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/lit/ - Literature

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18107965 No.18107965 [Reply] [Original]

What's wrong with it? It's called "baroque".

>> No.18107989

>>18107965
There's nothing wrong with ornamented prose if it actually conveys and evokes stuff (and, ideally, also sound good). Offensive purple prose is usually just overwrought without actually communicating anything.

>> No.18107998

>>18107989
>Offensive purple prose is usually just overwrought without actually communicating anything.
*cue Henry James*

>> No.18108002

>>18107965
hated by retards for whom the story or “lessons” from it are most important, as if the words are only there to convey information

>> No.18108037

>>18107965
It's actually called "cringe".

>> No.18108073

>>18107965
Concision is a writer's strength. Only people on here think prolix=better

>> No.18108081

>>18107998
Pseud king destroyed

>> No.18108398

>>18107965
>What's wrong with it? It's called "baroque".
It's just form over substance, that's what's wrong with it. Of course it's up to your sensibilities where you draw the line, if you like it it's "baroque", if you don't it's purple prose.

>> No.18108472

>>18108398
Substance over form makes a textbook: "concise" prose in literature is just another type of form that is put over substance.

>> No.18108653
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18108653

>>18107965
This is a prime example of purple prose. I had to search the meaning of lustra, in Rome it was "a purificatory sacrifice made after a census every five years". It's a very peculiar way to say "10 years".

>> No.18108676

>>18107965
I love purple prose while drunk, anyone feel me?

>> No.18108719

>>18107965
It's used to separate retards who don't actually know how to write something poetic and think the point is to just through long words together that have a slightly melodramatic rhythm

>> No.18108824

There's nothing wrong with it. I prefer that style to the grotesque sparseness pervasive throughout contemporary literature.

>> No.18108847

>>18108824
Yeah contemporary novels are written as if they’re the novelization of someone watching a Netflix

>> No.18108865

>>18108653
>americans don't know what a lustra is
>they can't even comprehend what they read
It literally says in that description that it's 5 years

>> No.18108882

>>18108472
substance over form =/= concise you fucking retard

>>18108824
>grotesque sparseness
this is an excellent example of purple prose

>> No.18108884

>>18108865
>a lustra

>> No.18108918

>>18108882
>this is an excellent example of purple prose
Just die already, Gordon Lish

>> No.18108922

>>18108882
>substance over form =/= concise
When did I say that? I used concise to mean non-purple prose: not the best choice of terms, hence the quotation marks, but I definitely didn't imply that it meant substance over form.

>> No.18109141

>>18108882
>literally two words that anyone who passed middle school recognizes
>purple prose
No, you're just retarded.
He chose that phrase intentionally to evoke a certain feeling in people reading his post. It wasn't overwrought.
In a medium like literature, style IS substance. The wikipedia plot summary of the Divine Comedy is not an equivalent work of art to Dante's.

>> No.18110583

>>18108922
>I used concise to mean non-purple prose
non-purple prose is not necessarily concise

>>18109141
>literally two words that anyone who passed middle school recognizes
Well I'm not sure the anon who wrote that post actually knows what the words mean, because describing sparseness as "grotesque" is actually a very weird use of that word. Inb4 that's what he meant. It's not. He meant ugly, but he used grotesque because he thought it made him sound smarter without considering the actual meaning/connotations of the word.

>The wikipedia plot summary of the Divine Comedy is not an equivalent work of art to Dante's.
That has nothing to do with the discussion of purple prose.

>> No.18111417

>>18110583
>hence the quotation marks
But my bad for not using the right word.
Anyways, my point was that a moving story or a brilliant philosophical thesis will be moving or brilliant no matter how or where it is written. Literary merit comes from taking substance and elevating it - so to speak - through form: the divine comedy differs from its summary precisely due to its form, since the story and the themes (the "meat" or substance of the work) are as present in both. When we are debating whether "purple prose" is bad, we are not debating whether substance should come before form, but whether this particular form is worse than others.

>> No.18111553

>>18107965
No it's still purple prose. Baroque prose, even at it's most decadent never loses sight of what it intends to discourse on. Purple prose however stitches together various conceits that tends to truncate clarity in favour of obscurity.

Baroque language is usually more muscular while purple prose is bloated due to negligence and ill-health. All this is accomplished due to an improper handling of ideas, wobbly syntax, slapdash sentiments or an imperfect mastery over the language you're working in.

>> No.18111566

>>18108865
Have you brushed your teeth today?

>> No.18111578
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18111578

When it's done right it's kino. Brideshead Revisited is one of the most beautifully written books in the English language.

>> No.18111589

>>18107965

It's not ostentation that makes purple prose bad, it's the fact that it's overwrought and usually not communicating effectively or in the proper manner.

Basically this >>18107989

And this >>18108002 is often also true, mass culture / reddit / normies etc hold a certain resentment towards difficult prose

>> No.18111624

English is a language of supreme nuance. We have a dozen different words for rain and all have subtly distinct meanings. "Purple prose" happens when writers don't understand the words they're using with enough nuance to use them elegantly. Vernacular English tends to conflate little used words with more frequently used ones in common understanding, without regard for the subtleties of their real meaning. See, the widespread misuse of "asinine" or "exponentially". Elegant, efficient writing uses the nuanced, precise meanings of words to avoid excess. Purple prose is excess created by crude understanding of the language.

