>>18596208
You definitely do NOT have to read theory before reading literature, and as a beginner I would actually advise against it. 'How to read a book' is fine, although the advice can be excessive - you're not going to read Anna Karenina thrice back-to-back, after all.

I would actually recommend, as a beginner's guide, Susan Bauer's 'The Well-Educated Mind'. Simple and easy to follow, she is obviously influenced by the principles of the Trivium, and breaks an excellent reading suggestion list down chronologically with a short introduction for eac work.

>>18596236
>'The Well-Educated Mind
Thank you so much for the recommendation! Yeah I'm about 120 pages into HRAB and the advice is pretty excessive, although useful without a doubt. Hope you do end up hosting those weekly threads, I'll be here for them! (though I may not post much for now haha)

>>18594553
Nah, socialism is retarded in any nation when you have a large section of society with sub 80 iq

>>18595881

yes

>>18596236
How do you think the impact of both the Internet and now roughly a century of film/television have affected and will continue to affect literature in terms of form and style?

I ask this just in an open sort of sense, not looking for--though it's up to you, obviously--a totally negating or positing answer.

I'm a writer in my mid-20s who managed to get published on a small scale and has worked in film/television and prose in relatively equal amounts, though I started from about the age of five just writing stories for myself. Screenwriting and film analysis in high school/college taught me a lot about story structure and metaphorical/allegorical form, as well as how to compartmentalize meaning into image; and I've found now in my prose that those lessons carry through, and sometimes treating what I'm writing/editing like a film helps strengthen the flow and feel of the writing, while still retaining the overall sentiment and tradition of a prose piece.

I think it's important for any writer to try and adopt the aesthetic and formal developments they bear witness to in their own time, so they can better recreate through the written word, to the best of their ability, what that time truly was and felt like, in as honest and authentic detail as possible. Any thoughts?

I know that was a lot, but thank you for contributing in such an involved way. Truly one of the great threads that will have been on this board.

/lit/ loves ezra pound, and pound loved arthur golding's translation of ovid's metamorphoses, rating it 'the most beautiful book in the English language'. However, reading the first two books for myself, i found it quirky, somewhat clunky metrically, and hard to love. Any thoughts on how it ranks among the english elizabethan classical translations? What context can you give, if any, that might help one evaluate such a piece of work?

good thread, thanks, will come back and read the rest when i have more time.

>>18574725
Why do you like Shakespeare? It's incredibly dull and derivative storytelling mixed with a bunch of toilet humor. And why would you read plays instead of seeing plays like the author intended?

>>18576189
Wow I need to try me some Shakespeare. That’s a good snip

>>18597048
That's Pound being Pound, or retarded on purpose. It quite clearly sounds, overall, like shit. In terms of underappreciated translations though I would like to recommend Cowper's Iliad (2nd edition). Not op.

Shakespeare didn't exist. He's the name attributed to a series of composite playwright(s) of middling tragedy and bad comedy. If a single author did exist, it was probably a woman.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/who-is-shakespeare-emilia-bassano/588076/

>>18597084
You sound like someone who not only hasn’t read Shakespeare but got his information about him from silly contrarians. You’re only surpassed in sheer autism by people who question his existence like that retard does above this post.

>>18597708
I've read A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. Nothing about those works particularly stood out as good to me. Anything good in them is better done in other works. The low-brow humor is just awful in all of them, and none of them are particularly original at any point.
If that doesn't count as reading Shakespeare, fuck off, I'm not going to read any more of his dull and uninteresting writing just to say I've "read Shakespeare".

>>18597722
filtered

>>18595816
As someone considering an academic career, I've really appreciated this thread OP.

Being American, do you think I'd have the same advantages getting a job at European universities? I'm starting my history masters in Austria later this year.

>>18597722
imagine being this much of a pleb that you get filtered by fucking shakespeare

bumping to keep thread alive while lecturer sleeps

>>18597610
thx anon, will make a note to check it out.
i tend to admire pound overall so it's weird to me that he could make such a misstep. it wasn't just a momentary lapse either - he makes the claim at several points in his career. Perhaps my admiration is misplaced.

