/lit/ - Literature

me

the beatles

Milton.

>>4552724
Homer.

>>4552724
Chaucer

>>4552724
F. Scott Fitzgerald

>>4553248
This. Though Chaucer came first of course, while Shakespeare's influence is more widespread.

Oh, so close the answer we were looking for is who is third to milton

>>4553266
OP didn't say which Englishman is second to him.

>>4552774
yeah probably

or dante

1. Shakespeare
2. Milton
3. Chaucer
4. Spenser
.
.
.
9001. Sir Phillip Sydney

Blake

>>4553389
muh marlowe, muh donne

Shakespeare
Homer
Dante
Blake

>>4552724
> second to Shakespeare

How do you know Shakespeare is the best? You can read Italian, ancient Greek, Russian, German, French?

You can't. You just worship some guy who produced 10ish good plays (largely in collaboration with others) and 30 or so mediocre plays that only seem amazing because we want to think "well, if Shakespeare wrote a bad play he did it on purpose, therefore it's genius."

>>4553811
nigga he has more than 10 good plays and nigga they weren't "largely in collaboration with others" whatever the hell that means

>>4553811
Pff. There's nothing in German that can compare. Faust? Urgh. Nietzsche? Getting there, but a different genre and focus. French literature is very rich, but lacks the kind of hypnotic focus that you get in the likes of Macbeth; their tragedy is almost a different genre than Shakespeare's. Russian literature rode in on Shakespeare's coat tails - though they did so very well. Greek: here Shakespeare finds many competitors, but none of them had his equal mastery of comedy and tragedy. Dante is the only modern writer with a comparable richness.
If you don't at least respect Shakes then you haven't had enough contact with him, or are still fuming over the homework you got in high school.

>>4553860
>muh harold bloom

>>4553416
>Dante
>Not Melville

>>4553860

>muh school of the ages

>>4553860

muh anxiety of influence

>>4553860

>muh shakespeare; invention of the human

>>4553860
>muh genius

>>4553860

>muh Western Canon: Book and School of the Ages

>>4553860
>muh gnostic judaism

>>4553926
Have you tuckered yourself out yet?

>>4553860
>muh bathsheba theories

>>4553931

>muh jowls

>>4553866
>>4553888
>>4553898
>>4553909
>>4553914
>>4553926
>>4553929
>Muh ignorant muh comments.
Hey samefag, you can put all those in one post. It's okay.

>>4553937
>muh samefag

>>4553860
>muh repeating others opinions and pretending like i actually read

>>4553860

>citation needed

>>4553860
>dante
>modern writer
what

>>4552724
Sir Thomas Browne.

What a vapid idea, ranking art.

Also Molière.

>>4553942
I've thoroughly read Shakespeare, Racine, Sophocles, Nietzsche, skimmed distastefully through Faust, Dostoevsky, and am currently focussed on Dante. Dosto basically used Shakespeare characters as dolls in his mind to act out his new characters, and earlier Russian stuff was very romantic and thus steeped in the Shake-man. The rest I've nosed around a bit, can't rightly say I've studied and contemplated it. It's almost an objective fact that nobody does both comedy and tragedy as well as Shakespeare. Maybe such and such a thing is funnier/more satisfyingly amiable or more tragic, but he managed both to a very high degree.

>>4553957
>skimmed distastefully through Faust
glad you still have a strong opinion about it then
>currently focussed on Dante
so... you haven't read him? embarrassing, since pretty much every lit undergrad has.

and you've read 1 greek, 1 french dude, 1 russian, glad you can cast a judgement on their entire literatures

keep reading that bloom man, you'll get their sometime

>>4553965
Don't get excited. I didn't say I've read only one author from each language. Those are prominent authors from each that I can say I know best.

You are a teenager. Or maybe just in arrested development - relativism is still a big deal to you, it means you can defy your parents and your priest. That's all it's good for - saying nuh-uh.
Cross the road when the light is green? How can you be sure it's safe??? Because you don't give a shit, you don't feel like saying nuh-uh to a stoplight; you only lug out the old relativism when you're feeling pouty. Enjoy it while it lasts - you'll have to make a stand at some point. On the other hand, you could always retreat into the basement.

