/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1622653]

>In an A Level English Literature class
>The subject of Oscar Wilde's arrest comes up
>One girl in my class asks "Why was he arrested, did he kill his wife?"

picture related, mfw.

So /lit/, share your horror stories where people astound you with their absurd literary ignorance.

[Anonymous No.1622659]

It was ruled an accidental death by the British courts.

[Anonymous No.1622660]

>not knowing an author's personal life
>literary ignorance?

I think this is a more interesting angle for your thread. There you go.

[Anonymous No.1622663]

>>1622653
>On /lit/
>Someone posts a greentext thread.

MFW

[Anonymous No.1622667]

>horror stories where people astound you with their absurd literary ignorance

Posting on 4chan

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1622668]

>Alice in Wonderland is an allegory for WW2
>mfw

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1622673]

>The Road was a post-911 commentary

[Anonymous No.1622676]

He did kill his wife. He killed her with shame.

At least, Oscar never saw her nor their children again, so they might as well have all died.

Moral of the story: don't be an unapologetic faggot and have wife and children.

[Anonymous No.1622682]

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was about Ann Rand's time in the Gulag.

[Anonymous No.1622687]

>>1622668

Brownbear is in the hoooouuuuse!!!

Brownbear, have you gotten any sleep after pulling that all-nighter?? Did you have any adventures today where you interacted with a girl while carrying a book?? If so, what happened? Come on dude, I've had no good tripfags to talk to/about today except for that AIDS patient Virginia W00f and cheesy Sunhawk! What's up Brownbear? Brownbear! Lit is about Brownbear for the rest of the day, and forever!

[Anonymous No.1622697]

"Hey, what're you reading?"
"Hadji Murad"
"...Is that the author or the title?"

[Sunhawk !nZQ2xl.g.6 No.1622703]

I didn't know Virginia W00f had AIDS.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1622715]

>>1622687
>>1622687
something happened with a girl on the bus but then something hilarious happened with a man in a 2nd hand bookstore.

also i like V Dubby and Sunhawk

[Sunhawk !nZQ2xl.g.6 No.1622718]

>arrow followed by green text

[Anonymous No.1622776]

>watching macbeth in an a grade class
>dog comes onto the screen
>girl says "didn't know dogs hadn't been invented then"

[Anonymous No.1622780]

>>1622697
This would have been my exact response as well.

dealwithit.jpg

[Anonymous No.1622785]

ITT jokes, albeit shitty ones, and anons who never got them.

[Anonymous No.1622790]

>work in bookstore
>people are hired partly based off having some knowledge in books
>stocking shelves
>man comes in and looks around
>goes to girl at cashier
>"Have you got the Odyssey?"
>"Let me check. Who's it by?"
>"Homer."
>"Homer what?"

[Anonymous No.1622793]

>>1622776

[Anonymous No.1622797]

>>1622785

I know! Anonymous is the cancer that is killing lit!

[Anonymous No.1622802]

>>1622776

[Anonymous No.1622812]

>>1622776

lol
A girl in my history class once asked if dogs existed during WW2

[Anonymous No.1622818]

lol
A dog in my girl class once asked if history existed during 22W

feels bad now man

[Anonymous No.1622824]

>>1622812
>>1622776

Dudes, I fuckin' lol'd.

[Catnap !Tqq.iVopG2 No.1622825]

>>1622687

Why do you act this way toward Brownbear? lol

[Anonymous No.1622830]

>>1622825

The question is not why DO I,
The question is why DON'T you??

lit is about Brownbear.

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1622831]

>in an intro phil class
>the subject of death penalty comes up
>stupid retarded englishboy from oxford says he thinks it's okay to kill people in war but no abortion
>then he realizes he's in the wrong class

[Anonymous No.1622834]

>>1622830
Sarcastic flanking. The ol' bait and switch. Irony.

[Anonymous No.1622837]

>In Religious Studies
>Someone asks who Karl Marx was
>Teacher asks the class
>I say "He was one of the Marx Brothers"
>Most people get joke
>We have a laugh at my sparkling wit
>We then discuss Marxism, knowing none of our 15 year old selves to in any way be an expert
>Generally have a good time and not be too serious
Oh yeahhh!

[Anonymous No.1622838]

>>1622831

Wait, what? Can you give his line of reasoning?

[Anonymous No.1622839]

>>1622831

>onion ring makes a green post
>i rape her
>she cries
>i rape her more

[Anonymous No.1622841]

>>1622831
This is the only one I laughed at. Very good.

[Anonymous No.1622851]

>>1622812
this is something the dumb cheerleader on glee would say

[Anonymous No.1622853]

>>1622718

>implying the arrow is not also green

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1622861]

>>1622838
>it's okay to kill people in war but no abortion
>kill people in war
Violence legitimised by the state

>abortion
"murder" i.e. violence not legitimised by the state

that might be one way of reasoning it; plenty open to objection

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1622874]

>>1622861
d&e i know it was you don't be coy

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1622878]

>>1622874
Okay I lol'd

[Anonymous No.1622886]

>Composition final project
>some girl writes a painfully long, derivative romance crap
>the entire class sits through it out of respect, but we all bitch about how long it was after class
>teacher makes a lame joke about how it's shades of Marquis De Sade in the unrelenting description
>I snicker
>class nods politely
>my face when

[Anonymous No.1622897]

>>1622790

[Charlie Brooker !2Z3kTcH3bg No.1622939]

>>1622653
>Me and my friends are kicking at my loft
>Friend picks up Finnigans Wake
>Friend:"This shit is full of Neologism, was this guy a schizo?"
>Me: "Possibly, he has the symptoms. Hell, he was known for being a pioneer of the Stream of Conciousness in literature. And I'm pretty sure that's a sign of Schizophrenia too."
>Other friend: "You both are fucking retards. Joyce was a genius and deserve to be seen as one."