Ffs is this thread still going? Can you fuck off and put some energy into a permanent job application? Perhaps if you get one you'd stop feeling the need to lord it over the rest of us.

>>18599392
Fuck you and bumping.

>>18599392
yeah I'm not sure what everyone's impressed about. He sounds like a normal graduate level teaching assistant. His opinions and thoughts are very conventional and ordinary too. What's the big fuss? I guess it's the same sort of thing that keeps r/AskHistorians going

>>18599464
You know that undergraduates gonna undergraduate. That all the questions being asked are trite and OP can’t actually discuss their real research because nobody here will be able to give reasonable feed back and because he’ll dox himself.

>>18599469
Yes, there is merit in teaching. It's odd seeing excitement about a weekly "course" on /lit/, like how much can you learn on an imageboard. You'd most likely get more out of auditing or attending an irl course, or at least one of those mass online classes on FutureLearn or Berkeley Livecasts or the similar. I guess there's always the risk of the teacher being a pozzed gay sjw tranny nigger jew, so perhaps people want to take a course from an alleged bone fide white, Catholic, Nazi teacher

>>18599464
bumper here, i actually kinda agree, i don't get the impression that lecturer-anon is a particularly brilliant mind or anything, he's just reasonably bright and well-read and (what's more important) actually puts effort into giving decent responses to questions; that alone is enough to make this a better thread than whatever evolashit would kill this thread if it wasn't bumped

also, lots of the questions have been about life inside a uni lit department, and a non-pozzed account of that stuff is just interesting to hear

>>18599499
the effort posts became repetitive imo, they were essentially
> here are the books I like
> here are my favorite authors
> here are my book recommendations
> here are the book recs I gave other people
which you could unironically get from the /lit/ sticky image or even PewDiePie's book club list

hopefully next thread will be more interesting, either by talking more about academia life or the process of writing a (successful) book of his own, but I suspect he won't because he's afraid of getting doxed

>>18595881
>would anons be interested in a series of posts from someone who knows what they're talking about, with the explicit purpose of further educating the board and fostering discussion?
no, /lit/ is a board of ignorance and barbarity, get out of here with that kind of talk. Speaking seriously though, that would be an amazing thing to do.

>>18599523
If you want interesting answers why not ask interesting questions? OP has responded to everything everyone has asked him, and it's all basic bitch stuff. I'm more interested in the student he almost fucked, but nobody followed that up and instead asked him 'what are good beginner books' 'what are good German books' etc etc.

>>18595881
Kino. Make a trip

>>18579690
>students who read for pleasure (a surprising few considering these students are studying Literature at university level)
I took some film classes as an undergrad and became good friends with a lot of the professors. Something the professors complained about often (and I noticed myself) was that the majority of students cared little about film. They had shockingly basic taste and never saw anything other than what's assigned to them. While I wasn't literature student myself, I've also heard it was the same for English Lit majors and the like. Any idea why this is the case?

>>18596208
Do be warned, the usual level of quality here is nowhere near what you'd find in this thread, so don't expect too much. Lurk for 2 years and all that.

>>18597722
They aren't "original" because everyone copied every single piece of Shakespeare. I doubt you are saying Shakespeare is a hack because you've read so much Medieval and Classical lit.

>>18600211
He didn't respond to my question about Flaubert...

>>18574725
Truly high quality thread. Much obliged anon. I will be spending my time reading through your picks now.

>>18578904
>What can you do? Blackpill answer - nothing. I have every faith it will eventually swing back the other way.
I'm sure people have been saying this since the sexual revolution in the 60s. The reality is that it won't swing back because people like you are weak, timid, and cowardly. No offense I enjoyed your thread but this is just the truth.

>>18600772
>English literature
>Flaubert
gee I wonder why

>>18596208
You need to hold at least a PhD in Literature or Philosophy, or a BS in Civil Engineering to post here. Begone

Post some funny and crazy stories OP!

i will make a movie about Christopher Marlowe, what should i read from him? aside from his own works of course