/lit/ - Literature

>>5843529
shut up and listen

There's nothing wrong with having gotten it wrong, just leave yourself open to alternative readings. And then, sometimes, surely, you can be absolutely certain.

Pretty much every good author plays mind games like a bastard, too, and references deep psychology, so learn yourself on that sort of stuff.

>>5843529
Just curious, give me an example of something your Prof. said you were wrong about.

>>5843556
>sometimes, surely, you can be absolutely certain
what

>>5843581
that makes sense, brah. which is amazing considering Paradise is the generally the most incoherent poster on this board

>>5843594
I don't mean to be. If you fucks didn't jump to writing me off half the time because you're a bunch of delusional fucks, I'd explain myself better maybe (not directing that at you specifically, anon).

>>5843609
I always wondered if you deliberately disregard clarity, if you just want to seem deeper than you are, or if you just have no clue how to properly explain yourself. Clarity is a really important quality when engaging with others in discussion. It's just plain anti-social and inconsiderate to express things in an unclear manner (deliberately), and plain ineptitude to do it unintentionally.

>>5843609
>nobody understands me
>so I'm going to write less clearly!

>>5843529
as long as you can back your claim, I say go for it

Your professor just doesn't want to waste class time or is a total philistine. If analyzing in that class is a problem, just bite your tongue and get the grade, I guess.

>>5843609
Also: people who think that everyone is delusional but them are generally delusional. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

>>5843631
It's actually because of posts like this that I don't *really* explain myself, anon :)

(I do always paint the most part of the picture anyway, though.)

>>5843637
Pathetic, m8. Stay ignorant and buttmad then.

>>5843656
I don't even really have an opinion on you tbh, I generally don't even notice trips, I just focus on the actual post.
But that statement was pretty dumb.

>>5843575

Mind you, I'm a freshman in College.

We read a short story called Godfather Death. It is a German fairy tale.

Short story:
>http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm044.html

Synopsis:
>Father has a son
>Can't afford son
>Searches for a Godfather
>Death promises to make the boy rich
>Boy becomes a famous doctor
>Death says "If I am at the head of the bed, the patient lives, if I am at the foot of the bed, the patient dies."
>The princess gets sick, the boy is called in to operate
>Death decides she should die
>The boy doctor turns the bed around to manipulate Death
>Death says "you've tricked me. If you trick me again I will kill you."
>This time the King is sick. Death says the king must die.
>The boy pulls the same trick to save the king.
>Death says "Now you must die."
>The boy dies.
Nobody else in the class participates, and I feel awkward just sitting there in silence. like I feel bad for the professor, you know? This is their job. And the entire class is going to just sit there, making it awkward.

Anyways, so the professor asked what a theme was in the story. I raised my hand and said "fate." The professor agreed, and asked for another theme. I raised my hand and said "I picked up on a conflict between serving ones God or personal faiths, and serving ones country."

>>5843664
No it wasn't.

>>5843636

That is what I ended up doing. We went through the semester. I have at least an A- in that class.

We started our poetry unit, my area of most interest, and I've been participating, and the professor has been more agreeable.

But of course we haven't really been getting into themes and metaphor. Just meter and rhyme and point of view so it isn't as open for debate.


I just always was under the assumption that literature was open for interpretation. Like, if you listen to Harold Bloom, that is his opinion on whatever work he is talking about.

>>5843682
YES IT WAS

>>5843682

Yes it was.

>>5843686
for the most part, it is

being a professor does not protect you from being a total pleb

>>5843688
OK, this one time, anon - I'll be clearer for free.

When I begin to explain something, I mean only to explain it. If someone were to just ask me to further explain something, then, I would explain it with a heart and a half. And so I don't mean to be unclear. But when someone comes at me with their delusion, but to one-up me whether I have a better reading than them or not, I leave them in their ignorance.

>>5843667
>ones God or personal faiths
Nope, he doesn't praise death, and he even tricked it. It's more a "Your life or your king" kind of deal. At least I think.
Also, I know how you feel, I got too used to pull things out of my ass in HS and now I feel like an idiot sometimes, but there's nothing wrong with that actually. It's fine to make mistakes, and it's fine to participate because this way the Prof. will correct your mistkaes and you can makes yourself better.
And if you don't agree with the prof well at least you've got a subject of reflexion.

>>5843667
>being in college
>being taught german fairytales
>being asked for themes

jesus christ literature is taught so fucking basic. might as well watch the lady and the tramp and explore those themes as well. (i'm not disregarding the analytically knowledge one can gain from fairy tales but we should have figured that shit out in kindergarten)

tell your teacher the theme means fuck all and his interpretation is as good as your's it's 2014.

>>5843711
>more incoherent bullshit
do you have a history of mental health issues?

