/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18030910]

Overrated authors thread!
Start with Willi!

[Anonymous No.18030952]

>>18030910
He's overrated by people who don't understand him, of course, all the pseuds who say "OH SHAKESPEARE SHAKESPEARE, THE BARD THE BARD, HUMAN LE NATURE!!!" and such at universities.

But only overrated because they never cared to understand him. In truth he is far greater.

>Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.
- T.S. Eliot

[Anonymous No.18030981]

>>18030952
>>Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.
>- T.S. Eliot
Homer is greater then both of them, but I suppose you can't expect much from a dumbass American who spent his years LARPing as an English aristocrat from 1850.

[Anonymous No.18031008]

>>18030981
Homer offers nothing constructive, nothing oppositionary enough when put with Shakespeare and Dante, a trinity simply would not work. He was an individual, but it's not all the creation from an individual mind as Shakespeare's and Dante's works are.

Homer comes before them.

[Anonymous No.18031028]

Post what all you've read by him please.

[Anonymous No.18031071]

>>18030952
Seems like Eliot never read Goethe.

[Anonymous No.18031075]

>>18030910
F. Scott Fitzgerald is the most overrated author of all time

[Anonymous No.18031101]

>>18031075
How so? Most people don't seem to care much about him if they aren't directly talking about the 20s. Fitz is the quintessential mid-brow liked-by-women author, but not much beyond that. Sure, there are people who only ever read Gatsby who say he is the greatest author ever, but that applies to basically every author of any renown.

[Anonymous No.18031118]

>>18031101
Because Gatsby is overrated and most people don't really make much distinction between authors with lots of great novels and authors with 1 or 2, they're mentioned in the same breath

[Anonymous No.18031141]

>>18031071
>Goethe
finally someone who belongs in this thread

[Anonymous No.18031146]

>>18031071
Goethe is a pale imitation of what Tasso was in epic and Leopardi in lyrical poetry.

[Anonymous No.18031148]

>>18030910
will is praised for the wrondg reasons.
his mind was clearly simple and psychological inquiry is not art. but he is the master of visual language, concrete metaphors , also "conceptisms" like in the macbeth when he calls the witches "imperfect speakers".

[Anonymous No.18031152]

>>18031071
>dood it’s the story of Theophillus but he’s German and he time-travels to Troy to make out with Helen
Wow!

[Anonymous No.18031157]

>>18031148
> wrong reasons
and it's (((bloom)))'s fault

[Anonymous No.18031168]

>>18031152
>it’s the story of Theophillus
?

[Anonymous No.18031182]

>>18031168
Theophilus of Adana.

[Anonymous No.18031189]

>>18030981
Shakespeare was the Homer of modernity. As the other anon said, Homer comes before, not alongside / against.

[Anonymous No.18031203]

>>18031182
Oh, thanks.

>>18031189
>Shakespeare was the Homer of modernity
A comparison that doesn't make any fucking sense.

[Anonymous No.18031216]

>>18030910
He was an okay comedy writer.

[Anonymous No.18031235]

>>18031189
homer is a foundational author.
while before shakespeare we have plenty of great authors both in poetry and in prose.
for this reason alone, your comparison is untenable, not to talk about the difference in quality, which is great.
there were 2 civilizations in europe. the classical and the modern. the auroral poets of these were homer and dante respectively. period.

[Anonymous No.18031251]

>>18031235
>the auroral poets of these were homer and dante respectively. period.
Midwit take, Dante and Shakespeare are inextricable.

[Anonymous No.18031273]

>>18031235
Dante is superior to both Shakespeare and Homer, because he doesn't fully belong to any of those civilizations. He straddles them. He is the last of the classicals and the first of the moderns.

[Anonymous No.18031294]

>>18031203
>>18031235
Shakespeare was a foundational author just like Homer, whose breadth in scope was matched by him, and in their respective time periods they achieved an unparallel level of quality. If you don't think this, you don't understand Shakespeare, modernity, or both.

[Anonymous No.18031323]

>>18031294
>Shakespeare was a foundational author just like Homer
No, he wasn't. The only foundational authors of Modernity are Boccaccio, Petrarch and Cervantes.

Your comparison, moreover, doesn't make any fucking sense for the simple reason that they are completely different in style, genre, purpose, content, everything.

[Anonymous No.18031324]

>>18030981
If Homer counts then David comes in and is unsurpassed.

[Anonymous No.18031330]

>>18031157
But wasn't Stepehen Dedalus the guy who kept analysing Shakespeare? Bloom was just kinda present, and I don't think the two talked about Shakespeare.

[Anonymous No.18031336]

>>18031216
This.

[Anonymous No.18031345]

>>18031323
Foundational in what sense? I think we are speaking of literary merits, Petrarca is really nice but I think that if we are counting his foundational aspect it is in non-fiction instead of poetry or fiction/literature in general.

[Anonymous No.18031346]

>>18030910
>Capeshit: who is better batman or superman, the thread

[Anonymous No.18031356]

>>18031323
You don't really understand Cervantes or Shakespeare, do you? It's ok to admit it.

