/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11435157]

Is there anything of substance in the work of Rupi Kaur or is she a fad among leftist, 18-yo art hoes?
I ask because her goodreads ratings are pretty high tho I think it's all bullshit. Am I missing anything?

[Anonymous No.11435358]

No - in fact it contains the opposite of substance. Her work is like a black hole.

[Anonymous No.11435377]

She is just like David Foster Wallace, nothing of substance just a huge cult following.

[Anonymous No.11435386]

>>11435157
Most plebs (I, too, am a pleb) are unaware of what makes good poetry. Resultantly, these plebs realise that some poetry, by virtue of being incomprehensible by their own, God-given faculties, could potentially be quality stuff, so they take the gamble and praise it regardless of their lack of understanding to strengthen the idea of themselves as an intellectual. Unfortunately, both advanced and terrible poetry fall into the category of literature that plebs can't understand, the former because of its complexity and the latter because of its lack thereof. Thus we have terrible poetry mistaken for great poetry and vice versa.

[Anonymous No.11435387]

>>11435377
at least Wallace actually tried

[Anonymous No.11435394]

>>11435386
I wrote this terribly. I swear I wouldve done better if I wasn't phone posting.

[Anonymous No.11435405]

>>11435377
we still don't know why he is on /lit/ 's top 100 list chart

[Anonymous No.11435713]

[Anonymous No.11435745]

>>11435386
>>11435394
Your post is fine and you make a perfectly comprehensible point.
I've spend the last year writing up a theory about exactly what I believe constitutes the faculties needed to appreciate great poetry that I intend to publish and am fairly explicit about exactly what it is that people who lack this fail to perceive. I'm happy to discuss this if you're interested.

[Anonymous No.11435824]

>>11435745
Not that guy, but sure, tell me what you think. I'm interested in your thoughts.

[Anonymous No.11435941]

>>11435824
Ok, my thesis deals with a broad number aspects of aesthetics in various media and how various kinds of perception enable their possibility, where the absence of these forms of perception make to experience of certain artforms basically impossible. With regards to poetry I believe I can pin down specifically what it is that 'plebeians' are unable to perceive, which is something that I believe Josef Stern has independently identified in this paper:

philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/stern/life_death_met.pdf

The possibility of perceiving 'vital metaphor' is something that I had no experience of until about two years ago, so you understand that I was a pleb myself until I found at a certain point that I seemed to be capable of a certain kind of thought process that was different from anything I had experienced up until then, which I specifically noted. I ended up writing down specifically what I thought characterized it, and found that it matched up to other people's expositions of 'poetic experience', this one from Stern in particular being the single one which identified more or less specifically the form of experience I also came up with myself. At this point I have good reason to believe that these kinds of faculties need to be cultivated, but it can take years before they 'pop up' in a given person, and so someone can go for years without comprehending certain things at all before breaking past the barrier that finally allows them to understand them, which is why you can't just expect any given person to progressively and gradually 'get' these things with a little training.

[Anonymous No.11435981]

>>11435941
Tldr

[Anonymous No.11436002]

>>11435941
You should read Paul Ricoeur, _Rule and Metaphor_, Gaston Bachelard on the poetics of reverie or phenomenology imagination, and Owen Barfield's _Poetic Diction_

Just skim over Bachelard's poetics of reverie and see if it sparks anything

Also look into Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations for a theory of language that makes EVERY use of language either "vital" or mechanical, on a spectrum. Same with Heidegger, Gadamer, and hermeneutic ontology

I think I agree with you, and there isn't much/enough research done on "training" the faculty of aesthetic judgment (or simply meaning-acquisition and meaning-deployment in general)

[Anonymous No.11436023]

in a word: platitudinous

[Anonymous No.11436029]

>>11435157
She'll teach you how to sell a bunch of white paper. Of course, so will I, and for free. Be the most consumerist demographic. Write a hundred things you can relate to. Put each one on a single page and sell it as a book.

[Anonymous No.11436096]

>>11436002
>Owen Barfield's _Poetic Diction_

I've made significant use of this book already and reading Barfield was in large part what spurred on my intentions to write this in the first place; it provided the initial basis for exploring the 'vitality' of metaphor in terms of how it relates to 'dead' metaphors potentially coming to life in 'ordinary' speech.

>Also look into Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

I'm about half way through this and want to be comfortable with exploring this work by the end of the month. I haven't seen him specifically mention a 'spectrum' of vitality vs mechanicality, so I'd be happy for specific information about the sections you're talking about.

I do make use of what Wittgenstein discusses with regard to the cognition of themes in musical works and the demands this places on the imagination though, which also seems to require a separate faculty to activate in a specific way.

[Anonymous No.11436232]

>>11435713

[Anonymous No.11437730]

>>11435941
Speaking purely from personal experience, I agree. For most art forms I had to "learn" how to appreciate them. Bach's polyphony in particular bored me, because (I believe) I was initially listening to him with ears for homophony. Classical art was also uninteresting to me, until I read Gombrich's "Geschichte" and exposed myself to all the various art presented in there, developing sensibility to it.
You seem to know your shit, anon, keep it up.

