/lit/ - Literature

nope

>Why isn't there any good eastern literature?
There is (are).

>...they're pretty much dwarfed by western literature.
Your knowledge of literature is dwarfed by Western literature.


Are you after Eastern classic or contemporary literature?

>>3579599
>Eastern classic
eh it's all pretty boring mythological crap

>contemporary literature
Something like Kafka on the shore

>>3579620

>>3579620
>>3579624
these are always crap because they never include much poetry, if any at all

>>3579592

You're right.

But think about it: what the East can do against the West if the West has Shakespeare and Tolstoy in its army?

Only these two already unbalance the scales. Shakespeare, for example, wrote about all topics covered by Eastern literature, only with much more beauty and inventiveness.

I like poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Hitomaro, Sei Shonagon, Basho, and others, but the truth must be told: Shakespeare is vastly superior to all of them (and even exceeds the vast majority of Western poets).

>>3579592
Heian Period literature

/thread

>Well I'm sure there are a few good ones but they're pretty much dwarfed by western literature.

You think so because you live in the west. We overrate everything western. It's so silly, people genuinely think that ancient Greeks basically invented everything and before that people were living in mud huts.

because the translations sucks and no one knows chinese

>>3579664
i know chinese, as well as 20 other languages

>>3579592
>Why isn't there any good eastern literature?
Because you don't read Chinese. Really, OP, try to think this through at least a little bit; if I was a monolingual Chinese speaker, I'd think Shakespeare is overrated.

>>3579667
I'm the Pope lol

>>3579661
The east is and always has been a refuge of tradition and stagnation. The Greeks are valued because they tried something different, the west values novelty. You can find an example of this in your own life as you seek the "novelty" of eastern lit just because it's new to you. In reality it is collectivist tripe not fit for pigs.

>>3579743
Whoa, watch out, an expert on Easternianity is talking!

>>3579747
whoa, watch out, an expert on not having an opinion and resorting to childish responses is talking!

>>3579743
0/10

>>3579743
I agree wholeheartedly. This is because I am a pleb, and because, having been an avid reader of eastern literature, I no longer aspire to escape my tradition of plebiness.

>>3579592
>Why isn't there any good eastern literature?
>Well I'm sure there are a few good ones

Why are you so indecisive, OP? Make your mind up, do you think there's good eastern literature or not?

>>3579592

The east specializes in writing pure wisdom, zen and taoist writings shit on western philosophy.

But westerners are better at fairy tales and stories for some reason.

Because they're a bitch and a half to translate from moon runes and most westerners don't give enough of a shit for it to be worth the time and effort.

Because asians have other standards for what "good" literature consists of.

>>3579877
>asians have other standards for what "good" literature consists of
This

>>3579819
when you have to be this overt in your sarcasm it loses its punch.

1/10

>>3579592
> Never read any
> Claims they're dwarded by western lit.

0/10

Obviously this is a retarded topic. Not every culture adopted the 'novel' or the 'short story' as their primary form of lingual artistic expression. Eventually places like Japan and China came into the globalized artistic fray and began to create novels and what not.

Why isn't there any good Western Haiku or Noh or Kabuki?
Well I'm sure there are a few good ones but they're pretty much dwarfed by the Japanese canon.

Fuck outta here.

Well, there is, but you yourself are not qualified to recognize them because of cultural/linguistic gulfs. You read their literature, experience their culture, through a number of intermediaries that are absent, or at least substantially lessened, when you get into Western lit.

One thing you can do is stop trying to establish a hierarchy of Greater and Lesser works, because when your first step in reading something is to say "Welp, this isn't going to be as good as X" then you start out fucked.

>>3579631
Probably because it's untranslateable.

>>3579865
>westerners are better at fairy tales and stories

The Chinese and Japanese tradition of 'strange tales' is rich and fascinating, and the greatest Chinese and Japanese novels are right up there with Proust and Joyce.

>>3579654
>Tolstoy
>the West