>mfw: Joyce, a genius

[Anonymous No.1622954]

>>1622790
I use get annoyed at specialty stores that hire people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Then I got a job at a comic store and basically I'm that guy. Nerds come in asking about comics and I'm like: "If it aint by Brian Wood, Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis, I'm affraid you sir are fucked".

[Anonymous No.1622960]

>>1622939
His daughter had Schizophrenia, and Jung claimed James had it too. The difference being that if the daught was "falling to the bottom of a river [James] was diving"

[Anonymous No.1622985]

>Classmate sees portrait of George Eliot.
>Classmate says, "That guy looks like a woman."
>mfw

[Anonymous No.1622989]

>>1622985
thats because she looks like a man who looks like a woman

[Anonymous No.1622993]

>On level economics class
>Stupid Mexicunt asks her friend:
"Like, is Australia part of America?"

[Anonymous No.1623000]

> Teach compared literature at University.
> Girl speaks up "Sir, why would internal organs have anything to do with poetry?"
> Why.jpg during a good 5 seconds.
> Realize I was talking about Baudelaire.
> Resign the following day.

[Anonymous No.1623001]

>>1622993
Julia Gillard would like to disagree with that

[Anonymous No.1623014]

>read a Hitler biography
>girl asks me what I'm reading
>tell her
>"oh, that's the guy in Germany, right?"

[Anonymous No.1623017]

>>1623000
I went why.jpg and didn't grasp it at all.

[Anonymous No.1623023]

>>1622989

I thought George Eliot was really a huge Yorshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush. Like Jane Austen.

[Anonymous No.1623028]

>>1623017

Spleen is the name given to the deep melancholy expressed by the author in poetry... below is an example.


I hold more memories than a thousand years.
a chest of drawers crammed full of souvenirs,
accounts and love-notes, warrants, verses — where
from bills of sale fall coiling locks of hair —
guards not more secrets than my heart of woe,
a burial-vault whose coffins lie arow,
a potters' field that death has filled too soon.
— I am a graveyard hated by the moon,
where creeping worms trail slowly as remorse,
fiercely destroyed each belovèd corpse.
I am a room where faded roses lie
and gowns of perished fashions multiply,
with none but ladies in pastel to share
the musk from some old jar forgotten there.
no days so lame as all the days I know
while, crushed by years of ever-falling snow,
boredom, dull fruitage of my apathy,
waxes as vast as immortality.
henceforth, o living cells, ye sleep, a womb
faint shudders pierce, a cold grey cliff of doom
lost in a misty desert far away,
— a drowsy sphynx, forgot by all today,
uncharted avatar, whose tameless heart
sounds only when the day's last fires depart.

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623043]

>>1623028
she has a good question you dumb fuck

[Anonymous No.1623049]

>>1623043

It's like asking what a metaphor is.
It's common knowledge at this point.
Bitch was too busy sucking dick to attend my classes.

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623051]

>>1623049
did you explain it in another class and she missed it?

[Anonymous No.1623053]

>>1623049

U SO MAD that it wasn't your dick she was sucking.

[Anonymous No.1623058]

>>1623043
>teaches at university
>dumb fuck

If he's the dumb fuck then I don't want to think what that makes you.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1623059]

>>1623000
You've clearly never taken a single class in Russian Formalism, otherwise you'd know that internal organs SUCH AS THOSE THAT PRODUCE SPEECH are quite important in some theories of literature

[Anonymous No.1623061]

>>1623053

She wasn't even hot.

>>1623051

I even had them write a paper on Spleen.

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623063]

>>1623058
i am the master of the universee

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1623065]

>>1623043
would you make a witty joke to the class then explain to her what you actually meant onionring? :]

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623067]

>>1623065
eh, according to this >>1623061
i'd just tell her to look at the notes

[Anonymous No.1623069]

Teaching literature is fun though. I remember once I had a class work on Stephenie Meyer.

They were supposed to make a paragraph readable.
Hardest thing they ever did.

[Anonymous No.1623071]

>>1623067

I didn't yell at her, I just facepalm'd and told her to remember previous lessons.

I'm only a jerk to students that I won't see afterwards.

[Anonymous No.1623072]

>>1623049
seems like she found her vocation.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1623073]

An American was mouthing off in my ethics class about how the US had developed a bad reputation. Nationally self-deprecating Americans make me cringe.

[Anonymous No.1623074]

>>1623072

Bitches and whores indeed.

[Anonymous No.1623078]

>>1623073

Germans are more respected than the U.S., only 60 years after Hitler.

How does that make you feel?

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623079]

>>1623073
yea but she's right

[Anonymous No.1623099]

>class discussion on Plato's apology.
>Teacher states at the beginning "suicide as a sin is irrelevant to the conversation"
> Student belligerently argues that Socrates is wrong because suicide is a sin. She didn't shut up for the rest of the class.
>seriously contemplated choking a bitch.

[Anonymous No.1623104]

>>1623078
Hitler war ein Ösi, sie VERNEGERTE POLENSAU

[Anonymous No.1623111]

>>1623099

Enjoy your theocracy.

[Anonymous No.1623127]

>>1623099
but she was perfectly right. he was a bit like oedipus having comitted a grave sin before the gospel first arrived in athens. off to limbo with him!

[Anonymous No.1623132]

>>1623099
>American detected.

Sorry to hear about your shithole, bro.

[Anonymous No.1623133]

>>1623127
lol
fuck you asshole!!!!!