[Anonymous No.18031361]

>>18031071
Why do Germancels think they can stand next to Anglos and Meds?

[Anonymous No.18031367]

>>18031361
Because we combine them.

[Anonymous No.18031369]

>>18031345
Boccaccio, Petrarch and Cervantes are respectively the progenitors of the short story genre, lyrical poetry and the modern novel. Shakespeare may have been the greatest playwright, but he wasn't 'foundational'.

[Anonymous No.18031379]

>>18031367
t. Giorgio Guglielmo Federico larperino Hegelio

[Anonymous No.18031385]

>>18031323
>>18031294
>>18031273
>>18031251
>>18031235
>>18031189
>>18030981
The actually funny thing about this is that none of you are wrong, and none of you are correct. You are all just extrapolating your own reading of history onto reality. Which is perfectly valid, this is not an academic context anyway.

[Anonymous No.18031400]

>>18031379
Just say Tonio Kröger.

[Anonymous No.18031412]

>>18031273
>He is the last of the classicals and the first of the moderns.
Cute thing to write on your college essay, faggot

[Anonymous No.18031418]

>>18031294
shakespeare is clearly NOT a foundational author because his writing comes after and owes a lot to the great writers between him and dante. which are many. he doesn't even writes about his own country in 90% of his plays. how in hell can you call him foundational?

[Anonymous No.18031437]

>>18031369
you are clearly a midwit and a "not him but" at the beginning of you 14 IQ post wpuld have been appreciated.
cervantes belongs to john donne's league at best. we are talking about absolute geniuses , people with a deep anthropological impact on entire civilizations. not comedy writers.

[Anonymous No.18031449]

>>18031330
He meant Harold Bloom, which doesn't make much sense anyway since nobody cares about his Shakespeare interpretations.

[Anonymous No.18031457]

>>18031323
Shakespeare invented the modern image of Caesar. For that alone, he deserves a place as a "foundational author" of modernity, not to speak of his influence on it. Franz Grillparzer said of him, "We feel in abstractions, we hardly know any longer how feeling really expresses itself with our contemporaries; we show them performing actions such as they no longer perform nowadays. Shakespeare has ruined all of us moderns." And Byron: "I regard Shakespeare as the worst of models, even though the most extraordinary of poets." And Goethe: "Shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays." He ensnared the entirety of modernity.

The comparison also makes sense when you consider that each of them had their gods, each of them comfortably explored the limits of those gods, each of them had their grand style, and each of them bequeathed an entire poetic age onto history as a result of this in their respective times.

[Anonymous No.18031478]

>>18031449
I was making a joke. :-(

[Anonymous No.18031483]

>Shakespeare is so boring. I prefer Leopardi.
— Matilde qt Manzoni

[Anonymous No.18031488]

>>18031369
So why not include Augustine as at least as foundational?

[Anonymous No.18031509]

>>18031457
>whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays
It also can be found in the Divine Comedy. So, again, he's not foundational in any sense.

>>18031488
I think we're focusing on the period following the end of the Middle Ages I guess

[Anonymous No.18031528]

>>18031509
>It also can be found in the Divine Comedy
No.

[Anonymous No.18031540]

>>18031528
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18031541]

>>18031509
Are you saying Dante invented humanity? Calm the fuck down, man.

[Anonymous No.18031542]

>>18030952
In my experience, pseuds are more likely to revere him even though they can only talk about 2 or 3 of his works with any sort of intelligence. But, you're right that there are ALSO a whole host of turds out there who discount Shakespeare in order to feel above him.

[Anonymous No.18031574]

>>18031457
lost cause.
to you anglo peasants will alwyas believe that the history of humanity to begin in the 17th century, nevermind if before shakespeare we had:
dante , polo, petrarch , boccaccio , angiolieri, sacchetti, chaucer, boiardo , pulci , poliziano, sannazaro, castiglione, bembo, machiavelli, guicciardini, ariosto, aretino, folengo, bandello, cellini , firenzuola , caro, grazzini , berni , villon, rabelais, gringore, marot, crenne, sceve, du bellay, boetie, bodin, t. moore, erasmus, luther, tasso , bruno, tassoni, guarini, montaigne , charron, ronsard , garnier, du bartas, malherbe, sponde, marlowe, spenser.
to name just a few.
shakespeare is many things, "foundational" is not one of them.

[Anonymous No.18031583]

>>18031540
What exists in Shakespeare may exist in Dante, but only in an embryonic form, which is commonly how the whole relationship between the North and South works. Shakespeare, however, had the style that ennobled the form, making him more foundational for modernity than Dante.

[Anonymous No.18031591]

>>18031457
lost cause.
you anglo peasants will alwyas believe the history of humanity to begin in the 17th century, nevermind if before shakespeare we had:
dante , polo, petrarch , boccaccio , angiolieri, sacchetti, chaucer, boiardo , pulci , poliziano, sannazaro, castiglione, bembo, machiavelli, guicciardini, ariosto, aretino, folengo, bandello, cellini , firenzuola , caro, grazzini , berni , villon, rabelais, gringore, marot, crenne, sceve, du bellay, boetie, bodin, t. moore, erasmus, luther, tasso , bruno, tassoni, guarini, montaigne , charron, ronsard , garnier, du bartas, malherbe, sponde, marlowe, spenser.
to name just a few.
shakespeare is many things, "foundational" is not one of them.

