/lit/ - Literature

>>20021678
Does this even make sense to anyone or not?

>>20021678
this is why "start with the greeks" is such a meme here. They are pretty much the earliest sensical starting point and if you were to just read chronologically from there you'd be fine. You'd also never get to any halfway recent author, but who gives.

For popular authors, you can just glance at the author's Wikipedia page to see what their life was like and which other authors they were most influenced by, and go from there.

>>20021779
I figured, but I was interspersing my Greeks with a few modern authors. I think I'll just start asking around on the internet for clues.

Do you think a prerequisite general would be a good addition to the board? That probably wouldn't be enough for an entire general, but I could think of some other stuff to add to it.

>>20021807
there are lots of charts for specific authors, a general might honestly be a good thread

>>20021814
I'll start making these tomorrow if no one else does, in the meantime I'll think of other useful shit to add to the general. Like further reading recommendations, shit like that.

I found that it's like cooking, you of course bungle it a few times at the start and it's a struggle, but over time the pieces just start falling into place. Studying history is the same, every era interconnects with other eras and events, and it's overwhelming at first, but read enough and you start getting a broad picture.

Commentaries definitely help and are underrated, whether literary or biblical or commentary tracks for film. I never see people on here going "read/watch commentaries for everything", but I shill it hard.

I just read.

Also:
"The hermeneutic circle (which, incidentally, went on to influence many other philosophers, and literary critics too) is a distinctive feature of Heidegger’s philosophy. In any act of interpretation, Heidegger thinks, an individual thing can only be interpreted by reference to the interpretation of other things. For instance: each word of this sentence only makes proper sense when the rest of the sentence is taken into account. Another example: to understand what a chair is, we would have to understood what a human body is (after all, the chair is designed to ‘fit’ the human body); we might also have to understand what ‘rest’ is, and thereby understand the purpose of the chair ... and so on. This chain of interpretations is a “circle”, Heidegger explains, because as each interpreted thing refers to another, the chain of interpretations eventually leads back to the first thing. Each time we move around the circle – that is, each time we engage in interpretation – we gain a better understanding of what we were trying to interpret in the first place."

+ Deleuze's on reading in the Abécédaire

>>20021833
Okay, thanks anon.

>>20021678
I agree, this is a big and under-appreciated issue. It's not just a matter of straightforward pre-requisites either. Many times I've had the following experience:

— Read X
— Read Y
— Think "Y does everything X does and more, and better. If I'd only known, I would have read Y and then not bothered with X".


Or this one:

— Read X
— Read Y
— Think "Oh, NOW I understand X."


Or this one:
— Read X
— Read Y
— Think "Oh, so X was actually quoting Y. Knowing that wasn't essential but it would have improved the experience and also would have aided memory because I would already have had the basic unit saved and the second text would just require a link to it."


The biggest overall rule is to read in chronological order of course, since a work can only build on or refer to a work that came before it. Hence 'start with the Greeks'. But that rule isn't enough on its own, because none of us can read everything. We can't even read everything "essential". So we have to jump around and hope to specialize efficiently.

Two things I think are essential as early as possible are all the basic Greek myths, and the King James Bible. After that it gets tricky.

I agree a straightfoward list of works with "essential prerequisites" would be good. There's room for argument about "essential" of course, but any sort of list would be better than nothing.

>>20021678
Just read until you come across something you don't understand and then look it up its not hard especially these days with Wikipedia and smartphones

Literature is a form of art, a work of art should be self-contained, i.e. one should be able to appreciate its beauty without reliance on prior knowledge or reference to external sources.

>>20021678
>read book first
>get sense for weather or not you care enough to understand it deeper
>if no then dont bother reading other material, just move on
>if yes then use what you know from your first reading to look into background material
>read book again after reading background material

this idea that books can and should be experienced perfectly once instead of read multiple times on multiple levels is ludicrous to me. also the idea of delving into a bunch of background to get to a book i dont even end up interested in seems like a huge waste of time

>>20023278
You're boring

>>20023306
You're a neurotic faggot who's too afraid to even read a book.

>>20023106
The goal would be either a bare minimum for each work, or a general that allows anons to share their own opinions on what is or isn't required.

I'm going to make the general soon to encompass:
>prerequisites
>similar works (in ideas, style, themes)
>further reading
>commentary
>best translations

Probably calling it something like the Literary FAQ General. Any other suggestions?