[Anonymous No.1623154]

>>1623099

Oh, fuck, this reminds me of a course for medical students in which I taught. This was a required humanities-based semester course that introduced students early in their medical studies to medical etymology, history, and ethics. Some of the writing assignments involved critically addressing arguments around controversial subjects like euthanasia and termination of pregnancy. And probably half of the class *could not* do anything but parrot "abortion is murder", "euthanasia is wrong". In one group maybe ten percent could explicitly analyse and recognize as valid for other people the reasoning behind a position they didn't personally agree with. And these were (supposedly) some of the most academically able students.

[Anonymous No.1623159]

>>1623154

>academically able students.

In the sciences. Also they probably just repeated previous ideas because they didn't give a shit.

[Anonymous No.1623170]

>want to cut people open
>required class about ethical bs
>teacher suprised most people don't give a shit

[Anonymous No.1623172]

>>1623154

> You just realized that most doctors are average people at best who memorized greek words for a decade like slaves.

[Anonymous No.1623181]

>>1623154
i hope you have reported them to relevant authorities. Were those paper made public? Have you, perchance, ever read the Hippocratic Oath? Dr.Josef Mengele belongs to these 10%.

[Anonymous No.1623199]

>>1623159

Um, no: in the system I taught in, admission to "hard" science courses including medicine required a high score on a points system that you just couldn't get if you were weak on non-science subjects in high school.

Besides, I knew a lot of people in pure and applied mathematics, and physics, and they would have been able of doing what these medical students couldn't.

[Anonymous No.1623200]

>>1623181

The hippocratic oath prevents the doctor from performing any kind of act upon the bladder.

Too bad urologists. Kekekeke.

[Anonymous No.1623206]

>>1623200

It's worse: the original Greek of the Hippokratic Oath (which was probably the core document of a specific school or guild) includes a promise not to perform surgery.

[Anonymous No.1623210]

>>1623199
>would have been able

"capable", not "able"

[Anonymous No.1623214]

>>1623206

What professors call hippocratic medecine is nothing more than RICE : Rest Ice Compression Elevation.

It's the only thing he knew that worked for sure. And I can't blame him.

Ambroise Paré was playing über surgeon and got a king killed with this faggotry.

[Anonymous No.1623232]

>>1623200

There is no reference to the bladder in the original text of the Oath. Here's a translation from the Greek.

[Anonymous No.1623234]

>>1623232

Someone lied to me then, my bad.

[Anonymous No.1623243]

>>1623234

Yeah, they were taking the piss ... ;-)

[Anonymous No.1623251]

A guy I know said Shakespeare was overrated and not even that good.

[Anonymous No.1623255]

>>1623251

It's true.

A lot of the hype is driven by marketing rather than Shakespeare's own literary prowesses.

[Anonymous No.1623258]

>>1623255
No, you're wrong WS is the most important writer of the English language.
Just because it's a popular opinion does not make it a bad opinion, stop trying to be such a non conformist faggot.

[Anonymous No.1623262]

>>1623258

Thou furious?

I think Poe had a greater mastery over the language.
Also, famous =/= good.

[Del !!tjkYLeGz8KE No.1623265]

>>1623262
Shakespeare contributed far more than Poe.

[Anonymous No.1623266]

>>1623265

Poe contributed far more than Shakespeare.

Opinions, man.

[Anonymous No.1623292]

I'm currently in a class about literacy in American schools. The teacher is retarded as fuck. She never has any input on whatever we say, she just reads straight from articles and goes "okay" or "uh huh". Old white woman who thinks she understands the plight of all minorities. Fuck, and she talks about Puerto Rico and is in the Chicano studies department. I heard her try to speak some Spanish and her accent is awful as fuck. Sounds like any typical gringo trying to pronounce the language for the first time. Ever since the first fucking week I've been trying to troll the class, pretending to have a conservative ideology.

[Anonymous No.1623295]

Shakespeares contribution is imaginary. He was just one of 30+ other playwrights in the exact same time period( which if you actually bother to study, which nobody does!) you will find that his shit is basically no better or worse than any other playwright of the period, it certainly isn't "deeper" or more important than any other period piece. BUT because of shakespeare's inflated presence which he doesn't really deserve, we take his shit to be much much more important than it actually is! Do research to back up your opinion you faggot. and instead try reading Ben Jonson, nevermind the fact that he is just a playwright who wrote better prose than shakespeare in the same time period! Now, show me someone who was writing stuff similar to Poe in Poes time and we will have a standoff!

[Anonymous No.1623298]

>>1623295

Besides, the French Trinity (Corneille, Molière and Racine) pretty much redefined theatre, and they didn't need Shakespeare for that.

[Anonymous No.1623299]

>>1623295
>>1623295

Wow you all just got owned, and It wasn't even by me, I'm
>>1623262
>>1623266

[Anonymous No.1623301]

>>1623295
>>1623295
Shakespeare is actually awesome as hell. I mean, the man was a genius in terms of his characters and his subtlety of psychological insight and his use of language. He wrote a lot of stuff that's simply magnificent. Whatever your opinions of Ben Jonson I don't see how you can say that Hamlet or Richard III or Henry V or Tempest are anything but genius, regardless of what else was written in the period. Hamlet is an extraordinary achievement.

[Anonymous No.1623303]

>>1623298
>implying thrust stage is not the most popular stage and wasn't pioneered by Shakespeare
Also, way to blurt opinions, hipster scum

[Anonymous No.1623305]

>>1623299

Nope, I wrote those.
In any event, bardolatry needs no further commenting.

Retards being retards on /lit/, nothing new.