[Anonymous No.18031594]

>>18031457
Pretty sure Caesar invented the modern image of Caesar.

[Anonymous No.18031602]

>>18031591
>the history of humanity
We're talking about modernity, not humanity. If Shakespeare is not foundational on account of having accumulated the works of others, bringing them to fruition with his master style, than neither is Homer, who performed the same feat in his respective time.

>>18031594
That makes no sense.

[Anonymous No.18031610]

>>18031071
>Goethe
2nd rate

[Anonymous No.18031625]

>>18030910
gets a lot better when you understand elizabethan allusions and that he was the 17th earl of oxford

[Anonymous No.18031634]

>>18031602
> modernity
modenity is not a civilization, there is not a founder of modernity as well as montesquieu is not the founder of the enlightenment, or callimacus is not the founder of hellenism.
there are 2 civilizations in europe and 2 alone.
classical and modern, seprated by christianity and the middle ages. the former begins with the iliad, the latter with the divine comedy. period.

[Anonymous No.18031640]

>>18031634
*callimachus

[Anonymous No.18031655]

>>18031634
Modernity means modern, and Homer is more comparable to Shakespeare, being that both worked off existing materials which they endowed with their mastery in style.

[Anonymous No.18031658]

>>18031625
>that he was the 17th earl of oxford
>>>/r/eddit

[Anonymous No.18031660]

>>18031610
How so?

[Anonymous No.18031664]

>>18031658
ye fuck that documentary that says hes bisexual or whatever

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHN7SCKlsa9lPYJmqqQ2uIg

but you literally cannot argue with the amount of proof, stratfordians are fucking retarded

[Anonymous No.18031672]

>>18031655
> worked off existing materials which they endowed with their mastery in style
all poets do that you dumb anglo. why shakespeare and not cervantes or goethe or tasso then? why shakespeare and not thomas mann, if arbitrarly, for no reason at all, decide that everything which came before shakespeare does not belong to this civilization?

[Anonymous No.18031684]

>>18031672
> thomas mann, if arbitrarly,..
thomas mann, if we arbitrarily,...

[Anonymous No.18031706]

>>18031672
>why shakespeare and not cervantes or goethe or tasso then?
Shakespeare has the greater style, scope, and influence. It's like asking why Homer and not Hesiod or Archilochus.

[Anonymous No.18031708]

>>18031672
also the main point is the greeks had no cultured literature before homer, but just religion and folklore, as well modern europeans had no literature before dante.

[Anonymous No.18031711]

>>18031672
Willy is just on another level dude. You would understand this if you actually read any of the authors you cite

[Anonymous No.18031736]

>>18031706
>>18031711
that is a matter of your personal (shitty) taste. im talking about objective birth of literatures and civilizations. unlike himer and dante, shakespeare appeared in the middle of the modern civilization, not at its beginning. this is a fact, the rest is cheap speculation.

[Anonymous No.18031755]

>>18031736
Why does it matter who came first when one has the superior style and scope, and as a result enjoyed a superior degree of influence in history? Again, why name Homer and not Hesiod, Homer's contemporary, then? Why name Goethe with your logic when Goethe came after (and in fact said he was greatly inspired by Shakespeare)?

[Anonymous No.18031767]

>>18031591
Frankly, this.

[Anonymous No.18031774]

>>18031736
I LOIK HIMER AND DINTE! I NO LIKE SHIKESPARE

[Anonymous No.18031780]

>>18031736
Shakespeare inaugurates the birth of an entirely new form of trans-civilisational consciousness. His kingdom is literally not of this world. He absolutely mogs everything else in comparison.

[Anonymous No.18031789]

>>18031755
> Why does it matter who came first
because you drew a comparison between homer and shakespeare not considering that homer invented classical literature, while shakespeare exploited almost 3 centuries of modern literature.
> the superior style and scope, and as a result enjoyed a superior degree of influence in history
your opinion, not a fact.
> Hesiod, Homer's contemporary
open a book, beast
> goethe
my naming goethe is indeed a reductio ad absurdum. by your criteria you could pick amanda gorman as well.

[Anonymous No.18031813]

>>18031789
also there is another point.
homer and dante are epic poets, read by the highest aristocracy of their time.
shakespeare is a fucking playwright and swineherds and farmers watched his plays at the globe theatre for like 7$ in modern currency.

[Anonymous No.18031823]

>>18031789
>homer invented classical literature
He invented the classical style, just as Shakespeare invented the modern style. Neither were completely alone in the effort. Homer didn't invent the gods he used and he had contemporaries and a massive oral tradition to look back on.

>your opinion, not a fact.
It is a fact that he enjoyed a superior degree of influence in history, and the reason for that is due to his superior style and scope.

