/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18718644]

"Describe this woman in your best pro-"
>HOMER himself, who so persistently regrains from all detailed descriptions of physical beauty, that we barely learn, from a passing mention, that Helen had white arms and beautiful hair, even he manages nevertheless to give us an idea of her beauty, which far surpasses any thing that art could do. Recall the passage where Helen enters the assembly of the Trojan leaders. The venerable man see her coming, and one says to the others:
>They cried, “No wonder such celestial charms
>For nine long years have set the world in arms;
>What winning graces! what majestic mien!
>She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen!"
>What can give a more vivid idea of her beauty than that cold-blooded age should deem it well worth the war which had cost so much blood and so many tears?
>What Homer could not describe in its details, he shows us by its effect. Paint us, ye poets, the delight, the attraction, the love, the enchantment of beauty, and you have painted beauty itself."
/lit/ coomers eternally BTFO by based LESSING

[Anonymous No.18718667]

>>18718644
How is this different than Lovecraft showing his characters going insane instead of describing the monster

[Anonymous No.18718704]

>>18718667
maybe Lovecraft was right, he did read his Homer

[Anonymous No.18718745]

>>18718667
Lovecraft described the monsters more often than not, sometimes with great detail. One time he even describes the autopsy of one. This meme is dumb

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18718753]

[Anonymous No.18718829]

>>18718644
>>18718644
>>18718667
it is true that stupid people don't cry at sad chick flicks because of the depth and poignancy of the tragedy in the movie. they cry because immediately after the tragedy, they show a series of reaction shots of their favorite #relatable character crying. most people are irreversibly programmed to sublimate their own emotions to the emotions of the crowd; therefore, the most effective way to evoke an emotional response is to convince them others feel the same way.

however, the true thinking man is unmoved by the opinions of others. to a well-trained aesthete evaluating the merit of art, the merit of the beauty itself hugely eclipses the impression made by others' reaction to it. a real man does not care what others think of a woman's looks. he only cares about how she looks to him.

allowing other men's opinions to dictate your feelings towards how a woman looks means that when you see woman you think is beautiful, you're not really seeing her. you're seeing what other men would say about her. which, when you think about it, is kinda gay.

so maybe what I'm saying is the reason you don't like erotic descriptions of women is cause you're a little faggot.

[Anonymous No.18718853]

>>18718644
>woman

[Anonymous No.18718876]

i miss the army. i want a new war.

[Anonymous No.18718877]

>>18718753
Post your favorite description of a girl in literature

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18718884]

>>18718853
She’s clearly a woman. What are you on about?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18718898]

>>18718876
Degeneracy.

>>18718877
I haven’t read much romantic lit. I like Stendhal’s and Olivia

[Anonymous No.18718911]

>>18718644
there are several ways of writing retard and if Homer wanted to "describe this woman in his best prose" he would have done so if it thought it would be relevant. Have some Flaubert:
>Derrière elle, de chaque côté, se tenaient deux longues théories d’hommes pâles, vêtus de robes blanches à franges rouges qui tombaient droit sur leurs pieds. Ils n’avaient pas de cheveux, pas de sourcils. Dans leurs mains étincelantes d’anneaux ils portaient d’énormes lyres et chantaient tous, d’une voix aiguë, un hymne à la Divinité de Carthage. C’étaient les prêtres eunuques du temple de Tanit, que Salammbô appelait souvent dans sa maison.
>Enfin elle descendit l’escalier des galères. Les prêtres la suivirent. Elle s’avança dans l’avenue des cyprès, et elle marchait lentement entre les tables des capitaines, qui se reculaient un peu en la regardant passer.
>Sa chevelure, poudrée d’un sable violet, et réunie en forme de tour selon la mode des vierges chananéennes, la faisait paraître plus grande. Des tresses de perles attachées à ses tempes descendaient jusqu’aux coins de sa bouche, rose comme une grenade entr’ouverte. Il y avait sur sa poitrine un assemblage de pierres lumineuses, imitant par leur bigarrure les écailles d’une murène. Ses bras, garnis de diamants, sortaient nus de sa tunique sans manches, étoilée de fleurs rouges sur un fond tout noir. Elle portait entre les chevilles une chaînette d’or pour régler sa marche, et son grand manteau de pourpre sombre, taillé dans une étoffe inconnue, traînait derrière elle, faisant à chacun de ses pas comme une large vague qui la suivait.
>Les prêtres, de temps à autre, pinçaient sur leurs lyres des accords presque étouffés ; et dans les intervalles de la musique, on entendait le petit bruit de la chaînette d’or avec le claquement régulier de ses sandales en papyrus.
>Personne encore ne la connaissait. On savait seulement qu’elle vivait retirée dans des pratiques pieuses. Des soldats l’avaient aperçue la nuit, sur le haut de son palais, à genoux devant les étoiles, entre les tourbillons des cassolettes allumées. C’était la lune qui l’avait rendue si pâle, et quelque chose des dieux l’enveloppait comme une vapeur subtile. Ses prunelles semblaient regarder tout au loin au delà des espaces terrestres. Elle marchait en inclinant la tête, et tenait à sa main droite une petite lyre d’ébène.