[Anonymous No.1623307]

Poe was a mediocre poet and a barely passable storywriter. Anyone who tries to compare him to Shakespeare is on another fucking planet.

[Anonymous No.1623310]

>>1623303

Aeschylus, Sophocles and all preceded Shaky by 2000 years.

You tried though, don't feel bad.

[Anonymous No.1623311]

>>1623307

Stop liking what I don't like please.

[Anonymous No.1623318]

>>1623301
>I haven't read any playwrights from the period except shakespeare but I will reassert that he is still the best anyway because I can't stand to be wrong or go against what I was taught in school!

[Anonymous No.1623320]

Influence is a pretty bad way to judge how good a writer is. Nihil sub sole novum an all that. Just focus on how good the writer is for himself without worrying about his historical import.

[Anonymous No.1623325]

>>1622653
OP you should have said 'yeah he shot her while they were reenacting William Tell'

[Anonymous No.1623328]

>>1623320

Then Shakespeare is average.

[Anonymous No.1623329]

>>1623325

I was thinking the same thing when I first read this thread.

[Anonymous No.1623332]

>>1623328
How was he average? His use of language was incredible, his characters were subtle and complex, his psychology deft, and many of his plays are stunningly relevant even today. Obviously, he wasn't startlingly original in terms of material, and his plots may have been weak. Outside of that, what do you view as his defects, and how do you deny the existence of his virtues?

>>1623318
Not saying he is the best I am saying he is good on his own terms. Maybe Ben Jonson is better. I doubt it, but I can't say for sure. The only claim I'm making is that Shakespeare is good.

[Anonymous No.1623339]

>>1623320

And how do you judge how good a playwright is? "Oh by comparing him to other playwrights of the era?" Oh but nobody has read any of those so how can people keep claiming that shakespeare is a genius!!?

[Anonymous No.1623342]

>shakespeare class
>pontius pilate reference
>girl asks "who was pon-tee-us pilates" (pilates like the exercise thing)
>rage

[Anonymous No.1623344]

>>1623310
That's a very different kind of thrust, and is not what we mean now by thrust. You fucked up, but at least you tried.

[Anonymous No.1623349]

>>1623344

No it's not. The Greeks had every kind of theatre possible.

Keep trying.

[Anonymous No.1623355]

>>1623325
or beat her while pregnant & stabbed her at a party

[Anonymous No.1623360]

>>1623332

I lol'd when I read your post.
First you go
>How was he average? His use of language was incredible, his characters were subtle and complex, his psychology deft, and many of his plays are stunningly relevant even today.

Then you go
> Not saying he was the best.

Basically my thing is IF YOU HAD READ ANYTHING BY ANY OTHER PLAYWRIGHT OF THE PERIOD YOU WOULD REALIZE THEY ALL HAVE SIMILAR LEVELS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY AND AMAZING USE OF LANGUAGE!! SOME ARE ARGUABLY MUCH MORE RELEVANT TODAY THAN SHAKESPEARE AND ARGUABLY BETTER AT BOTH THINGS YOU MENTIONED

OH WAIT!!!!! how on earth would you know that since you have never heard of any of those other playwrights because people arbitrarily decided to boost him to an Iconic status!

[Anonymous No.1623362]

:(

What a terrible thread... no tripfags... why are we even making offtopic posts like this?

Any tripfags want to comment on this debate? Sure you could set us straight... come on, Fab, I know you have an opinion!

[Fabulous !!GXZe+d0RTva No.1623363]

>>1623362
what are you speaking on?

i can't be bothered to skim this bitch

[Anonymous No.1623369]

>>1623363
Whatever you want to talk about is fine Fabulous! I think we're talking about Shakespeare, but, you know, this board is about you, not dumb old playwrights!

[Anonymous No.1623373]

Last semester some dumb bitch asked if it was appropriate to examine Langston Hughes's poetry by looking at him as an African American, because these days everybody is coming out from oppression.

[Anonymous No.1623380]

>>1623360

Let me argue it this way.

Say I had
Heidegger
Sartre
Nietzsche
Kant
Camus
ECT

All writing books in the exact same period!!
Now, for some reason people decide without reason that say Sartre is the greatest philosopher of all time! and then nobody ever decides to read any of the others because everybody has forgotten about them.

You right now are arguing that sartre(shakespeare) is the best philosopher because it was shoved down your throat since you were a kid and I am saying there are other philosophers of the period and your a dumbass.

Does that put it into perspective for everyone?

[Catnap !Tqq.iVopG2 No.1623388]

>>1623380

Haha, that is a pretty cool argument, makes me wish I knew more about other playwrights.

[Anonymous No.1623389]

>>1623380
Your analogy is fucking terrible tho because all I am arguing is that Sartre is a good philosopher. I'm specifically NOT arguing that he's the best philosopher of all time. I'm saying that Shakespeare's plays are good as we measure goodness in plays.

[Anonymous No.1623390]

"unfortunately feminism still exists in today's society" - classmate who somehow thought feminism meant sexism after two weeks of a unit on feminist criticism

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1623394]

>>1623388
as more newer stuff and white-guilt texts became part of university course material people like shakespeare's contemporaries fell out of their former popularity.

thoughts?

[Anonymous No.1623397]

>>1623389

I picked sartre specifically because his work is nothing but expanding on the ideas of others. Kind of like shakespeare, which you wouldn't know about.

[Anonymous No.1623400]

>>1623394
That's pretty much factually wrong though. It's not like they were teaching in depth on Elizabethan drama in most high schools or colleges in the 30s or 40s or 50s. Shakespeare's popularity compared to his contemporaries is due to factors across the 400 years since he wrote.