>open a book, beast
What are you denying, exactly?

>by your criteria you could pick amanda gorman as well.
At least try to be serious. I thought the conversation we were having was somewhat serious.

[Anonymous No.18031834]

>>18031813
>shakespeare is a fucking playwright and swineherds and farmers watched his plays at the globe theatre for like 7$ in modern currency.
Ah I see, so the problem here is you don't understand history. That explains why you can't see how Shakespeare is the chief grand stylist and inventor of modernity.

[Anonymous No.18031853]

>>18031823
> He invented the classical style, just as Shakespeare invented the modern style
there is no greek literature before homer. he invented it at a deep anthropological level, like dante, he is more comparable to a religious or national founder than to a "writer".
also if you had ever read one line by homer you would know that his style is archaic. plato invented the classical style. don't get me wrong im not so insane to comapre the great plato to a 17th century netflix series writer.

[Anonymous No.18031858]

DFW
NO discernible talent

[Anonymous No.18031864]

>>18031834
i said nothing but the truth.

[Anonymous No.18031867]

>>18031542
>In my experience, pseuds are more likely to revere him even though they can only talk about 2 or 3 of his works with any sort of intelligence.
That was kinda my point, all the stupid Anglos that never stop spouting his name. But I do believe he is one of the very greatest, I just think the literary culture around him is pseudy and dumb.

[Anonymous No.18031872]

Ernest Hemingway. He's okay. But JUST okay.

[Anonymous No.18031978]

>>18031853
>there is no greek literature before homer.
There was a significant Greek oral tradition before Homer. I'm not saying that Shakespeare invented English literature. What starts with Homer is the classical style, which was brought about by accumulation; like Shakespeare, but with the modern style.

>also if you had ever read one line by homer you would know that his style is archaic. plato invented the classical style.
This is both insulting and misleading. Who do you think you're conversing with, a 10 year old? I read Homer in both high school and college, over 20 years ago, and more since then. Without Homer, there wouldn't have been Plato, and Homer's style held the greater influence on the history of literature.

>>18031864
The truth only found in a misinterpretation of history. The modern is characterized by a transcontinental cosmopolitanism, not a medieval aristocracy.

[Anonymous No.18032023]

In this post, people that still think Shakespeare was one guy. Fucking morons.

[Anonymous No.18032326]

>>18031146
>Tasso
He didn't even write anything at all like Gerusalemme Liberata. How can they be compared?
>Leopardi
>pale imitation
You realize Leopardi didn't even write any poetry until the last 12 years of Goethe's life? Also I just finished reading his Canti and while they are very good in some moments he's definitely not as good as Goethe.

[Anonymous No.18032337]

>>18031152
What a retarded post

[Anonymous No.18032352]

>>18032326
It is obviously you are speaking to an Italian, or worse, an italaboo.

[Anonymous No.18032408]

>>18031583
>which is commonly how the whole relationship between the North and South works
Imagine being so full of yourself (and wrong) because of this granny

[Anonymous No.18032438]

>>18031706
Topkek. If Shakespeare had written an epic like Jerusalem Delivered he would be considered Jesus on earth. Fuck off, Oliver.

[Anonymous No.18032512]

Stop trying to humor the dumbass A*glo. He's just going to continue to assert that Shakespeare "invented modernity" or some shit and then when people are tired of replying to him he'll claim "OMG A*GLOS WIN AGAIN!" They do this all the time on /int/.

[Anonymous No.18032568]

>>18032326
Isn't Faust epic/dramatic poetry? Then that's what Jerusalem Delivered is. I hope you're not going to deny that Tasso had a huge influence on the Romantics, because that would really make you sound like a retard.

Also, it's not that Goethe took something from Leopardi, it's just that the latter was a better lyrical poet. His Canti are more felt, more sincere, more emotional than anything Goethe has ever written in verse. There's just a sense of manufactured, of built-up, of faked in Goethe's poems. Something like a pose, a pretentiousness which makes me prefer Leopardi, but also Holderlin and Keats. Faust is not that great as well, it sounds like it was written without effort for the most part. Goethe should have sticked with novels and intimistic prose like Dichtung und Wahrheit and the Journey.

Also, ++quantity ≠ +quality.

[Anonymous No.18032611]

>>18032512
Imagine being such a contrarian that you deny literary and historical credit to Shakespeare of all people.

[Anonymous No.18032633]

>>18032568
>Faust is not that great as well, it sounds like it was written without effort for the most part.
Absolute brainlet take. You have only skimmed Faust if this is your opinion. I don't even care about the faux argument in this shitty "my dad could beat up your dad" thread, but if you think Goethe did not put effort into the work that he spent 60 years writing, then you just either didn't actually read it or you have some kind of agenda to push.

