/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21443548]

Post quotes.

>We might well consider the proper form of address to be, not Monsieur, Sir, mein Herr, but my fellow-sufferer, Socî malorum, compagnon de miseres! This may perhaps sound strange, but it is in keeping with the facts; it puts others in a right light; and it reminds us of that which is after all the most necessary thing in life—the tolerance, patience, regard, and love of neighbor, of which everyone stands in need, and which, therefore, every man owes to his fellow.

[Anonymous No.21443558]

As for your artificial conception of "splendid & traditional ways of life"—I feel quite confident that you are very largely constructing a mythological idealisation of something which never truly existed; a conventional picture based on the perusal of books which followed certain hackneyed lines in the matter of incidents, sentiments, & situations, & which never had a close relationship to the actual societies they professed to depict . . . In some ways the life of certain earlier periods had marked advantages over life today, but there were compensating disadvantages which would make many hesitate about a choice. Some of the most literarily attractive ages had a coarseness, stridency, & squalor which we would find insupportable . . . Modern neurotics, lolling in stuffed easy chairs, merely make a myth of these old periods & use them as the nuclei of escapist daydreams whose substance resembles but little the stern actualities of yesterday. That is undoubtedly the case with me—only I'm fully aware of it. Except in certain selected circles, I would undoubtedly find my own 18th century insufferably coarse, orthodox, arrogant, narrow, & artificial. What I look back upon nostalgically is a dream-world which I invented at the age of four from picture books & the Georgian hill streets of Old Providence. . . . There is something artificial & hollow & unconvincing about self-conscious intellectual traditionalism—this being, of course, the only valid objection against it. The best sort of traditionalism is that easy-going eclectic sort which indulges in no frenzied pulmotor stunts, but courses naturally down from generation to generation; bequeathing such elements as really are sound, losing such as have lost value, & adding any which new conditions may make necessary. . . . In short, young man, I have no quarrel with the principle of traditionalism as such, but I have a decided quarrel with everything that is insincere, inappropriate, & disproportionate; for these qualities mean ugliness & weakness in the most offensive degree. I object to the feigning of artificial moods on the part of literary moderns who cannot even begin to enter into the life & feelings of the past which they claim to represent . . . If there were any reality or depth of feeling involved, the case would be different; but almost invariably the neotraditionalists are sequestered persons remote from any real contacts or experience with life . . . For any person today to fancy he can truly enter into the life & feeling of another period is really nothing but a confession of ignorance of the depth & nature of life in its full sense. This is the case with myself. I feel I am living in the 18th century, though my objective judgment knows better, & realises the vast difference from the real thing.

[Anonymous No.21443564]

>>21443558
When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shap'd at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next design'd;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Fill'd it with vice, and call'd the thing a NIGGER.

[Anonymous No.21443644]

>>21443548
why is he projecting 0 pussy on everyone?
why is he addressing men exclusively?

[Anonymous No.21443670]

>>21443548
> “No matter how remarkable a man may be, now matter how independent, how forthright, how stubborn in his behaviour and opinions and judgement of whatever kind, yet, if he live in society, his thoughts and actions are truly his own to the smallest degree. In almost every way he is determined and modified by others, even those for whom he has little or no respect.” - Giacomo Leopardi

[Anonymous No.21443676]

>>21443564
Lovecraft clearly didn’t read the Greeks well enough as Greeks believed the Gods made black people first

> “Only yesterday Zeus went off to the Ocean River to feast with the Aethiopians (Ethiopians), loyal, lordly men, and all of the gods went with him.” - Homer

> “The Aethiopians (Ethiopians) are highly favored with the gods, they were the first of all men created by the gods and were the founders of the Egyptian Civilization.” - Diodorus Siculus