/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11646846]

SO

[Anonymous No.11647294]

>>11646846
What an ugly cover.

[Anonymous No.11647303]

>>11647294
>t. Cursed to the race of Cain

[Anonymous No.11647310]

>>11647303
?

[Anonymous No.11647333]

>>11647310
It was a reference to Grendel, one of the monsters in the story.

[Anonymous No.11647337]

>>11646846
SO, the first syllable of Socrates. Understandable as it is a complex.

S and O, on their own, not so understandable.

[Anonymous No.11647338]

>>11647303
is that a beobeo reference?

[Anonymous No.11647343]

>>11647337
>start with the greeks

[Anonymous No.11647440]

>>11646846
I've heard it is written sometimes as "Yo" or "Sup" like some ghetto retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

[Anonymous No.11647483]

>>11646846
It's a translation of the Anglo-Saxon "HWAET!" but I think "So" is a weaker choice beside this attention-grabbing bark of a word. "Hark," "Behold," or even "Lo" might be closer. I guess they all sound too old fashioned for Heaney. It seems like our language's potential for oral storytelling has weakened.

[Anonymous No.11647495]

>>11647440

Why does nigger culture have to ruin literally everything it lays its hands on?

[Anonymous No.11647514]

Gummere's translation of Beowulf is significantly better than Heaney's translation. Compare:
"Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes,
in days long sped, we have heard,
and what honor the athelings won!"
against
"So, The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We even heard of those princes' heroic campaigns."
The first one sounds like the starting lines to a translation of a classic poem. The second one sounds like some kind of prologue to a fantasy film with vague and empty-sounding praises for characters who are yet unknown to us.

[Anonymous No.11647582]

>>11646846
that translation feels soulless

>>11647310
>>11647338
/lit/ everyone

[Anonymous No.11647586]

>>11647514
>b-b-b-b-but muh archaic language is bad! we need thing simple now!

[Anonymous No.11647592]

How nice is the Tolkien rendition?

[Anonymous No.11647618]

>>11647483
>It seems like our language's potential for oral storytelling has weakened.

On the contrary it has increased. People's patience for reading has decreased not due to illiteracy but rather due to a myriad of other options. Audio platforms and the proliferation of audiobooks, podcasts, etc. has increased. Few probably want to pay to hear someone utter Beowulf live but nonetheless there is much unexplored potential for oral storytelling through an audio format. Our language has a larger vocabulary and more borrow words than ever. Your fetishism for old-fashionedness (which is probably less of a fetishism and more of a hatred of the contemporary) is preventing you from seeing this.

>>11647495
You're a bitter turd incapable of producing any of the so-called superior culture you take credit for through mere virtue of your whiteness.

You rely on these narratives because by imagining yourself to be equal to some marble statue of Socrates in a museum somewhere you forget that you're actually some fat 4chan slob in a chair and that you're surrounded by sexy ass black people who achieve more than you.

[Anonymous No.11647875]

>>11647514
Students who actually think "Whenever I read I don't understand anything LOL" would do much better with the second translation.

[Anonymous No.11647913]

>>11647875
I read Seamus's translation for a first year english class back in uni.
I liked it, it was easy to read and concise. We read more for narrative than language. However, if we're really gonna argue:
>not reading Beowulf in old english
>ISHYGDDT

[Anonymous No.11647915]

>>11647618
Christ. Why are you on this board? You clearly hate what it stands for and everyone in it.

[Anonymous No.11647986]

FUCK OFF SCYLDINGS REEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.11648016]

>>11647913
I had to read Shakespeare and Chaucer during first semester Lit class in university. 19th century poetry must be no great obstacle to surmount in comparison to that.

[Anonymous No.11648046]

>>11648016
I was once teaching a college English that began with Anglo-Saxon poetry, and I had a student tell me he was having trouble reading Heaney's Beowulf because of "the old language." I didn't know what to tell him because in the next few weeks we would be reading Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare in the original language. Some of these kids have had so little exposure to poetry that they react to it as something from a different world.

[Anonymous No.11648070]

>>11647913
>not reading in Old English
Modern English is about as different from Old English as Modern Spanish/French would be from Classical Latin. It's like having to learn a new language. I see Beowulf as being written under a very different time, by a culture with distinct ideas on what epic or majestic might have meant to them, quite unlike those of 18th century Western Europe, but with plenty in common with the Norsemen, but I see little to no point in having undergraduate English literature students learn Old English just to read Beowulf.
>>11648046
I am absolutely baffled by this. Do high school students not know that they will have to read works "written in old-fashioned speak" if they want to study Literature?

[Anonymous No.11648101]

>>11648070
>I am absolutely baffled by this. Do high school students not know that they will have to read works "written in old-fashioned speak" if they want to study Literature?
We're talking about frat bros who just want to knock out a core requirement so they can continue with their business degrees. British Lit. 1 can hit these types pretty hard.

[Anonymous No.11648151]

>>11647915
I've been here forever. You think I'm gonna retreat to some safe space just because you're a bunch of contemptible fucks who come here to screech about how inferior others are?

You take so much pride in your erudite whiteness because the collective is more important to you than the individual. ethnocollectivists are the worst type of collectivist. They lack even the patience to assess the individual, instead using ethno-heuristics for instant solidarity and affirmation of worth in the absence of real achievements.

By the way I came here asking for an Anglo Saxon audiobook of Beowulf the other day and everyone ignored me so it's not like I don't take an amount of pleasure in ancient wisdom myself. It's just this inspid "hurr durr the blax ruined my beowfulf" attitude that's pathetic and weak.

[Anonymous No.11648161]

>>11646846
Hwæt!

[Anonymous No.11648171]

>>11648070
>I am absolutely baffled by this
>quite
>majestic

for a gentlemen with a refined taste such as yourself i present a classic meme that will be no great obstacle to comprehend

[Anonymous No.11648282]

>>11647514
What do you all think of this one? I use the Anglo-Saxon narrative project a lot, so Im curious what you guys think.

>Listen! We have gathered the glory in days of yore
>of the Spear-Danes, kings among men:
>how these warriors performed deeds of courage

[Anonymous No.11648415]

>reading the translation