[Anonymous No.18032634]

>>18032568
>Isn't Faust epic/dramatic poetry?
It's technically a closet drama but it in some ways acts as an epic. Really it's a beast of its own but it certainly has a very different subject matter and style compared to Tasso.
>I hope you're not going to deny that Tasso had a huge influence on the Romantics
I didn't deny that. But there were also a hundred other influences on them including Shakespeare.
>His Canti are more felt, more sincere, more emotional than anything Goethe has ever written in verse
I can understand more emotional but I think "feeling" or "sincerity" are more subjective. I prefer Goethe I feel at times he really captured the same kind of ancient fire (so to speak) that the Greeks had. At times I feel it from Leopardi too but he's too often mired in his pessimism and childhood nostalgia, both of which I'm not a fan of.

[Anonymous No.18032658]

>>18032611
I don't deny him any credit. He's still very much one of the greats and definitely the greatest or at least most important English language poet. I just deny ridiculous claims that you and other Anglo speakers make like "he invented modernity" or Bloom's "invented the human."

[Anonymous No.18032665]

>>18031664
Based Oxfordian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGvnj0Dxz5U

[Anonymous No.18032677]

>>18032658
It's not ridiculous when you look at his subject matter. Do you really think Dante is closer to the Age of Discovery or Age of Reason than Shakespeare?

[Anonymous No.18032710]

>>18032658
They understand he was important but don't quite understand the nature of that importance. Poltically, he and his fellow Freemasons like John Dee invented the British Empire, and were the grandfathers of the Enlightenment. From a literary perspective he created the deep and abiding interest in inner monologue and psychological introspection. It's arguable that without Shakespeare there could have been no Dostoevsky, Freud, Jung, etc.

[Anonymous No.18032721]

>>18032710
>grandfathers
Scratch that. Fathers.

[Anonymous No.18032728]

>>18030910
im glad Im not the only Willie Shakes Hater here

[Anonymous No.18032747]

>>18032677
>Poltically, he and his fellow Freemasons like John Dee invented the British Empire, and were the grandfathers of the Enlightenment
Schizo post

>>18032677
>Do you really think Dante is closer to the Age of Discovery or Age of Reason than Shakespeare?
No shit Shakespeare's going to be closer to two periods of time that he lived in the middle and beginning of.

[Anonymous No.18032767]

>>18032747
I'm sorry you're a hylic, anon.

[Anonymous No.18032781]

>>18032747
>No shit Shakespeare's going to be closer to two periods of time that he lived in the middle and beginning of.
Who else put those periods to literary form better than he did, who also had a major bearing on the countermovement Romanticism?

[Anonymous No.18032785]

>>18030910
These fucking threads are always psued honeypots
Case in point: >>18030952
Eliot barely knew the poetic tradition outside the Western Canon yet felt qualified to make this brain dead assertion. I like the guy as a poet but he's really just a glorified copyist when it comes to criticism and reviews. Jesus his criticism of Donne in that Lancelot Andrewes essay is horrendous.

[Anonymous No.18032794]

>>18032785
Pseud not psued, jesus fuck am I tired

[Anonymous No.18032798]

>>18032794
whatever sood lol

[Anonymous No.18032810]

>>18032633
Even Marlowe is better than Goethe, as regards the (re)telling of Faust's myth.

[Anonymous No.18032812]

>>18032781
>Who else put those periods to literary form better than he did
Age of Discovery? Camoes. Age of Enlightenment? Probably Voltaire.

[Anonymous No.18032834]

>>18030910
>all the people in here speaking as if Homer was one individual author instead of the same story told again and again by different speakers in a vocal tradition. The person who wrote down the Iliad probably had never told the tale himself

[Anonymous No.18032835]

>>18032812
>Camoes and Voltaire
>on the level of Shakes

[Anonymous No.18032852]

>>18030910
Me.

[Anonymous No.18032862]

>>18032835
You didn't ask who was as good as Shakespeare you asked which authors were good representatives of those two time periods.

[Anonymous No.18032870]

>>18032862
>better than he did

[Anonymous No.18032883]

>>18032870
You specifically said those periods you fucking retard. Shakespeare did not write about New World colonization or write a circle jerk about how awesome reason and science are.

[Anonymous No.18032890]

>>18031071
The sorrows of young faggot is genuinely one of the worst things i've ever read... barely above YA shit.

[Anonymous No.18032900]

>>18032883
>You specifically said those periods you fucking retard.
And you misread what I asked for. Learn to admit when you're in the wrong.

>Shakespeare did not write about New World colonization or write a circle jerk about how awesome reason and science are.
Now you're just coping.

[Anonymous No.18032947]

>>18032900
>And you misread what I asked for
Learn to word your questions better maybe. Here I'll help you:
>Who is a better writer from the period of the Age of Discovery or the Age of Enlightenment?
vs
>Who else put those periods to literary form better than he did?
See how easy that was?

[Anonymous No.18032964]

>>18032947
>has weak reading comprehension
>blames it on the writer (even though it was perfectly readable and grammatically correct)
>still refuses to admit he was mistaken
>still lacks a point

[Anonymous No.18032977]

>>18032810
Please elaborate on this claim.