>>4553980
>You are a teenager. Or maybe just in arrested development - relativism is still a big deal to you, it means you can defy your parents and your priest. That's all it's good for - saying nuh-uh.
what are you even talking about? where did i say i was a relativist? all im saying is that you're an idiot who is just parroting bloom's opinions like the average second year english student in a shakespeare class. i love shakespeare, i just also am not a retard who goes around acting like i understand literature because i've skimmed faust and read wiki articles.

>>4553957

>It's almost an objective fact that nobody does both comedy and tragedy as well as Shakespeare
>objective facts
>about an aesthetic experience

top kek. guess you've never read any of the following either:

>Proust
>Joyce
>Beckett
>Dickens
>Flaubert
>Stendhal
>Cervantes

>>4553985
"Glad you can cast a judgment on their entire literatures."
You're the sort of person who will object to any judgment whatsoever if it rubs them the wrong way, and will find some relativistic excuse to do so. You can't say grass is green, I once saw purple grass! You can't say grass is green, you haven't seen enough grass!

>>4553990
Pure comedy and pure tragedy nigga, not hahasobsob stuff. Who else goes to the extremes of A Midsummer Night's Dream versus King Lear? Fucking nobody. But you don't like me, so go ahead an cross your arms and call me a faggot. I know I'm right and that you're an impotent little shit. Toodles :)

>>4554014
>You're the sort of person who will object to any judgment whatsoever if it rubs them the wrong way, and will find some relativistic excuse to do so. You can't say grass is green, I once saw purple grass! You can't say grass is green, you haven't seen enough grass!
im laughing right now at how much you are reading into my personality based on the fact that i called you out on your secondhand bloomisms. get out of your harold bloom phase. seriously.

you don't have the expertise needed to make judgements as great as you are making, you should read more. you haven't fucking read dante? and you are trying to say shit about literature? especially shit like "dante is the only modern writer with comparable richness"? and the terminology you used is just so funny, because it's from that james joyce quote about dante and shakespeare that bloom always cites.

when somebody else can see where all your opinions are from it's time to actually man up and form your own opinions

>>4554014

>You can't say grass is green, I once saw purple grass! You can't say grass is green, you haven't seen enough grass!
assess the invalidity of comparing the quality of literature with the color of grass.

>Pure comedy and pure tragedy
define comedy, define tragedy.

>nigga
>

>not hahasobsob stuff
tragicomedy? I'm sure you know what you mean with a term like 'hahasobsob stuff'

>Who else goes to the extremes of A Midsummer Night's Dream versus King Lear
see all the authors I mentioned here >>4553990, esp. Proust, Joyce, Cervantes. Setting aside your bardolatry and puerile Carlylian hero-worship, why do you think it matters that one author should write masterpieces in two distinct genres? Would MSND be less a masterpiece if it had been written by John Lyly and King Lear, by Thomas Kyd.

you have trisomy

>>4554014

#REKT

What a catastrophic thread.

>>4554064
Welcome to /lit/ where those with the least to say post all the fucking time

>>4553985
>where did i say i was a relativist?

>>4554041
>define comedy, define tragedy.

Do you even hear yourself speak?

>>4554070
why do you think both of those people are me

>>4554041
>why do you think it matters that one author should write masterpieces in two distinct genres?
excuse me for interrupting, but isn't this thread about the merits of authors? meaning the variety and degree of their skills?

>>4553823
> Not knowing that in Elizabethian era plays were written by groups of around dozen people and then one of the member got the honor of it being named after him.

>>4554080
>speculation
We don't actually really know that and even if we did it doesn't mean that Shakespeare wasn't 99% responsible for his works.

It's currently very much in fashion to say that Shakespeare was only a partial force in his plays, but it doesn't really have much better historical evidence than the idea that he wrote every line. We just don't know.

>>4554080
Stylistic analysis says otherwise. But whatever, if you think that even the streetsweeper could crane his neck in the window and be Shakespeare for five minutes, then it must be a great comfort.

in terms of english poetry

1. Shakespeare
2. Chaucer
3. Yeats
4. Pound
5. Keats

>>4553950
nice

>muh muh muh
fuck of faggots, its like im on leddit

>>4554297
Do you agree?