>> No.18111710

>>18107965
Nothing. The avoidance of it is largely a guideline for people who lack the skill, if you are good enough than you will understand why it is generally said to avoid it. Plenty of modern writers use purple prose and do so very well, these days it is used sparingly to provide contrast.

>> No.18111717

>>18107965
it do be like dat yuh hurrd

>> No.18111751

Purple prose in itself isn’t bad, purple prose has to serve a purpose though or it feels out of place or like the author is trying to impress you. Well executed purple prose doesn’t feel out of place however. If a whole novel is written in a “purple” way, and the plot and content of the story justifies the use of purple and it’s kept at a consistent level, then it is not only acceptable but rather the best option.

Only a Mongoloid would fault Shakespeare for writing in purple when writing the speeches of Polonius in hamlet for example, because it’s supposed to be a pompous character.

>> No.18111755

>>18107965
>It's called "baroque".
conflating ‘purple prose’ with ‘baroque’ might be the worst thing ever done on this website.

>> No.18111896
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18111896

>>18107965


«PURPLE PROSE» IS VERBOSITY; BAROQUISTIC PROSE ENTAILS SYNTACTICAL, AND CONCEPTUAL, COMPLEXITY, AS WELL AS COMMUNICATIVE EFFICIENCY, AND POETICAL VALUE; MERE VERBOSITY DOES NOT CONSTITUTE BAROQUISM.

>> No.18111941

>>18108865
What? By the way, I'm argentinian.

>> No.18113312

>>18107989
>>18111589
isnt there also a point about sensefity to it though too? like, you can believe a british nobleman, dipping his wine and looking out on his vineyards talking like that, all eloquent and stuff, but when it comes from the mouth of a literal who college kid from the 21st century, it just feels fake and unnatural in a way since that type doesn't usually talk in that manor.

>> No.18113318

>>18113312
manner, sorry

>> No.18113448

>>18108653
Obscure words don't make purple prose.

>> No.18114895

>>18107965
>What's wrong with it?
Nothing, so long as it beautiful; beauty is colourful, just as truth is numberful; what is pessimal is sogginess, and incoherence.

>> No.18114943

>>18107965
Nothing is wrong with it if it's good. The contemporary push towards curt, minimalist stylism is driven mostly by publishers and academics who want everything to be inclusive and homogenous so when the jews' talmudic pyramids have finally finished being clad with the cured foreskins of gentiles we will look up and immediately be cowed, language having a pivotal relationship with free thought, to the point where we just bend over, eat the bugs, suck and fuck the nice nigga from down the way, and let those goddamn jews take our women with them to alpha centauri leaving us alone down here to get fucked up the ass by hung niggas forever and all eternity amen

>> No.18114950

>>18107965
Inherently, nothing, and I hate that the dominant opinion has become that prose should essentially be dry, as if form had no value in itself, or the prose calling attention to itself were a bad thing.

Obviously it is bad when it is done by someone who has no idea of what he is doing, it is bad when the words are chosen to sound like a phillistine's idea of beautiful, but that is true for any other type of writing. I read novels written in the 19th century and it just makes me seethe that we unlearned how to write that way.

Is it the necessity of modern capitalism that everything needs to be fast and utilitarian that just spilled over onto literature?

>> No.18114980

>>18114950
>I hate that the dominant opinion has become that prose should essentially be dry
I always saw this as a "you need to learn to walk before you can run" sort of thing, but like all writing advice it's packaged as an absolute because if you allow for exceptions the least qualified people will think that they are the exception. There's a tendency among novice writers to stack up adjectives while barely being able to write a complete sentence, just read any of the amateur fantasy writing that gets posted in crit threads here and you'll see what I mean.

>> No.18115028

>>18114980
I always saw it as a function of the authors percieved actual language and the context of a story. It feelsmuch more odd forsone random to write really flowery when people don't usually speak flowery today.

>> No.18115043

>>18115028
Sure, if the context calls for a more conversational tone I understand that. But written and spoken language have a very different feel, and the narrator of a story is not necessarily a "person" anyway

>> No.18115066

>>18114950
>it just makes me seethe that we unlearned how to write that way
Seethe often and publicly. This is the mechanism of change. I seethe about it at least once a day. It is perfectly reasonable and rational to recoil against the firmly established conventions and mores of your time. In our time, it's becoming obvious that we've spent a little too long suckling Hemingway's toes, trying to find the last little bit of nectarine jam. Hemingway is long dead and the writing Rules and Regulations which sprouted from his corpse are running out of nutrients.

>> No.18115101

>>18113312
Purple prose or not no one ever talks like in literature. That's why we have literary language and everyday spoken language. A book written in spoken language is going to stick out just as much as any person speaking in literary language.

>> No.18115131

>>18115101
>A book written in spoken language is going to stick out just as much as any person speaking in literary language.
A book written spoken language is fine if it's good. A person who speaks in """literary language""" is also fine. For being on one of the last genuine bastions of free speech, some of you guys are frustratingly doctrinal in your attitudes and opinions. Stop fucking appealing to convention. All that does is ensure that everything is conventional. I'm half convinced at this point that if you retards had your way any two texts would be wholly indistinguishable from one another.

>> No.18115191

>>18108676
More of a dunhill red man myself but yeah dude.

>> No.18115765

>>18107965
What are some classics in this style?