[Anonymous No.18032996]

>>18032964
No, you're an idiot. When you say something like:
>put those periods to literary form
You are specifically asking for a writer that encapsulates the ideals or events of those two periods. Whereas the alternative wording I put forth instead asks for who was the all around best writer from those two periods without regard to whether or not they reflect what was going on around them.

[Anonymous No.18033021]

>>18032996
>just keeps going
Lmao. Shakespearefags win this round, I guess.

[Anonymous No.18033050]

>>18033021
>Be retarded
>"You're being retarded"
>N-n-no you! HAHAHA I WIN!
A*glo posters should be rangebanned

[Anonymous No.18033160]

>>18030910
He’s underrated. Everyone should be reading him

[Anonymous No.18033175]

>>18030981
There isn't a single epic moment in Homer

[Anonymous No.18033240]

>>18032890
You got filtered. It's literally his weakest work and he hated it when he got older.

>>18032977
He has nothing to elaborate. He just said it to be contrarian.

[Anonymous No.18033273]

>>18031146
pseud

[Anonymous No.18033292]

>>18033050
>A*glo posters should be rangebanned
Then you could finally sniff your own farts in peace.

[Anonymous No.18033326]

Ariosto > Dante > Homer > Tasso > Goehe > Cuckspeare

[Anonymous No.18033336]

>>18031146
as an italian i apologize for his utter retardation.

[Anonymous No.18033342]

>>18033326
Shakespeare > the others you posted > frogposters

[Anonymous No.18033355]

>>18033336
t. Jürgen

[Anonymous No.18033375]

>>18033326
Ariosto's great, but he fundamentally failed in respect to the epic.

Technically he would have everything to make it a great epic, but it only succeeds in being a great story.

[Anonymous No.18033389]

homer > dante > pindar > poetic edda > aeschylus > shakespeare > goethe > baudelaire > byron > ovid, virgil > tasso > milton > cervantes > macpherson > novalis

[Anonymous No.18033395]

>>18033375
Sounds like a cope.

[Anonymous No.18033402]

homer > dante > pindar > poetic edda > goethe > aeschylus > shakespeare > baudelaire > byron > ovid, virgil > tasso > milton > cervantes > macpherson > novalis

[Anonymous No.18033413]

>>18033402
Imagine putting Bau-bau-deL'aire over Virgil and Ovid

[Anonymous No.18033437]

>>18033413
he was the first poet of the city
before him poets talked about trite epic or historical subjects, peasant folklore and wrost of all fucking shepherds

[Anonymous No.18033476]

>>18033395
The true epos

>>18033437
>he was the first poet of the city
Dude come on. Just say "he was the first poet of modernism", or even "the modern city".

>before him poets talked about trite epic or historical subjects, peasant folklore and wrost of all fucking shepherds
Do you even read?

[Anonymous No.18033480]

>>18033437
>he was the first poet of the city
>Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (7 September 1791 – 21 December 1863) was an Italian poet. Belli is mainly remembered for his vivid popular poetry in the Roman dialect.[1] He produced some 2,279 sonnets that form an invaluable document of the 19th century's papal Rome and the life of its common people.

[Anonymous No.18033490]

>>18033395
The true epos cannot come from the fancies of the imagination. Though that may make a great story.

>>18033437
>he was the first poet of the city
Dude come on. Just say "he was the first poet of modernism", or even "the modern city".

>before him poets talked about trite epic or historical subjects, peasant folklore and wrost of all fucking shepherds
Do you even read?

[Fuck Henry James No.18033538]

I'll nominate Henry James, this stupid fucknigga faggot put no life in his books - its all so many words without a shred of personality.

>>18031075
I can respect this, but he wrote too much quality to be one of the most overrated of all time. Beautiful/damned, tender b the nite, gat'spee, ben button, ritz-sized diamond, mayday and THE LEES OF FUCKING HAPPINESS (his best work) are all amazing.

[Anonymous No.18033548]

>>18033437
>the first poet of the city
Juvenal?

[Anonymous No.18033618]

>>18033538
/thread

[Anonymous No.18033945]

>>18030910
Literally any French philosopher. Essentialism is true, 20th century French philosophy is false, and to claim that they were not non-essentialist is to lie.

[Anonymous No.18034081]

>>18031418
He is foundational to the english cannon you fucking retard, how contrarian can you force your self to be before you start realizing how embarrassing your behavior is

[Anonymous No.18034125]

>>18032023
Are you chinese?

[Anonymous No.18034178]

>>18034125
Are you faggot?

[Anonymous No.18034316]

>>18033945
Merleau-Ponty is based though

[Anonymous No.18034382]

>>18033240
>It's literally his weakest work and he hated it when he got older
And it's beautiful.

[Anonymous No.18034429]

>>18030910
Franzen

[Anonymous No.18035289]

>>18031418
Aren't a third of shakespheres plays about English histories from King John to Henry VIII

[Anonymous No.18035352]

>shakespeare le bad
>hundreds of replies
Every fucking time

[Anonymous No.18035778]

>>18034316
I’m sorry I’m unfamiliar. Please tell me he’s not a Pomo.