>>4553860
Faust > Anything of Shakespeare

IMO

>>4552724
Milton.

>>4554304
shut up faggot

>>4553389
>Chaucer
>early modern

>>4554488

Blake > Milton

If we disregard quantity and just look to quality, I'd say Joyce Shakespeare's equal. Of course, equal quality with greater quantity wins, so that puts Joyce at second.

Taipei is more meta than Hamlet, more tragic than Macbeth, funnier than Much Ado, more romantic than Romeo and Juliet and more self-conscious than Othello.

>>4555898
>more romantic than Romeo and Juliet

>>4555883
But doesn't Joyce get more points for innovation?

>>4555925
Are you suggesting that Taipei isn't the best book about modern relationships or that Romeo and Juliet was actually a tragedy/black comedy.

>>4555929
Hamlet was innovative as hell. The level of meta was extremely proto-postmodern. Joyce was the most stylistically innovative literary figure ever, but below the surface I'd say Shakespeare made some pretty huge contributions.

In high school I was in regular English for my freshman and sophomore year, then got bumped up to honors and AP English for junior and senior year. The thing is, on regular track, people read Shakespeare their Junior year, and on the honors track, he is read the sophomore year. So I missed the "big sections" of Shakespeare

I read Othello and Romeo and Juliet and that's about it. Where should I go from here? What is the best way to get more familiar with his works as I know now as it stands I miss references to his stuff all the time. Is there any book/set in particular I should consider picking up?

>>4555937

king lear.

one of his easiest and arguably his best

>>4555937
Hamlet. It's the stock response for greatest ever along with Don Quixote and Ulysses. Make your own opinion but it's worth a read or thirty.

>>4555937
>Is there any book/set in particular I should consider picking up?
To answer this question, be sure to get an annotated version. Especially in the comedies having explanations of people and events they're referencing is important to understanding some of the jokes.

That said, for the love of god, see Shakespeare performed. I saw Twelfth Night recently and it's incomparable to reading it. Whoever's directing the show takes creative license with certain physical comedy bits, but it makes way more sense, really adds so much to the stories, and makes it fun to see different interpretations.

>>4555937
Get a complete works and then Asimov's guide.

>60+ comments
>Only one mention of Proust

Guys, come on.

>>4555987

we're talking about titans here. fucking dante and homer, man. proust was a genius but he still wasn't on that level.

>>4555937

The Merchant of Venice. If you can see it performed live by a halfway-capable acting company, all the better. Some of Shakespeare's best lines come from that play.

>>4556003

Proust was the single greatest thing to emerge from France until Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec. He may not rank as a literary titan per se, but he definitely rests in the higher echelons of literary history. That man could turn a phrase.

>>4556027

>He may not rank as a literary titan per se

then why are you even posting right now?
to soapbox over a tangential issue?

i get that you're bored but don't be this guy brah

>>4556039
dante is garbage tho

>>4556039

I dunno, Steve Carrell played a Proust scholar in Little Miss Sunshine and said something about Proust being the best writer in history after Shakespeare, so it's my go-to when this question pops up around here.

I think the idea of a literary Titan is flawed because grandiosity isn't always best. Who's to say Shoplifting From American Apparel isn't better than Hamlet just because it isn't as giant?

>>4556051
I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY CALL THIS PLACE RANDOM XD

>>4556050

a line from little miss sunshine is your "go-to" impetus when this question pops up?

m8...

>>4554066
This. In spades.

>>4553939
>muh retarded comments

>>4557124
>muh bloom

>>4552724
shakespeare is second to hugo, deal with it westernfags (except the french who'll probably take it well)

>>4557152
Hugo!? There are dozens of greater French authors alone.

>>4557152

mah nigga

>>4557152

you know, in france, we read hugo in like 7-8th grade. he's for children.

>>4557191

Bullshits.

>>4555937

hamlet
midsummer night's dream
henry iv p1&2
king lear
twelfth night
much ado about nothing
antony and cleopatra

in that order.

>>4557152
i've never met a french person who liked hugo

i think he's like their dickens and they all were assigned him in high school and are buttmad about it

>>4557199

Victor Hugo is extremely popular in France though

>>4557204
Yeah and Dickens is "extremely popular" in Britain but no-one really reads him.