[Anonymous No.11438706]

>>11437730
>Bach's polyphony in particular

I give very specific treatment to this as I had more or less the same experience that I suspect you initially had. However, it was not simply that I believe that I was "initially listening to him with ears for homophony", but that I don't believe I was capable of listening to polyphony at all until a certain point, and the explanation for this that I posit is that, in order to understand polyphony, you must learn to perceive musical themes using that same brain processes you use to perceive the human voice; as it is this that allows you to perceive multiple voices in parallel in instrumental music, and I specifically noticed music in general sounding much more 'voice-like' as soon as I could understand polyphony.

I've found that there is there is actually meaningful evidence for this in various studies, which show that musicians actively make use of the language processing parts of the brain way more than 'non-musicians' when listening to music.

[Anonymous No.11438744]

>>11437730
For me, it was the opposite. Bach's polyphony enthralled me right from the first listening, and Mozart's comparatively simpler homophonic style (though not without a complexity of its own) took some work for me to appreciate. We are all wired differently.

[Anonymous No.11438750]

>>11435941
>philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/files/stern/life_death_met.pdf
>Rather the linguistic lacuna reflects a privation of understanding
It's sentences like above that make me doubt the social sciences as a whole. Can anyone explain to me why the fuck it was necessary to phrase this sentence with such word choice, rather than expressing it clearly with one of dozens of available, commonly known words. It's not like "lacunar" or "privation" express anything particularly novel. There are EXACT fucking synonyms in the english language.

[Anonymous No.11438770]

>>11435157
>anything of substance
Rupi Kaur writes about women’s issues that obviously a lot of women have identified with. She lacks technique. That’s about it.

[Anonymous No.11438772]

>>11435941
>I turn now to dead metaphors, a more motley bunch:
The first two classes or kinds of ‘dead metaphor’ will not concern us;
I mention them only to bracket them.
(i) ‘Cosmos’ originally referred to a woman’s headdress, was later
metaphorically applied to the ranks of an army, and finally to the orwww.thebalticyearbook.org
The Life and Death of a Metaphor 6
der of the universe, its only active sense at present.9 “Blockbuster,” as
in “Star Wars was a blockbuster movie,” refers to something that is extremely
successful (especially in drawing audiences and in sales) but
the word originally referred to a very large bomb that could demolish
an entire city block.10 Both of these are expressions whose original,
once literal interpretation is now dead and forgotten
>invariably end with “and so on.” 8
In sum, the vitality or liveness of a metaphor can be of one (or more)
of three kinds: intra-contextual propositional vitality [(1) and (2)],
intra-contextual extra-propositional vitality (3), or inter-contextual propositional
vitality
Jesus Fucking christ this is literally old men in academic positions adding retarded terminology onto high school level concepts. such knowledge much logos

[Anonymous No.11438774]

>>11438772
shit fucked up the greentext

[Anonymous No.11439040]

>>11438772
>adding retarded terminology onto high school level concepts

This really is not the case here, at all. I understand why you might think this, but given that I've taken similar pains to describe the subtleties of what I believe to be the same concept prior to reading that paper I am confident that all this is an honest attempt to make a fundamental intuition clear that might otherwise be obscured by tons of natural ambiguity and nuance.

I really want you to pay attention to what he is doing here, especially where he says:

>The first two classes or kinds of ‘dead metaphor’ will not concern us; I mention them only to bracket them.

This is really important, since what I believe he is doing here is what I also attempted to do in describing "completely dead" or "ossified" metaphor, which are 'vitally inactive' metaphors which are extremely unlikely to be 'revitalized' or resurrected as a metaphor with vitality in a given person's mind (at least without further context being explicitly introduced to make this possible). This is deliberately opposed to 'vitally inactive' metaphor that might otherwise be easily revitalized.

Now, 'revitalization' of a metaphor is a very specific experience, and if you have ever experienced it and consciously noted this then you should hopefully understand why someone would go out of their way to explicitly point out metaphors which someone is unlikely to ever experience a 'revitalization' of, as this makes it possible to better clarify how someone might distinguish the vital from the non-vital.

However, if you've never experienced this, then I perfectly understand that you will find the whole thing to be overblown nonsense gibberish and don't blame you for finding it incomprehensible, which is to be expected.

Likewise, terms like "inter-contextual propositional vitality" describe something extremely specific that I also hold to be distinct and important to the experience of vitality, which the creation of a specific technical term for is completely justified. I understand more or less exactly what Stern is talking about here and why he is making this distinction, as I have experienced these properties as specifically being part of the 'vital', which feels distinctly different from other metaphors.

[Anonymous No.11439265]

>>11439040
>This is deliberately opposed to 'vitally inactive' metaphor that might otherwise be easily revitalized.

Sorry, I meant 'vitally active' here, not inactive.