[Anonymous No.18036401]

>>18030910
James Joyce, nothing but rubbish

[Anonymous No.18036428]

Read Shakespeare's compete works in order last year, fail to see how he is overrated, greatest reading experience of my life. Like how can you read Hamlet and then have this opinion.

My most overrated author would be Hemmingway, just cause he had a unique style doesn't mean his novels were that great. I also don't like philosophical fiction written by philosophers, like Sartre and Camus, as they tend to just allegorize concepts from their philosophy to make a mediocre novel seem deep.

[Anonymous No.18038039]

>>18036428
You can't even spell Hemingway. Shakespeare sucks outside of his major works.

[Anonymous No.18038221]

>>18033480
>>18033490
>>18033548
"the city" is a modern thing only. i don't care about belli's peasants, belli is not even a poet, e lo dico da italiano.

[Anonymous No.18038411]

>>18030910
Milton > Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.18038448]

ITT: people who read in translation and have the audacity to critique the seminal works of Western civilisation

[Anonymous No.18039248]

He is overrated by some critics or readers who define him as "the inventor of the modern human mind", or as "the inventor of the modern age", or as "one of the most profound thinkers who have ever existed".

The above claims are exaggerated and fail to realize that Shakespeare is one of the most awe-inspiring minds that has ever existed without him being any of those things.

Inventor of the human or of modern humanity? Now, human beings are as they are for many millennia, and the very representation of a modern human mind (dealing with issues and habits considered modern) has already been exposed in Montaigne's work, for example. Characters in ancient literature felt fear, anger, envy, jealousy, desire, ambition, compassion, etc., just as we do now. The only thing that changes is society. In the time of Homer was not thought to be a matter of importance to detail the mind of a woman suffering with childbirth, and all the thought of the husband and the people around her. By the time we got to Tolstoy this could very well be the subject of art.

Inventor of the modern age? No person is the inventor of something that complex. It is the union of several causes and consequences. Even to say that Cervantes "invented the novel", that Homer "invented Greek literature" are exaggerations, as these artists worked under the influence of other works, many of which were forgotten, and are, of course, a flowering possible only in the face of what consumed. Nothing comes out of the vacuum.

One of the deepest thinkers who ever lived? None of that. Shakespeare in general reproduces much of common sense, human and popular wisdom, perceptions about the life he himself had (and that so many of us have) and that he collected from the sources of his plays. There is nothing in Shakespeare that matches the depth of an Einstein, Newton, Buddha, Darwin. Shakespeare was able to say what had been said many times, but to do it better than anyone else has ever done (in words).

cont

[Anonymous No.18039253]

>>18039248

Shakespeare is also not a "perfect representative of nature as nature is". His characters are more like a detilation of human characteristics. You expect a more realistic picture of a person affected by feelings of ambition in the works of Tolstoy and Chekhov. There you will see how people in life really think, how they usually act, how things go slowly, how the changes are not abrupt, etc. Shakespeare collects the subtleties and distills them in their concentrated form, and then makes this concentration to be exposed in one of the most divine poetic languages of all time. His characters are superhuman, they are an exaggeration, an artificial representation, but that is still true. There is something of that truth that Herzog says that the Opera has:

https://www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/09/werner-herzog-on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/

Shakespeare's characters are for real humanity like Michelangelo's statues and frescoes.


Shakespeare's greatness is, in my view, the meeting of three factors:

1 - The use of the most impressive poetic language ever imagined

2 - The creation of characters of all kinds, with multiple different world views, most of them treated with empathy and neutrality. No other writer has nested within so many different people and tried to think from within the skin of so many creatures different from himself.

3 - The working of different types of stories and different atmospheres, with hundreds of interesting topics. Most writers specialize in one type of story, one type of problem, their own obsessions and interests. As Shakespeare collected plots elsewhere and mixed many of them into skeletons that he thought might appeal to an audience, he constantly forced himself to deal with themes and plots that might not be very interesting to himself as a person, but that might appeal to an audience. The result of this is an extraordinary poetic mind shaping stories with the most varied types of conflicts.

The thing is: Shakespeare didn't seem to have strong feelings about anything in particular. What he really loved was language, but he was no deep thinker who really needed to prove something to the world or use his works to think. I bet he delighted in finding stories diealing with things he hadn't worked upon yet.

cont

[Anonymous No.18039257]

>>18039253

But above all else he was a poet. And there's no toher poet that can come even near his greatness.

Name me another writer can write so beautifully in so many different styles, on so many themes, nesting inside so many different brains.

And please, let me know if any other poet has the same number of striking metaphors, at the same time fresh and beautiful, the kind of imagery that one never forgets.

About love, in the exaggerated and melancholy style of Renaissance poets (look for something in Petrarch that is more inventive than this):

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

An existential and Dantesque meditation on death and the hereafter:

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

A meditation of complete darkness and devoid of any remnants of Christian hope or any religious support:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

[Anonymous No.18039263]

>>18039257

A poem similar to Job's first speech "perish the day I was born / And the night that said: a boy was conceived", but which is even more grand in his poetry than Job:

Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,
That makes ingrateful man!
(...)
Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this! O! O! 'tis foul!