[Anonymous No.1623403]

>>1623397
okay cool we're done here

[Anonymous No.1623404]

I'm sure many people here consider Voltaire god tier.
If you're French, you'd realize that this guy can't write for crap.

Seriously, he is on the level as Stephenie Meyer. Not one of his books is well written. Zadig, Candide, Micromégas, you name it, it's shit.

[Catnap !Tqq.iVopG2 No.1623406]

>>1623394

Hehe white-guilt, feminism, queer theory, and everything else I suppose.

[Anonymous No.1623414]

ITT : disgusting bardolatry.

[Anonymous No.1623426]

>>1623400

Specifically his rise to popularity was in the 1800's in england when there was an increased interest in plays again and they started off by showing his works all the time over and over again. (it is more complicated than this, I wrote my graduate thesis specifically on the subject of shakespeares reemergence and his assimalation into popular culture alongside the decline in interest in his peers it is really a complex subject and is mostly due to chance happenings)

[Catnap !Tqq.iVopG2 No.1623433]

>>1623426

You learn something new every day I guess.c

[Anonymous No.1623444]

>>1623404l

in the u.s., voltaire is more recognized for his work for the enlightment, trying to reduce the power and influence or the tyrannical and repressive french royalty and catholic church.

with that said, the only thing i read by him is candide, and it's one of my favorite books.

sometimes you don't hafta be a prose master like hemingway to be remembered and honored. sometime it's the quality of what's in the prose, and not the prose itself.

[Anonymous No.1623459]

>>1622831
stupid whore bitch

[Anonymous No.1623463]

friend told me of dumb redneck or dumb jock saying:

"moby dick: is that the the fish, the boat, or the captain?"

[Anonymous No.1623474]

ITT so much circlejerk
>LOL I haz knowledge but anyone else who does not have the same tid bit of knowledge as me is a dumbfuck clearly.

I come to 4chan to get away from these type of cunts; this is why tripfagging is annoying more often than it is enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.1623481]

>>1623295

It's certainly not true that Shakespeare was merely one of many (I doubt you have read thirty Jacobean/Elizabethan playwrights, by the way). He was the first playwright in the 17th century to whom authorship was attributed on a consistent basis. The first folio of 1623 marks a really profound shift in the literary world.

Just to give one example: the bestselling play of that period was Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, but nobody knew that it was Kyd's Spanish Tragedy because there is only one reference to his authorship in the whole of the 17th century. The invention of Shakespeare as author was unprecedented, and it inspired Jonson to collect his own works in a similar format.

You didn't provide any substantial literary analysis of why you think Jonson was superior (although you did notably only refer to prose), so not much need be said on that. Let's leave the last words to Jonson himself:

To draw no envy, SHAKSPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.

[Anonymous No.1623487]

>>1622831

Which college are you at which has a program with Oxford?

[Anonymous No.1623491]

So many pretentious idiots talking out of their ass in this thread......

[Anonymous No.1623494]

>>1623397

That is true of all playwrights of the period. It's only by profoundly anachronistic standards that you would suggest that Shakespeare can be disparaged because he "expanded on the works of others".

[Anonymous No.1623495]

>>1623487
Well shit. He's at Oxford, guys, he's automatically correct. Wait no he's not even at Oxford, his college just has a program with them. QUAIL BEFORE HIS LITERARY PENIS.

[Anonymous No.1623497]

>>1623495

Please stop embarrassing yourself.

[Anonymous No.1623498]

>>1623487
Seriously I think this is the most idiotic, pretentious asshole post in the history of /lit/. It's kind of astounding how hard this guy is trying to namedrop and how much he's failing.

[Anonymous No.1623505]

>>1623498

This post does not make sense. What is pretentious about asking which college someone attends? /lit/'s inferiority complex is on display here.

[Anonymous No.1623509]

>>1623394

Complete nonsense. Study of Shakespeare's contemporaries as more than merely foils for the Bard has increased greatly in the last 30 years, as has critical attention on the same authors.

>>1623360

>IF YOU HAD READ ANYTHING BY ANY OTHER PLAYWRIGHT OF THE PERIOD YOU WOULD REALIZE THEY ALL HAVE SIMILAR LEVELS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY

...really? Are you sure? I mean I love Marlowe, I love Dekker, I love Middleton, and Jonson - well, he's alright - but I'm not sure this is an accurate description of their technique. They tend rather more than Shakespeare towards the stylised characterisation and genre rigidity then orthodox.

[Anonymous No.1623511]

>>1623494

People in this thread were citing his work as stunning innovation when really it wasn't all that innovative comparative to others at the time his work is quite derivative and isn't so special.

[Anonymous No.1623513]

>>1623342

Here you go, anon: Pontius Pilates.

[Anonymous No.1623514]

>>1623505
Hahahahahaha shut the fuck up, you pretentious ass, don't try and pretend you were innocently asking which college they went to. you were trying to flex your literary nuts, don't even fucking pretend, the problem is you apparently don't have shit in the way of credentials & yet you still think you're better than the rest of us. eat a dick.

[Anonymous No.1623519]

>>1623511
Shut it. I specifically said that I was arguing that Shakespeare was a good playwright irrespective of his innovation and you were all like LOL NO BEN JONSON IS SO MUCH BETTER. And, well, I HAVEN'T read Ben Jonson so I didn't really disagree with you, although I was skeptical. But don't try to play it off like you weren't arguing that Shakespeare was shit (or that other, more obscure playwrights were clearly better, unlike that pop shit you guys listen to) (what I am implying is that you are a hipster asshole)

[Anonymous No.1623523]

>>1623509

The specifics of his argument are arguable, but that doesn't make his claim any less valid in my eyes. I had never heard of any of these other playwrights until I read these posts and I am going to a English PhD. Honestly I thought Shakespeare was the only one haha.