>>4557214

Anyone in France who's interested in litterature has read Hugo, Les Misérables is still an excellent sell to this day.

>>4557199
woah what's happening in this thread, i both love hugo and dickens, chill, people

>>4557191
AHAHHA t'es trop marrant, j'imagine que t'as lu claude gueux ou l'homme qui rit et maintenant tu penses que c'est du hugo pur et dur. C'est ça, anon, vas lire notre dame de paris et les misérables en version originale en CE2.

That anon's just dumping bullshit again.

>>4557214
what
>>4557225
this

>>4557214

kek, i bet you enjoy the films of wes anderson

>>4557249
Taste is inclusive, but never exclusive. One's taste is a measure of how much one can enjoy, not how little. Muse to Merzbow, Wilfred to The Wire, taste is about an upper limit, not a lower limit.

>>4557249
never go full /tv/

>>4557241

non, on a lu les travailleurs de la mer en quatrième et quatre-vingt-treize en troisième. il n'empêche que j'ai d'autres romans d'hugo en dehors des cours. à mon avis c'est pas un phénomène unique à mon école: de manière générale les écoliers passent par hugo avant d'affronter balzac, flaubert, zola etc. soit pas con.

>>4557282

your upper limit must be quite low.

>>4557326
non, depuis quand balzac et flaubert sont plus durs à lire, t'as pris des noms au hasard ou quoi?

>>4553860
>Faust? Urgh.
um what? it was a great play.

>>4557345

pour des enfants de 15-18 ans? madame bovary est bien plus dur à lire que n'importe lequel roman de hugo.

>>4557326
not french, but this nigger has it right: verne and hugo are kids' stuff. plus i don't think anyone outside of kids have the patience for hugo's (or dumas pere's for instance) lengthy insertions of research- much like it's hard to find people who can get into the hobbit after the age of fifteen in english, the length of their diversions is better tolerated at a younger age.

>>4557374
who's even talking about verne, he's explicitly for kids, he even said so

>>4557370
8/10 took you seriously a while

>>4557370
pourquoi parler français alors que tu ne sembles visiblement pas en être apte?

et oui la prose de flaubert est plus difficile que la prose de hugo.

>>4557408

>n'importe quel**

ouahhh, désolé mon p'tit.

>et oui la prose de flaubert est plus difficile que la prose de hugo
merci. q.e.d.

>>4557408

Je suis désolé mais on ne juge pas la difficulté d'un livre à sa prose, la difficulté d'un livre tient essentiellement à son message profond, à ses implications et à sa trajectoire littéraire.
Oui, Flaubert est plus dur à lire que Hugo. Mais de là à dire que les romans de Victor Hugo sont des livres pour enfants me semble soit complètement stupide soit insensé.

>>4557521
T'as quel âge pour penser qu'un livre a un "message profond"?
Tu sembles confondre la grandeur d'une oeuvre et sa difficulté. Le fait que je dise que Flaubert soit moins accessible que Hugo ne m'empêche pas de penser que Hugo puisse être le plus grand écrivain français.
Et Hugo est une très bonne entrée dans la littérature, que ça te plaise ou non.

(not >>4557505)

ctrl + f Ibsen


no one mentioned Ibsen yet? how can one thread be so full of plebs?

>>4557526
>Implying Ibsen is second to someone

>>4557530
his plays are the most performed after shakespeare

that means he is second to shakespeare. or did your post imply that he is number one?

>>4557525

Et t'as combien de QI pour penser qu'une oeuvre n'est pas empreinte de la pensée profonde de son auteur ?
Tu parles de difficulté de lecture en terme littéraires, moi je dis que si tu lis Flaubert sans toucher à sa métaphysique, tu t'es planté, si tu lis Zola sans saisir sa réflexion sur la nature humaine tu t'es planté et si tu lis Hugo sans parvenir à saisir le caractère profondément humaniste de son oeuvre, tu t'es encore planté.
Tout ça pour dire qu'un livre ne se limite pas dans sa complexité à un style littéraire.

>Et Hugo est une très bonne entrée dans la littérature, que ça te plaise ou non.