>>5843746
No, I have a history of being much more intelligent than you, though :)

>>5843751
At least tell me that English isn't your first language or something.

>>5843594
Paradise seems like a pretty inoffensive trip so far. If we all had trips we wouldn't hate trips so much. There'd be too much diversity.

>>5843766
How much of a petty retard are you, anon?

>>5843772
>Paradise seems like a pretty inoffensive trip so far
He gives us all a bad name, what are you talking about?

>>5843772
I have nothing against trips as such, and to be perfectly fair Paradise has been doing a decent job of making sense in this thread. His posting history, however, is god awful. He is the most ambiguous cunt ever.

>>5843751
>>5843773
>only gets coherent when insulting someone
Drunk talk : the tripfag

>>5843782
generally he's more like
>Bong-rip: the trip fag

>>5843751
>being much more intelligent
People that say shit like that are almost inevitably greasy, fat 15-20 year old neckbeards that convinced themselves they were geniuses only because they're ugly and horrible at sports and they desperately need something to be proud of.
But it doesn't work, and they cry themselves to sleep every night.

>>5843788
lmao

> I realize now that I know nothing at all.

You have transcended. Congratz anon.

>>5843788
If you go by his constant bragging of his cool life and the people he knows and things he's done this is actually not true. Makes himself sound like a pretty cool dude. Too bad he's completely muddled on an intellectual level.

>>5843799
I made one couple of posts in a Kafka thread pretty much, I hardly constantly brag.

And I've stayed largely away from my intellectual achievements :)

>>5843810
I didn't even glance at that thread, dude. I'm going just by other threads.

Do you have a degree or anything? I'd love to see an example of your academic writing, as I'm sure it would make a great deal more sense than your /lit/ posting.

>>5843818
I'm a STEM kiddie, dude. And saying I drink with a dude who murdered a guy is hardly bragging.

>>5843667
I've read this story in that fantasy collection edited by Borges. It's pretty good.

I can see why your professor would disagree with you, but I can see also why you would conflate king with country and death with God. It doesn't seem like a political or religious story, though, and I'd sooner think a king is just a king and death is just death.

I don't think it's so important if professors think you're right or wrong. Some professors are gonna teach you more and some are gonna teach you less. I dunno. There's not much more to it.

Interpretation of texts can definitely be overdetermined the same way the creation of art can be overdetermined. It can be challenging to operate in a strict descriptive manner when it comes to art.

>>5843830
So you have no piece of writing on a subject within the general realm of the liberal arts or humanities?

>>5843831
tbh, it sounds more like he wanted to save the King's life out of vanity (ie to save his reputation as a doctor).

>>5843850
Actually, I have quite a lot, scattered all over the internet, but I'd prefer not to share them here, anon.

>>5843720
There are peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the academic study of fairy tales, and many of the articles are quite good.

>>5843865
Why? I'd genuinely like to see your material. I'd assume you hold your writing to a higher standard than your posting.

>>5843529
Your problem is you are no longer a big fish in a small pond, but a smaller fish in a much larger pond. It is a common college wake-up call that everyone around you is as smart or smarter than you are.

The way you handle it is to work harder than you've ever worked in your life, and give other people the respect that they are due.

>>5843778
You guys were an embarrassment long before Paradise.

>>5843885
Maybe, but Paradise doesn't help.

>>5843831

I agree. I feel like this all gets very personal, and this is an anonymous italian draughtsman board, so it may be more beneficial to not be so personal, as it kind of destroys the anonymity of the whole thing.

But I was out of high school for five years before going to college. The pace is different, and im realizing some teachers are passionate, and others not so much.

I think the biggest lesson I've learned through this, is that despite however well I may have done academically, and despite my age, I still need to shut up, listen, and learn. I haven't surpassed the level of student, therefore, I need to act like one so I can get as much out of my education as I can.

Paradise's title is literally "the idiot of lit." What did you people expect?

>>5843875
Not to risk dragging others through the muck, anon. And my posting, as I said, is quite fine here, too. Maybe give it more of a chance next time before thinking simply to deny it.

>>5843878
I'm scared that this is what will happen to me once I go to school next year. Then again, most of my friends are University students, and not to brag, but I'm definitely leagues smarter than they are.

>>5843909
Every time I see you post in a thread I "give it a chance" and ask you to clarify, but your clarifications rarely ever make more sense then the original post.

Or what exactly did you mean by "give it more of a chance"?

>>5843893
What sort of an obsequious loser are you? Have a bit of pride, dude.

>>5843831
Ok, sure. I'm not making claims about motivation or the theme of the story, except to say what it's probably reasonably not. I haven't read it in seven or eight years.

>>5843920
Give an example.