[Anonymous No.1623527]

>>1623514

I am better than you, but not because I'm at Oxford. I'm posting anonymously and I didn't even mention it in the course of an argument. What exactly would be the point of flexing one's literary nuts?

[Anonymous No.1623528]

>>1623523
Be starting an English PhD****

[Anonymous No.1623530]

>>1623527
Shut up, we can all read the thread and see what you did

suck a dick. for reference: >>1623487

[Donne !!+SByMppsy+r No.1623532]

>>1623528
Seriously? What sort of English undergrad did you have?

[Anonymous No.1623536]

>>1623523
>>1623523

Wow. You've never heard of Jonson or Marlowe? Perhaps the scholarly life isn't for you. These aren't at all obscure people.

[Anonymous No.1623550]

>>1623536
>>1623532

I thought it was an average undergrad program, I studied
17th and 18th centuries
19th century
and 20th and 21st centuries

I did a class for all three, I don't think they even offered anything earlier than that.

[Anonymous No.1623565]

>>1623550

>studied Renaissance/Middle Ages literature Freshman year of college
>it wasn't even an English class
>it was a History class

Srsly?

[Anonymous No.1623567]

>>1623550

I find it hard to believe you've attained a master's degree if everything you know about literature was gleaned from undergraduate English classes.

[Anonymous No.1623568]

>>1623491
Welcome to /lit/ you must be new here.

[Anonymous No.1623580]

>>1623266

I think it's difficult to argue that Shakespeare has been a less *influential* writer than Poe: for sheer length of time, and breadth of readers and audiences, WS must win. Similarly, it would be hard to dispute that the King James Bible has been the most influential single book in English. But influence (which can be measured in various ways, so is not entirely a matter of opinion) is a measure - not the only measure; but one - of importance, not of intrinsic or relative merit. Shakespeare's influence has had the advantage of being promoted by a long period as a staple of education and the stage, and by his unofficial status as England's national poet; just as the KJB's influence has had the advantage of being tied to the established church of England, and the dominant religion of the Anglophone world for four hundred years.

Personally, I suspect arguments over intrinsic merit are intrinsically pointless.

[Anonymous No.1623585]

>>1623580
dope

[Anonymous No.1623599]

>>1623390

[Anonymous No.1623605]

>>1623585

Yes, I know full sentences are hard.

[Anonymous No.1623624]

How bout you all like what you like, and not really care about what other people like and try to sway their opinions because none of this shit is going to matter once you die.

Oh sorry, wrong board.

[Anonymous No.1623658]

> friendly debate in class with literary heroes and villians on who's the best representation for a hero and or villian.

> Macbeth, Sir Gawain, Beowulf are the ones brought up.

> First comment by a female student,

'Beowulf can't compare to Sir Gawain because he's not a christian. That's why I think Sir Gawain's better, he's Christian so his morals and actions are better because he follows God.'


I wasn't sure of what I suppose to say to that.

> mfw she was serious.

[Anonymous No.1623684]

>>1623658
at least this is a defensible position, unlike your bewildered cultural relativism..

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623688]

>>1623658
you dumb fuck

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1623696]

>>1623688
cool it.

[Anonymous No.1623702]

>>1623658

Of course, it's actually pretty important to Beowulf that its protagonist is not a Christian.

[♥onionring♥ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1623710]

>>1623696
i doubt that story is real.

[Anonymous No.1623716]

>>1623702
Apparently by her standard, of Beowulf not being a Christian, made him inferior somehow to Sir Gawain.

I would have respected her comment well enough if it had actually been backed by more then just 'lol he's not of my religion, he's durm.'

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1623719]

>>1623710
i know, it probably isn't. just go stick the kettle on. come back, do work or something. then go back and make some tea or coffee.

[Anonymous No.1623730]

my life was made when oscar wilde was the answer to a final jeopardy question and i was the only person watching who knew the answer

[MadameStoryteller !!n0DStecdbCI No.1623749]

Here's a story from when I was working at Barnes & Noble. A drawfag sketched this for me.

God, that job made me so angry.

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1623752]

>>1623749
>>>/b/

[Anonymous No.1623772]

Scene. A bookshop.

Enter two customers, male and female, latter with a list.

Male: What's the first thing we're looking for?

Female: Euripides.

Male: Who wrote that?

[Anonymous No.1623793]

>>1623749
Why did you get angry at that? Doesn't Stephanie Meyer write under the pseudonym Jodi Picoult?

[Anonymous No.1623805]

Posts about how little the masses know about literature are almost as annoying as posts about how little the masses know about music.

But really, the pretentious wanking is the same on both boards.

[Anonymous No.1623809]

>>1623793

1/10

[Anonymous No.1623813]

>>1623809
oh, come on!! you know it was at least a little bit funny.

[None !!tLttKHVzNlG No.1623815]

>>1623793
people get pissed off when people say they are a 'very literary minded person' and read vampire YAF and Jodi Picoult.

[Anonymous No.1623837]

>>1623815
I get you, they obviously need to read books of higher quality, like John Grisham, and J.D. Salinger.

[Anonymous No.1623847]

>in history class
>teacher asks if there is any piece of literature in the 20th century as important as the Homeric Cycle
>say Ulysses
>she doesn't get it until I say I mean James Joyce
>she freaks out and goes off on a tangent about how her husband read all of it and had a breakdown then asks if anyone has heard of Joyce
>nobody raises their hand
I kind of felt embarrassed for them. The class is full of creepy people. There's this like 60 year old guy who talks about MKULTRA and his "damn arthritis" all the time.