C'est sympa l'exagération mais il y a une subtile différence entre "une bonne entrée dans la littérature" et un livre pour enfant comme cela a été dit précédemment dans ce fil.

Image frelatée, un livre qui te conviendra parfaitement.

>>4557526
/lit/ has a horrible understanding of drama and reads very little of it. Hardly any other playwrights even named in this thread.

I could see the argument for Ibsen after Shakespeare. Without A Doll's House we never get the transition into realism on stage.

>>4557544
Tu viens déjà de glisser de "message profond" à "pensée profonde"; maquillage rhétorique ou preuve flagrante de ton inaptitude à penser en des termes précis et intelligibles?

>Tout ça pour dire qu'un livre ne se limite pas dans sa complexité à un style littéraire.
tu dois être sacrément con pour penser qu'il y a une couche "derrière" le style. Et les auteurs, ils les portent comment leurs grandes idées à ton avis? ils font des dessins avec des mots? c'est le style littéraire qui porte toute considération abstraite -philosophie, métaphysique, sociale- ne pas le voir est une preuve terrible de vulgarité.

Bref, tu es vulgaire.

>>4557551

>Tu viens déjà de glisser de "message profond" à "pensée profonde"

Et toi t'as rien trouvé de mieux pour essayer de me décrédibiliser ? Tu me dis vulgaire et pourtant tu recours à l'ad hominem, et c'est moi qui ais du mal à m'exprimer ?

Je trouve également amusant que tu me reproches de penser qu'il y a quelque chose au delà du style alors le style est la partie la plus formelle de la littérature. Tu comprends j'espère que le fond et la forme sont deux chose différentes, n'est-ce pas ?

Enfin, je te laisse à ton ignorance plébéienne.

Dante Alighieri

the Divine Comedy has influenced the world just as much Shakespeare has.

>>4557564
>le fond et la forme sont deux choses différentes
Absolument pas. En littérature, le fond fait la forme, et la forme fait le fond.

Que tu ne puisses pas le comprendre m'amuses énormément; surtout considérant le fait que tu viens de répondre à aucun de mes arguments, sauf à pointer les effets de manches qui les ont accompagné.

Mais ça doit faire partie d'une dégénérescence globale, je veux dire, à partir du moment où l'on distingue même pas la différence entre "message" et "pensée"...

>>4557572

>En littérature, le fond fait la forme, et la forme fait le fond.

Hahaha, j'ai explosé de rire. Permets moi de te citer :
>maquillage rhétorique ou preuve flagrante de ton inaptitude à penser en des termes précis et intelligibles.

Par ailleurs, tu dois ignorer ce qu'est un argument parce que tu n'en as formulé aucun. Vois-tu, un argument sert à prouver un point de vue mais l'as tu n'as fait que déclarer ledit point de vue, je cite :
>c'est le style littéraire qui porte toute considération abstraite -philosophie, métaphysique, sociale-
Etant donné qu'il n'y avait pas d'argument j'ai simplement rebondi sur tes lamentables contradictions.

A mon humbre avis, tu n'as aucune idée de ce dont tu es en train de parler, malheureusement.

>>4557584
C'est confirmé, tu ne sais pas lire.

L'argument était le suivant:
>>4557551
>Et les auteurs, ils les portent comment leurs grandes idées à ton avis? ils font des dessins avec des mots?

Dis moi ce qui porte une grande pensée, sinon des mots? Et dis moi ce qu'est l'enchaînement de mots, sinon un style littéraire?

>A mon humbre avis
ton "humbre" avis n'a aucune importance, considérant ta sombre ignorance

>>4557591

C'est un argument ça ? Tu confirmes donc que tu ne sais pas ce qu'est un argument.

Et si on t'écoute, il faut comprendre que la littérature est une succession de mots, c'est bien ça ? Hé ben... T'es vraiment bas de plafond.

>ton "humbre" avis n'a aucune importance, considérant ta sombre ignorance

Attention, tu commences à t'énerver.

>>4557598
C'est quoi un roman, pour toi?
Personnellement, quand j'ouvre le livre, y'a le titre... puis y'a des mots qui s'enchaînent, jusqu'au dernier mot.