>>5843925
>You calling me an obsequious loser
You're a cuckolded faggot, get the fuck off this forum before I call the CEO of Troll, Inc. in here to personally ban you.

>>5843927
Oops. I didn't mean this as a reply to myself. Whatevs.

>>5843930
I can't remember the specific content of your past posts. How could I remember something I didn't even understand? Like there was that one thread where you kept talking about harmonies of the universe and death or something.

>>5843939
Pft. I guess we'll just have to see in the future then :)

>>5843933
Did you really just call me cuckolded lmfao

>>5843949
>we'll just have to see in the future then
Fuck that. I'm tired of this shit. We're going to resolve this now. You're telling me the harmonies and death thing doesn't ring any bells?

>>5843965
Of course it does. That's one long-ass discussion you're looking to have, though, and I got things to do. I was just looking to prove that I'm a nice guy who'll do his best to explain a thing unless someone's being a cunt about it :)

>>5843949
Yes, I did.

>>5843976
And basically I was saying the same thing in that thread as Oscar Wilde was saying with that quote about sex being about power, only I got much deeper into the psychology of it.

>>5843529
there's no such thing as overanalysis, only misguided analysis. it probably seems as if you're pulling things out of your ass because you are.

put more deliberation into your ideas, and enrich that deliberation in whatever ways you can, and you'll improve your analysis

>>5843986
I think we all think "overanalysis" and "misguided analysis" are basically the same things.

>>5843983
This is supposed to be clear? Can you possibly be bothered to make one post --- ONE --- where you thoroughly explain yourself at length? Make one post that makes sense from beginning to end and doesn't require further clarification. Other posters seem to be perfectly capable of this. Why is this too much to ask?

>>5843986
I don't think more deliberation will always produce better results. If your thinking is overdetermined, then extra thought and consideration will only produce more "refined" results within a flawed critical framework. Rethinking and refining your critical framework can be as important as how you apply it.

>>5843995

they refer to the same thing but they have different tones, overanalysis doesn't carry the pejorative vibe. it's a defense mechanism.

>>5843998
My contention in that thread, anon, was that everything - everything - was escapism, which is almost exactly equal to Wilde's everything being about sex, except sex, sex being about power. The psychology in this gets intense, dude. No, I'm not really explaining it in one post, not without sitting down to write for a good long while anyway, and I got things to do.

>>5843998
Man, if paradise wasn't a trip, you wouldn't be having this conversation. Disagreeing with someone on the Internet doesn't have to be this protracted, annoying event. Don't make it personal.

>>5843656
Nobody cares if you don't explain yourself when you never say anything of value. Disregard the haters for once and prove everyone that you're a worthy poster, explain yourself and show us.

>>5844016
And I did try to explain a lot of it in that thread, but anons went full-retard because they're spergy retards basically.

>>5844016
Well, this isn't over.

*drives off into the night*

>>5844035
Peace, dude.

>>5844024
Some other time, maybe ;)

>>5843995
the word "overanalysis" is used by people who think they've merely done too much of a good thing and strayed from the "point" in their genius. the word is itself inherently apologetic—it serves to say that one has done too much analyzing, and not that one has analyzed poorly.
>no one has ever analyzed something too deeply
>>5844035
autism speaks

>>5844068
The faults in a critical framework that allow a person to "overanalyze" aren't all different from the faults that cause "misguided analysis." Some of the faults for the latter might just be a misapplication of a critical framework, but most of them are probably with the methods and boundaries of the framework itself.

And I think "overanalysis" is damning enough. OP was hurt by being told he was overanalyzing, not by being told that his analysis was "misguided."

Anyway, I still don't think more deliberation will always solve your thinking problems. Sometimes a person will have to rethink HOW thinking problems are solved rather than simply make sure they follow a method diligently and thoroughly.

>>5844210
>>5844008
why are you following me

over-analysis doesn't exist. no one ever over-analyzes anything, as that would require there to be a "depth" at which analysis stops becoming defensible—which will never exist (unless you think the solitary goal of analysis is to understand what the author was trying to achieve, in which case, stop thinking that)

i don't care how damning something is, it's not my goal to damn anyone, but i do care that people understand why what they're doing is wrong. telling someone that they are over-analyzing when they are just analyzing poorly allows them to use the word as a crutch

you're still trying to attenuate the meanings of "deliberation" and "ideas," as if i seek to exclude deliberation on matters of structure or "critical framework," or as if the method in which one analyzes is not as much of an idea as the result of that analysis

>>5844210

>aren't all different

dude it's because they refer to the same thing but overanalysis is sugarcoating it.

>>5844068
>no one has ever analyzed something too deeply

this is spot on. overanalysis as a concept doesn't even make sense.