[Anonymous No.11439434]

>>11439040
Different anon here, but I think I may recognize what you're talking about here. I've thought about this sort of thing before independently, although I've never articulated it as rigorously as you seem to. I've previously thought of this "metaphorical vitality" as something I call "Diagonality" (this is the first time I've ever written any of this out, so I realize it may sound stupid). Diagonality as a phrase is similar to concepts like 'deconstruction' in that there is no precise or easily summarized definition, nor any sort of standardized methology.
I first thought of it while reading @dril tweets. Anyone familiar with this account will attest that his jokes have a very unique quality: his jokes are absurd and almost feel random, but never lapse into outright "lolsorandumb" type approaches. A lot of his jokes rely on a subversive sense of specificity. The author and the audience are mutually aware of the artifice of the medium and the fictionally of the jokes, but @dril surprises and unnerves by adding detail that serves no functional purpose. As an example, if @dril were to make a joke about eating Fast Food, it would be easiest to reference McDonalds, because McDonalds is somethinge of a metonym for all fast food in general. But instead, dril might reference the chain Long John Silvers. It's funny because it's a bit too specific for what the joke calls for, and it almost seems to 'spill out' of the boundaries of the joke.
This is an example of Diagonality: something that expands or morphs the otherwise rarefied system of symbols for a given functional or aesthetic space.
Same thing with Vaporwave. No one person invented the now cliche Vaporwave aesthetic: it was collectively sculpted by thousands. What's interesting is that Vaporwave began as only a few slightly incongruous stylistic elements, and yet hundreds of people understood it with enough fluency to not only replicate it, but to expand it's aesthetic language. In this sense, any collective aesthetic endeavor is similar to mathematics in that it is both invented and discovered.
I call it Diagonality because I see it as an approach that is obliquely positioned between what is cliche, expected, functional, and ossified, and what is totally foreign and detached.
Does any of this make any sense or am I rambling?

[Anonymous No.11439484]

>>11435377
this is by far the weakest bait I have seen in a while. Please try harder next time

[Anonymous No.11439545]

>>11435941
>>11435745
>>11436002
>>11436096
>>11437730
>>11438706
>>11438750
>>11438772
LMAO THE STATE OF THESE FUCKING PSEUDS ITT
TOO MUCH WRITING ABOUT MINUTIAE AND NEVER LIVING IT
YOU FUCKERS GET NOTHING DONE, YOU'RE LIKE A FAILED MUSICIAN TURNED MUSIC CRITIC, ITS ALL SO BORING

WE'VE SEEN ENOUGH OF YOUR KIND FOR A LIFETIME

[Anonymous No.11439644]

>>11435157
Goodreads reviewers are usually plebs. Harry Potter has a better rating than Death of a Salesman. Take those ratings with a pinch of salt like you would IMDb ratings (nobody believes Infinity War is better than Ikiru but the vocal mainstream mass vote tens for things they kinda enjoyed and mass vote ones for things they kinda didn't like and most of the opinions are based on hype).

[Anonymous No.11439976]

>>11439434
>Does any of this make any sense or am I rambling?

I think I get what you are saying, however I do believe that that your 'diagonality' is distinct from 'vital metaphor' and if anything likely to be more general than it.

The whole reason I am being so rigorous with vital metaphor is that I believe that it is a very specific experience with identifiable qualities, involves a characteristic phenomenological feeling when it arises and not that everyone will be able to experience it unless they have developed the specific imaginative capacity that allows them to do so. It fits in a very specific way in my aesthetic framework.

I assume that 'diagonality' is something that, conversely, describes things the involves the kinds of conceptual developments and expansions that can redefine/refine things and expectations from the standpoint of an existing base, but which includes things far beyond the poetic metaphors I am talking about. In which case your concept serves a completely different goal to mine, which is to identify what I hold to a very specific mental process.

[Anonymous No.11440108]

:0

[Anonymous No.11440599]

>>11435157
the new frida khalo

[Anonymous No.11440616]

>>11439545
What else do you want people to talk about on a fucking congolese sweater knitting board? At least its good discussion with clear effort put into it, I think you're the true pseud in this case

[Anonymous No.11440658]

>>11438750
lmao the irony of this is awe-inspiring

[Anonymous No.11440700]

>>11435157
Sounds a lot like Q.

[Anonymous No.11440803]

>>11435941
>>11436096
>>11438706
Keep up the good work. This is a very interesting project and it seems like you've got the chops to handle it. It's awesome to see an anon do good work this like. Definitely bring this up again (start your own threads if you need to) as you progress.

>>11439434
very good post as well. i have an intuitive sense of what you're describing

[Anonymous No.11440973]

>>11440803
If you're genuinely interested I have a blog where I go into greater detail about what I have experienced in terms of aesthetic development and what aspects of my experience I believe are likely to generalize to other people, along with my justifications of this, and where I develop a framework where I reason about how all these things connect to each other and how different forms of aesthetic experience are likely to manifest.

[Anonymous No.11441120]

>>11440973
yes, absolutely post a link. this is an especially interesting topic for me because it's been hard for me to naturally "get" poetry so i'd love to hear discussions about why some art forms naturally resonate with some people over others

[Anonymous No.11441430]

>>11435713
what's the original?

[Anonymous No.11441464]

>>11435981
>>11439545
Why are you on /lit/ if you can't read?
>>>/g/tfo