[Anonymous No.18718920]

>>18718898
but i like war.

[Anonymous No.18718928]

>>18718829
True in reality, but not in literature: if a character's appearance is known from the descriptions of others, then her appearance has no other existence
A philosophical spirit may disdain the opinion of the crowd because 1) they know the multitude is stupid, which does not apply to books because their characters are crafted to evoke a certain emotional appeal or 2) they want to think for themselves, but this also fails since even a direct description of a woman's appearance is given by an external source, viz. the writer
The reason erotic descriptions of women don't work is simply that thorough descriptions of static objects - like bodies - do not belong in literature, but in painting

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18718932]

>>18718920
ITS DEGENERATE

[Anonymous No.18718948]

>>18718911
>there are several ways of writing retard and if Homer wanted to "describe this woman in his best prose" he would have done so if it thought it would be relevant.
What do you mean, it is extremely relevant because the war was occasioned by Helen's beauty
>Have some Flaubert:
Post in English, you can't expect everyone to know your frog language

[Anonymous No.18718949]

>>18718911
Salammbo is truly the toppest of prose tiers

[Anonymous No.18718982]

>>18718932
dont knock it till you try it young lady

[Anonymous No.18719016]

>>18718948
What is relevant here is the war, not Helen's beauty. You only need to know she's beautiful, and you know it's true because of the war. Besides epics have a mythological and foundational fonction and as such are not very compatible with precise description if they are not mythological and foundational too (like the shield). Here's in English:
>Behind her, on each side, were two long shadows of pale men, clad in white, red-fringed robes, which fell straight to their feet. They had no beard, no hair, no eyebrows. In their hands, which sparkled with rings, they carried enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a hymn to the divinity of Carthage. They were the eunuch priests of the temple of Tanith, who were often summoned by Salammbô to her house.
>At last she descended the galley staircase. The priests followed her. She advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the tables of the captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her pass.
>Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height. Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to the corners of her mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open pomegranate. On her breast was a collection of luminous stones, their variegation imitating the scales of the murena. Her arms were adorned with diamonds, and issued naked from her sleeveless tunic, which was starred with red flowers on a perfectly black ground. Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and her large dark purple mantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her, making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her.
>The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to time, and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus sandals.
>No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led a retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her in the night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the eddyings from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that had made her so pale, and there was something from the gods that enveloped her like a subtle vapour. Her eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial space. She bent her head as she walked, and in her right hand she carried a little ebony lyre.
>>18718949
truly something else

[Anonymous No.18719065]

>>18719016
The description is good, but it argues my case better: the writer has to focus most of his attentions upon her jewels, garb, etc., instead of herself: when her features - such as her hair or her mouth - are mentioned, they have to be salvaged by reference to more aesthetic objects like the tower and the pomegranate

[Anonymous No.18719096]

>>18718644
this shit is SIMPING on a hole new level

a pathetic one

KYS

[Anonymous No.18719109]

>>18719065
yes and? I just posted a kino extract I had in mind not like a proof of anything, just a magnificent description of a woman. Besides if I were to "describe this woman in my best prose" I would also use her environment and all, otherwise it would probably be pretty boring. I'm not even sure what's the point of your thread desu

[Anonymous No.18719141]

You want pure autism here you go:

Lucretia Clavering was tall,—tall beyond what is admitted to be tall in woman; but in her height there was nothing either awkward or masculine,—a figure more perfect never served for model to a sculptor. The dress at that day, unbecoming as we now deem it, was not to her—at least, on the whole disadvantageous. The short waist gave greater sweep to her majestic length of limb, while the classic thinness of the drapery betrayed the exact proportion and the exquisite contour. The arms then were worn bare almost to the shoulder, and Lucretia’s arms were not more faultless in shape than dazzling in their snowy colour; the stately neck, the falling shoulders, the firm, slight, yet rounded bust,—all would have charmed equally the artist and the sensualist. Fortunately, the sole defect of her form was not apparent at a distance: that defect was in the hand; it had not the usual faults of female youthfulness,—the superfluity of flesh, the too rosy healthfulness of colour,—on the contrary, it was small and thin; but it was, nevertheless, more the hand of a man than a woman: the shape had a man’s nervous distinctness, the veins swelled like sinews, the joints of the fingers were marked and prominent. In that hand it almost seemed as if the iron force of the character betrayed itself. But, as we have said, this slight defect, which few, if seen, would hypercritically notice, could not, of course, be perceptible as she moved slowly up the room; and Vernon’s eye, glancing over the noble figure, rested upon the face. Was it handsome? Was it repelling? Strange that in feature it had pretensions to the highest order of beauty, and yet even that experienced connoisseur in female charms was almost as puzzled what sentence to pronounce. The hair, as was the fashion of the day, clustered in profuse curls over the forehead, but could not conceal a slight line or wrinkle between the brows; and this line, rare in women at any age, rare even in men at hers, gave an expression at once of thought and sternness to the whole face. The eyebrows themselves were straight, and not strongly marked, a shade or two perhaps too light,—a fault still more apparent in the lashes; the eyes were large, full, and though bright, astonishingly calm and deep,—at least in ordinary moments; yet withal they wanted the charm of that steadfast and open look which goes at once to the heart and invites its trust,—their expression was rather vague and abstracted.