A description of the fairy-world:

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

A description of the horror of the brothels at the time:

Neither of these are so bad as thou art,
Since they do better thee in their command.
Thou hold'st a place, for which the pained'st fiend
Of hell would not in reputation change:
Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib [Tib is a nickname for slut-girls];
To the choleric fisting of every rogue
Thy ear is liable; thy food is such
As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs.

[Anonymous No.18039271]

>>18039257

A Sunrise:

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

The passage of time:

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

On war, peace, ambition, all in few lines:

Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace.

On war:

VIRGILIA
His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!
VOLUMNIA
Away, you fool! it more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria,
We are fit to bid her welcome.

Description of a great warrior:

He is their god: he leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
Or butchers killing flies.
(...)
There is differency between a grub and a butterfly;
yet your butterfly was a grub. This Coriolanus is grown
from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a creeping thing.

[Anonymous No.18039275]

>>18039271

A lover complaining of how irritating his beloved is:

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
an oak but with one green leaf on it would have
answered her; my very visor began to assume life and
scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was
duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest
with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood
like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at
me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:
if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her; she would infect to
the north star. I would not marry her, though she
were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before
he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have
turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make
the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find
her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God
some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while
she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they
would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
and perturbation follows her.

[Anonymous No.18039285]

>>18039275

Women talking about men and to cheat or not:

DESDEMONA
I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA
There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA
Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA
No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA
Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do't as well i' the dark.
DESDEMONA
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA
The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
DESDEMONA
In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
EMILIA
In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
exhibition; but for the whole world,--why, who would
not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.
DESDEMONA
Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
EMILIA
Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your
own world, and you might quickly make it right.
DESDEMONA
I do not think there is any such woman.
EMILIA
Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would
store the world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

[Anonymous No.18039294]

>>18039285

Description of a storm on the sea:

MONTANO
What from the cape can you discern at sea?
First Gentleman
Nothing at all: it is a highwrought flood;
I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
MONTANO
Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:
If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?
Second Gentleman
A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view
On the enchafed flood.

Or this, on the same theme:

Clown: Hilloa, loa!

Shepherd:What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk
on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What
ailest thou, man?

Clown:I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land!
but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the
sky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust
a bodkin's point.

Shepherd:Why, boy, how is it?

Clown:I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages,
how it takes up the shore! but that's not the
point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls!
sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the
ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon
swallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a
cork into a hogshead. And then for the
land-service, to see how the bear tore out his
shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said
his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an
end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned
it: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the
sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared
and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than
the sea or weather.

[Anonymous No.18039302]

>>18039294

A meditation on the destruction of Earth and civilization:

Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a ling'ring act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

A warrior lamenting the need to act like a politician:

CORIOLANUS
Well, I must do't:
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot's spirit! my throat of war be turn'd,
Which quired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up
The glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue
Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,
Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath received an alms! I will not do't,
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth
And by my body's action teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

A cosmic description of a loved one:

CLEOPATRA
I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony:
O, such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!
DOLABELLA
If it might please ye,--
CLEOPATRA
His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course,
and lighted
The little O, the earth.
DOLABELLA
Most sovereign creature,--
CLEOPATRA
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

[Anonymous No.18039307]

>>18039294

Two songs, on winter and spring:

SPRING.

When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

WINTER.

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow
And coughing drowns the parson's saw
And birds sit brooding in the snow
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

On tyranny and abuse of power:

Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven,
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

[Anonymous No.18039330]

>>18031008
Show me ten great metaphors by Homer.

[Anonymous No.18039331]

>>18039330
Sorry, should have quoted >>18030981

[Anonymous No.18040192]

>>18031008
I mean, he literally began the literary tradition and I don't want to imply that Shakespeare and Dante carry a huge debt to Homer but, it should at least be acknowledged.
Even if you think Homer is a fictional placeholder for the oral ethos of a bronze-age Greece

[Anonymous No.18040243]

>>18031071
Found the Germ

[Anonymous No.18040609]

>>18030952
Then why did Elliot throw in so many bullshit quotes in The Wasteland from other authors?

[Anonymous No.18040637]

>>18038221
Dude, you do know the industrial revolution started in the 18th century?

[Anonymous No.18041954]

Cervantes

It’s just like Nabokov said here:

>>I object to such statements as "[the] perception [of Cervantes] was as sensitive, his mindas supple, his imagination as active, and his humor as subtle as those of Shakespeare.” Oh no—even if we limit Shakespeare to his comedies, Cervantes lags behind in all those things. Don Quixote but squires King Lear—and squires him well. The only matter in which Cervantes and Shakespeare are equals is the matter of influence, of spiritual irrigation—I have in view the long shadow cast upon receptive posterity of a created image which may continue to live independently from the book itself. Shakespeare's plays, however, will continue to live, apart from the shadow they project.

[Anonymous No.18041968]

I'm so tired of these chauvinistic Mexicans we wuzzing.