[Anonymous No.1623867]

>>1623813

Maybe if it hadn't been in the thread where we're all supposed to know book-trivia? Like who is who, and that Meyer is spelled "Stephenie".

[Anonymous No.1623885]

The thing that pisses me off about shakespeare is that his work is treated as high literature when he wrote his plays for the lowest common denominator. His work is pretty straightforward, its just written in extended metaphor, which we're not used to no more.

[Anonymous No.1623893]

>>1623885

yeah because thousands of scholars enjoy spending their lives studying sub-par plays by a mediocre writer.

Face it, Shakespeare is good.

[Anonymous No.1623897]

>>1623893

Nice appeal to popularity, there.

[Anonymous No.1623898]

>>1623885
Which makes it high literature. All high literature really is is stuff that people normally read all the time hundreds of years ago that we don't read anymore today or stuff that we haven't gotten used to reading yet. Shakespeare was good, though.

[Anonymous No.1623906]

>>1623893
Yeah because that was exactly my point. *yawn*

I didnt say his work wasnt good, but it was aimed at peasants. Its straightforward.

What pixar creates is fantastic, but i hope in 400 years were talking about lynch over lassetter

[Behemoth !!Twl3DmqEY/B No.1623919]

>>1623897
I don't like Shakespeare either, but c'mon man, as a writer he was very profound, as a poet he was a technical master, and as a playwright he was one of the world's best entertainers.
It's one thing to say you don't like him, it's another thing to try and denigrate the most famous author of Western history. Shakespeare invented tons of turns of phrase and expressions that we still use today.

[Anonymous No.1623921]

>>1623906
>but i hope in 400 years were talking about lynch over lassetter

I hope not. Lynch gets overrated to the max.

[Anonymous No.1623927]

>>1623897
>>1623906

so what should we be reading instead of shakespeare?

[Anonymous No.1623928]

>This one time in class someone said something that seemed to me dumb because I knew something they clearly didn't

>haha. people are so dumb too bad they are not as smart as me.

pic related it is all of you in your respective classes while those around you enjoy learning and improving upon their ignorance rather than make posts laughing at others on 4chan

[Anonymous No.1623929]

>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491
>>1623491

/thread.

Face it guys. None of you are original, none of you will ever be read or remembered. You're all sheep following the footsteps of your shepherd.

[Anonymous No.1623932]

>>1623885
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.1623935]

>>1623929
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.1623937]

this thread is too pretentious.

Calling for sage bomb

[Anonymous No.1623943]

>>1623935

Do you enjoy the smell of your own farts? Answer honestly.

[Anonymous No.1623945]

>>1623885

Couldn't the same be said of Homer (performed and recited throughout the Greek world), and Greek tragedy and comedy (performed for the citizen population at dramatic festivals)? Of course all of them, like Shakespeare in the modern world, became objects of scholarly study even in ancient times, partly because of language and other elements that were no longer obvious and needed explication, and partly because scholars were interested in questions like what made these specific works successful and in tracing the variant stories told about mythological figures. Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle are two popular writers of their own times, who now seem sometimes obscure because of changes in language and everyday life. There are people reading now who are too young to have any memory of the world before mobile phones, the Internet, and the fall of the Berlin Wall: in half a century, John le Carre will need commentaries too.

[Anonymous No.1623946]

>>1623929
Who's my shepherd? A dead writer?

[Anonymous No.1623947]

>>1623946
>>1623946
>>1623946
>>1623946

You tell me you pretentious fuck

[Anonymous No.1623950]

>spend an hour of class discussing the difference between a narrator and an author

[Anonymous No.1623952]

>>1623943
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.1623955]

>>1623947
You're losing credibility. And sense. Not that you were making any in the first place.

[Anonymous No.1623957]

>>1623947
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.1623958]

>>1623927
For a start you shouldnt be *reading* shakespeare in any case. Plays and poems should be performed.

Shakespeare's plays arent studies, they are entertainment. we should be reading what the greeks had to say.

>>1623932
brilliant contribution.

[Anonymous No.1623971]

>>1623958
The length of Hamlet suggests that it was not so much meant to be performed but to be read as well. Many critics point this play out as the first play written to be read as well as performed.
I simplified that to Wrong.

[Anonymous No.1623974]

>>1623955

sage

[Anonymous No.1623976]

>>1623945
Yeah of course it could. But my point isnt that these are studied for their intrinsic historical value, but their literary value. What amounts to a simple piece of entertainment nowadays shouldnt be, in my opinion, the figurehead for what future people will see as our literary heritage.

I'm sure you get my point by now so i wont hark on.

[Anonymous No.1624012]

>>1623380

only dumb people say sartre is the greatest philosopher of the xxth century. people say theyre de most important french author for the history of philosophy of the xxth century (for the popularity of his work)

[Anonymous No.1624028]

>>1623976

Yes, I got your point. I suppose mine, in a nutshell, is (1) that being popular and created for a mass audience in its own day doesn't necessarily preclude being serious literature or artfully constructed, or attracting serious study in future; and (2) that it may very well, at least in some cases, be the popular and accessible works in their own time that are widely seen or circulated, and widely influential, so become part of the literary heritage.

I agree that there is an element of uncritical acceptance (of cultural narrative, of what one is told in school, even) to the reputation of Shakespeare; however, I don't think popularity of conception or reception is an inherent disqualifier as serious literature. I'm not sure I hold with any concept of "high literature" that values inherently difficulty, obscurity, or non-popularity.