>>5844249

oh and that swings both ways,

people will call watertight arguments overanalysis, as a defense mechanism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgHNtzxO0y8

>>5843529
You're not over-analyzing, based on what your professor is saying, but decontextualizing and then analyzing really well. Try focusing more on how your selections from the text are modified by other parts of the text, rather than how several pieces of the text exemplify a theme or idea.

Or start learning about deconstruction.

>>5843686
If you choose to study literature at university, you'll find it's all reliant on your own interpretation. lectures consist of pretty basic stuff, but its the seminars where you're given the freedom to actually argue or explain

>>5844314
Deconstruction involves such a specific set of critical operations that I can't be sure what you mean by that word. About 99% of the time I see that word, someone is using it incorrectly to mean "to metaphorically take apart piece by piece and analyze the pieces," I think because that's what the word sounds like to them.

The rest of your advice is kinda vague, but I think I see what you mean. It's always a good method to pull your most salient quotes and findings from your resources before you've settled on an interpretation, and to let those guide you as you work to make meaning from the text. In other words, let the texts guide you, not your ideas.

Y'all, why don't you go to the corpus of contemporary English and pull the first ten or fifteen results of "overanalyzed," "over-analyzed," "overanalysis," "over-analysis," etc., and see if authors are referring defensively to their own work or to flaws in somebody else's work. Although it's a weird word to show up in standard edited English, I still think you'll find that it's usually used as a criticism of others and not the self. English doesn't present words in a "logical" way, and if people say someone is "over-analyzing," as people surely do from time-to-time (as op's prof does), those people mean SOMETHING about a flaw in a person's thinking, and this flaw exists or doesn't just as much as any other abstract reference to the way a person thinks, and the reference to the flaw is as justifiable or refutable as any other reference to the way a person thinks. It's a bold thing to say that this activity of "over-analysis" doesn't exist when people feel the word describes activities that they or others pursue. If someone writes a 10,000 page critical look at "twinkle twinkle little star," I think another person would be justified in calling it an "over-analysis" if that's the word they chose. There's nothing logically firm and sensible and implacable about the English language to make describing that activity with that word inappropriate.

>>5844248
There's just no delineation you can make to divide your supposedly fictional activity from the real activity. You're making assumptions of what people mean in both cases and drawing a line between them that you're not descriptively justified in drawing. I don't see how you've convincingly argued that people should not think that someone has applied a mental activity beyond its usefulness, and even using "over-analyze" to mean that someone has used flawed critical methods (or bungles critical methods) to describe something doesn't seem inappropriate. When the word is used as such, other people are capable of and DO understanding the meaning. They're not looking for some logical order to English that isn't there, like, "Well the real activity is doing it WRONG not doing it TOO MUCH, so I'm just confused by your word."

I don't get why you would extrapolate that, because OP uses the word reflexively, that it is typically a defensive term used to soften the blow about what mistakes a writer is making in their thinking. I don't really see how "over-analyze" isn't as pejorative as any of the other terms and phrases describing flawed thinking that we've used here.

Also, are you kitty or something? Why do you say that someone is following you around when they reply to some of your posts in a single thread? That's weird.

the problem with overanalysis isn't that meaning is lost at some point in the process of analysis. it isn't, and there is always more that can be said about a text. the problem is:

overanalysis is an actual character flaw. there is something wrong with you if you overanalyse, or analyse to deeply.

>>5845942
I think you're overanalyzing this.

'Analyzing' literature is pleb tier. True patricians
'integrate' literature. That is, understanding how a piece of literature relates to your life and all the other books you've read.

>>5845964
im actually analyzing at the most superficial level possible fyi

>>5845969
No. Patrician is having a life so potent and full of it's own value that literature has no meaningful bearing on it, and is merely a beautiful and fleeting distraction.

>>5845973
I'm intimidated by your intellect because clearly you are an analyzing machine. Go deep.

>>5845975
People who call others or themselves "pleb" or "patrician" don't have opinions worth considering whatsoever.

>>5845992
get a load of this pleb

>>5845969
how the hell is 'integrating' more valuable than 'analysing'?
at least analysing is concerned with something other than mere self-interest and embodies the human condition in its entirety, rather than just your own personal experience of it.

>>5843529
You could read against interpretation by Sontag, that might help.

>>5846457
there is no universal "human condition". different humans different conditions.

>>5843711
how can you be so arrogant to say "explain" instead of just giving anonymously personal points of view?

are you an expert in topics where we dumb fucks should hope for a clear explanation if we play by your rules and ask the way you imagine to get a piece of your wisdom? fuck you

>>5846659
as i think about it, i will just block you from now on, fuck you and your arrogance, why do i waste my time with that bullshit

>>5843529

>I realize now that I know nothing at all.

it's a first step in the right direction

analyze this song to show us your skills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkRL7Wruf1I