>Attention, tu commences à t'énerver.
si tu crois que cette dérobade de bouffon va marcher :^)

>>4557605

Donc les romans sont une suite de mots.
Bien, bien...
Alors un journal est un roman ?
Oui Oui apprends les maths est un roman ?

Ta mauvaise foi est sans limite mais continues donc.

>>4557652
Tu ne réponds toujours pas.

Je postule que le roman est une suite de mots, et tout ce que le roman a à dire est contenu dans cette suite de mots, que l'auteur a choisis et écris, tu prétends me contredire mais tu me dis pas ce qu'est un roman.

un journal est une suite de mots, mais la disposition de ces mots, parce qu'elle ne relève pas d'un style littéraire, ne saurait prétendre à être de la littérature. merci pour ton exemple, ça permet d'abonder en mon sens : la littérature est la disposition de mots telle que, par ces mots et seulement ces mots, se crée un monde, et parler d'autre chose que de ces mots, de la disposition --en bref, du style, relève simplement d'un manque de compréhension.
j'attends toujours que tu me montres ce qu'il y a à la littérature, sinon des mots; j'attends toujours que tu me montres comment l'auteur fait vivre ses idées, sinon avec son style.

>>4557659

Ah oui, parce qu'il y a un seul style littéraire qui correspond au roman, bien sûr, et que cet agencement particulier fait que les mots se transforment en littérature.
C'est sympa les raisonnement de chimistes mais là on a dépassé le seuil du ridicule.

>>4557664
????????????

il y a un style littéraire qui correspond à un auteur, parce que chaque auteur a ses vérités profondes.
tu me parais de plus en plus stupide, c'est désolant

et tu ne réponds toujours pas, pour la quatrième fois

1.datne
2. Issbeen :DD
3. Shake a spear ahahaha!
4. :^)

>>4552724
infinite monkey typewriters.

>>4553860
>Faust
>not based

Nigga wut.

From Confucius', "....By and by you will die,/ And another will take your place." to Sister Marcela de Carpio de San Felix and her Amor Mysticus; from the Ojibwa War Songs to Wilfred Owens' ardent contempt I have never found an author as amazing as the most ancient of all poets. The name the Poetic Genius gave itself in its own witful irony: Anonymous.

>>4554092
yeah pound's poems are really good and many are surprisingly digestible.

Tolstoy

>>4553860
But it's been proven that Middleton wrote most of MacBeth.

Let's suck his cock, for a change.

>>4556027

>Proust was the single greatest thing to emerge from France until Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec

you obviously have very little knowledge of french literature. queneau & perec are pitiful hack writers-- even if you hadn't compared them to proust. they'd be of microbial insignificance even compared to someone like gide, malraux, céline or breton, who are dust particles compared to proust.

>He may not rank as a literary titan per se

no, actually he does.

>That man could turn a phrase
he sure could-- in french. though i doubt you've read him in french, since you seem to enjoy queneau & perec just as much. but he could do much more than turn a phrase. he is as funny and as tragic as shakespeare is, and has more to say about the metaphysics of time, truth, beauty, and amour-propre than bergson or larochefoucauld could ever dream of expressing.

>>4561091

*sucking intensifies*

>>4561098
>bashing on bergson
you know that without bergson proust wouldn't have written that research of his, right? same goes for most of modernist writings, bergson is king.

>>4561297

>liking Bergson
>1941+73

kek, what are you, a deleuzian or something? how gay

>>4561356
so liking bergson makes you a deleuzian?

>>4561365

it's like you can't read.

>>4561379
it's like you are just randomly namedropping things. you've probably never read bergson either.

>>4561384

it's like you haven't even read le bergsonisme. soit pas con.

>>4552724
Homer

>>4561430
>lire bergson à travers deleuze
>2014

>>4555877
>Blake

Sorry but even Blake himself considered Milton a superior. He did many illustrations for works of Milton.

>>4561555

trips don't lie.

>>4552724

yeezy

>>4561091
no it hasn't you retarded shithead

how do people get these misconceptions? dude edited the play and added some songs. maybe he did more, but we didn't prove jack shit and most people don't really think he did all that much more than what i mentioned

>>4553860

This reads like a youtube comment

The Inevitable David Foster Wallace

>>4561972
He also wrote Measure for Measure.