[Anonymous No.18719145]

>>18719141
She usually looked aslant while she spoke, and this, which with some appears but shyness, in one so self-collected had an air of falsehood. But when, at times, if earnest, and bent rather on examining those she addressed than guarding herself from penetration, she fixed those eyes upon you with sudden and direct scrutiny, the gaze impressed you powerfully, and haunted you with a strange spell. The eye itself was of a peculiar and displeasing colour,—not blue, nor gray, nor black, nor hazel, but rather of that cat-like green which is drowsy in the light, and vivid in the shade. The profile was purely Greek, and so seen, Lucretia’s beauty seemed incontestable; but in front face, and still more when inclined between the two, all the features took a sharpness that, however regular, had something chilling and severe: the mouth was small, but the lips were thin and pale, and had an expression of effort and contraction which added to the distrust that her sidelong glance was calculated to inspire. The teeth were dazzlingly white, but sharp and thin, and the eye-teeth were much longer than the rest. The complexion was pale, but without much delicacy,—the paleness seemed not natural to it, but rather that hue which study and late vigils give to men; so that she wanted the freshness and bloom of youth, and looked older than she was,—an effect confirmed by an absence of roundness in the cheek not noticeable in the profile, but rendering the front face somewhat harsh as well as sharp. In a word, the face and the figure were not in harmony: the figure prevented you from pronouncing her to be masculine; the face took from the figure the charm of feminacy. It was the head of the young Augustus upon the form of Agrippina. One touch more, and we close a description which already perhaps the reader may consider frivolously minute. If you had placed before the mouth and lower part of the face a mask or bandage, the whole character of the upper face would have changed at once,—the eye lost its glittering falseness, the brow its sinister contraction; you would have pronounced the face not only beautiful, but sweet and womanly. Take that bandage suddenly away and the change would have startled you, and startled you the more because you could detect no sufficient defect or disproportion in the lower part of the countenance to explain it. It was as if the mouth was the key to the whole: the key nothing without the text, the text uncomprehended without the key.

[Anonymous No.18719232]

Ugly vapid whore with inflated lips. Next

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18719265]

>>18719232
It’s just a little lip plumper. Makeup

[Anonymous No.18719395]

>>18718932
ITS HUMAN

[Anonymous No.18719441]

>>18718884
the one you posted yes; but not the op

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18719514]

>>18719395
No, it is not. Eating is human. Having a disagreement is human. Getting mad is human. Defending yourself is human. Fucking Apollonian zombified bootlicker

>>18719441
Same woman.
Don’t look at this one

[Anonymous No.18719745]

>>18719514
But when a group of people have a disagreement, get mad and then take physical action that's not human? Umm sweaty
>Fucking Apollonian zombified bootlicker
War is the most dionysian shit of them all

[Anonymous No.18719824]

>>18719745
Stop arguing with women anon, they are incapable of using reason.

[Anonymous No.18719847]

>>18718932
you dont know the first thing about what is and isn't degeneracy

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18719852]

>>18719745
What you first describe scuffle. War is more than a mere scuffle.
Dionysus isn’t the god of war, not even strategy, not even wrath, but wine, dance, celebration. Wild life and wildlife.

>>18719824
Why are you so stupid?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18719860]

>>18719847
War is CLEARLY degeneration

[Anonymous No.18719872]

>>18718644
You see more of her without the bright lights. Her face is as carefully curated as the books she happens to expose at her shoulder. It would credit too much too far to suggest hers' is a lie, for surely she does not know what she truly does or why.

[Anonymous No.18719876]

>>18719852
great example of womens lack of reason

[Anonymous No.18719877]

>>18718644
very fuckable

[Anonymous No.18719905]

>>18719860
>culls society like wolves cull an overabundant deer population
>keeps men and women balanced, keeps society from growing too soft and decadent
nothing degenerate about it , man has no predators to keep us in check and keep us on our toes, it falls to us to fill that role

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18719933]

>>18719905
>Wolves are always committing genocide
>Men and women have always existed as equals under male domination
>Constant bloodshed and impoverishment grows character!
>Nothing degenerate here!

[Anonymous No.18719942]

>>18719905
War is the defeat of the noble by the hands of the decadent and evil.
War culls the brave and lets weak, cowardly and traitorous men remain.
There is no lessons that war bestows on us, except a reminder on man's limitless evil towards each other and for what? To satisfy their beastly instincts and greed?