[Anonymous No.1624057]

>>1624028
True. I just never got more out of shakespeare than his use of language and entertainment value. Considering the kitch use of noir nowadays, you could easily compare, (this might make you cringe, but its valid in respects) the mass appeal of shakespeare in his time to the mass appeal of dialog directors like tarantino.

This doesnt proclude works that are insanely popular but thematically challenging, but i worry that future generations may inherit those types of work over more challenging but populist things, like your american beauties or fight clubs (these arent fantastic examples ill give you)

Shakespeare is a good example of the danger precisely because he wrote to be understood by the uneducated. I'm sure theres countless call outs to themes and deeper analysis in his work, but its primarily entertainment.

tl:dr Being popular is not my point, I just would prefer "the greatest writer of all time" in 400 years to be challenging.

[Anonymous No.1624068]

not school-related but:

>briefly dated some girl six years ago
>she wanted to be a writer; let me read some of her poetry
>it was unbelievably awful typical teen girl stuff
>melodrama everywhere
>cliche metaphors everywhere
>"Yeah good luck with that..."
>six years later
>friend mentions that she is now a published poet
>"Oh wow, well she told me, I thought her poems were lousy, I guess she got better..."
>i check out her book
>it's the exact same poems I read back then, unchanged, completely awful, high school level

why

[Anonymous No.1624199]

>>1624057

Fair points. I suppose I just think the distinction between popular and challenging is maybe less clear-cut. Take, for instance (and not that I'm arguing it's great or lasting, but it's a convenient example) the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109831/): to most of the audience, who'll see it once or twice, it's a fairly light romantic comedy with some good lines and a few weighter bits, but it could also be watched again (and again) and analysed seriously for cinematic art (e. g., the five-act structure, how the opening wedding scenes introduce and establish the key characters and their relationships, largely without many words) and thematic content (as a meditation on relationships, love, and marriage; and in future I suppose as representative of particular notions thereof circa 1994).

[Anonymous No.1624200]

>>1624068

Published how? Major press / press with a serious poetry catalogue / small, vanity, self-?

[Anonymous No.1624233]

>>1623950
Oh fuck, I've done that several times in creative writing workshops.

Evidently, having the author and the narrator share the same name is...problematic for some readers.

[Anonymous No.1624254]

>>1622939
>>1622939

Fucking hipster.
>My taste is so good that if I say Joyce was shit, he was shit.

Go back to reading your mystery novels and other trash. Joyce was a genius - Jung was a Nazi-sympathising, theist, aristocratic, self-aggrandising and vain brow-beater.

[Anonymous No.1624257]

>>1623266
Bad opinions. You cant just argue that simply because you've read more Poe than Shakespeare and think you know best now. Read some Dostoyevsky, Joyce, Proust or Beckett, and THEN you might have a foot to stand on, but you'd be comparing apples with oranges; 400 years is a massive length of time in literature.
>>1623298
>Molière "has been accused of not having a consistent, organic style, of using faulty grammar, of mixing his metaphors, and of using unnecessary words for the purpose of filling out his lines.

[Anonymous No.1624671]

>>1623885
>>1623906

>The thing that pisses me off about shakespeare is that his work is treated as high literature when he wrote his plays for the lowest common denominator. His work is pretty straightforward, its just written in extended metaphor, which we're not used to no more.
> it was aimed at peasants

Nope. While the demographic range of Shakespeare's audiences was likely quite wide (especially owing to the position of his theatre alongside whorehouses and bear-pits), its low end seems to have been artisans and apprentices with trades - often illiterate, but hardly 'peasants' or unskilled labourers. After about 1600, many of his plays were performed in and evidently written for the much more exclusive indoor theatre at Blackfriars, where the clientele were richer, and it's no coincidence that so many of the plays that we now most revere for their depth and complexity (e.g. The Tempest) were intended for that audience. This is not to say that the coarser elements of society would have been completely stumped by it all. Elizabethan England was an intensely aural culture in which people were continuously bombarded with many different registers and languages - the language of the law, the language of sermons, the language of immigrants, the language of merchants and traders. It is primarily classical knowledge - e.g. familiarity with myth and mythic allusion - that would be restricted to the upper classes, but nevertheless your comments play on a divide between pulp and high literature that is rooted in the modern era.

[Anonymous No.1624676]

>>1623971

>The length of Hamlet suggests that it was not so much meant to be performed but to be read as well. Many critics point this play out as the first play written to be read as well as performed.

Which critics? The second quarto of Hamlet (1604/5) added about 1500 lines that were not present in the first (1603), which was itself published at least one year (likely rather more) after the play's first performance. This argues against any claim that Hamlet was 'meant to be' or 'written to be' read. More likely, the longer versions are those created for royal or noble performances. The Queen and her court were a lot more willing to sit through hugely lengthy plays because, obviously enough, they did not have the stringent concerns of work and daylight that limited possibilities in the common theatre.

[Anonymous No.1624678]

>>1623349
>No it's not. The Greeks had every kind of theatre possible.
Except thrust theatre
Theatre in the round
Guerilla/Invisible theatre...
It goes on and on.

[Anonymous No.1624692]

>His work is pretty straightforward, its just written in extended metaphor,

okay you made laugh me

[Anonymous No.1625118]

>>1624676
>More likely, the longer versions are those created for royal or noble performances.

Another possibility is that there were shorter versions of different lengths actually performed, but when it came to printing, because length of the script is obviously less of an issue for readers, and they would likely want all of the bits they remembered from a performance, any sections that might have been cut in performance were left in, or alternatively a long, composite version incorporating all bits performed was created.

Lear is another of the more famous plays that has length issues in performance, and indeed modern editions like the Oxford and New Cambridge may print the Folio and Quarto texts separately.