/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22273861]

>Without Religion There's No Art and Poetry
atheist can argue as much as they want but this remains true until the very end. Every great work of literature deals with questions about God, the soul and faith. Brothers Karamasov, Moby Dick, Ulysses, Don Quixote the list goes on and on. Name one great literature that does not have these as it's major theme. You can't!

[Anonymous No.22273867]

Without God, you mean. All religion is just men imposing their feeble fantasies on the Supreme.

[Anonymous No.22273870]

>>22273861
But the best literature is the one where god is dead, TSZ.

[Anonymous No.22273887]

>>22273861
>Ulysses
Theme != overarching necessity.
All works of literature will have religion as a theme for the same reason they will also have love: it's one of the important aspects of human nature.
But authors like Borges, Nabokov and Mallarmé, even though they touch on themes of religion, are not believers.
Ulysses is a perfectly arreligious book. I don't know about Joyce's personal beliefs, but it could as easily have been written by a Catholic as by a complete atheist, or by a Hellenist pagan.
A great artist does not need religion, because he has necessarily a superior mind. Only the populace needs religion. Peterson is part of the populace -- only a man of the people, i.e., an imbecile with little self-control, could have gotten benzos addiction, or be as worried as he is about 'the current state of our universities' and other middling topics for middling minds.

[Anonymous No.22274787]

>>22273861
do shakespeare, vonnegut, nabokov, corncob, pynchon, kafka, and dickens deal with questions about God? they probably have some novels where transcendentalism is a theme but I don't think all of their major works have theology as a major theme.

[Anonymous No.22274960]

>>22274787
>shakespeare
Are you retarded?
>vonnegut
Yeah, you probably are.

[Anonymous No.22274995]

>>22273861
Maybe because for the past 2000 years in Europe saying Jesus isn’t real would get you killed or ostracized? Imagine if the current taboo around criticizing trans or being racist continues fir the next 2000 years. Then you will be saying that transphobes and racists can’t produce good art because for the last 2k years almost none of the artists have been racist or transphobic.

[Anonymous No.22275052]

>>22274787
touch some paper ffs

[Anonymous No.22275104]

>>22274960
>>22275052
>they probably have some novels where transcendentalism is a theme but I don't think all of their major works have theology as a major theme.

[Anonymous No.22275183]

>>22274787
kafka's father figure in his novels is literally a metaphor for God

[Anonymous No.22275192]

>>22273861
>Brothers Karamasov, Moby Dick, Ulysses, Don Quixote the list goes on and on.

Please be bait
Please be bait
Please be bait

[Anonymous No.22275214]

>>22273861
Which god?

[Anonymous No.22275240]

>>22275214
Probably capital g God with the three Os (omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibelovent) and the third o is negotiable.

[Anonymous No.22275991]

>>22275240
Goood?

[Anonymous No.22276001]

I never could write a poem worth not throwing it away before I started believing in God, so it checks out I guess

[Anonymous No.22276009]

>>22273861
Where's your great work, little larper?

[Anonymous No.22277124]

>>22274787
>Vonnegut… Nabokov, Corncob, Pynchon… Dickens
Who cares about any of these

[Anonymous No.22277130]

>Without thinking the universe is like really big and cool and mysterious and woah dude There's No Art and Poetry
people who think universe is like not really big and cool and mysterious and woah dude can argue as much as they want but this remains true until the very end. Every great work of literature deals with questions about is the universe like really big and cool and mysterious and woah dude. Brothers Karamasov, Moby Dick, Ulysses, Don Quixote the list goes on and on. Name one great literature that does not have these as it's major theme. You can't!

[Anonymous No.22277142]

>>22273861
If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.

[Anonymous No.22277145]

>>22275183
God is literally a metaphor for father figures

[Anonymous No.22277163]

>>22273861
Great literature does try to teach you the lesson that there is more to transcendence than believing in some divine prison warden that counts your good boi points, and here you are listening to the confused and crying faggot Peterson who can't think, can't write, can only hypnotize mouthbreathing audiences by his free association rambles

[Anonymous No.22277176]

>>22273861
>there was no art and poetry before the abrahamic religions. there is no art and poetry in other n-a/abrahamic religions, only christianity

[Anonymous No.22277215]

>>22273861
Attributing it to religion is false, man is a being of symbols and we need mythological narratives in order to function. Giving such a big credit to religion is really narrowminded and false in my mind, and it's not just my atheist bias that thinks so, but read about great authors and their relation to powerful symbolisms that can be found in various mythologies world wide, and you'll see that.

[Anonymous No.22277242]

>>22273861
The actual subject matter is the human condition, theology is artistically irrelevant except to the extend that it has an influence on human life, which in the case of Ulysses is a negative one and opposed to the good life.

[Anonymous No.22277388]

>>22273861
>You see, literally all of these authors I handpicked, who have lived in times during which not being a theist was both rare and somewhat socially unacceptable, dealt with questions about God - surely because of an innate need and without any social influence whatsoever. This fact in and of itself means that without religion there is no art and poetry, never was nor will be.

[Anonymous No.22277391]

lmao

[Anonymous No.22278510]

>>22273861
Lucretius - On The Nature of the Universe

[Anonymous No.22278550]

>>22276009
/thread

[Anonymous No.22278694]

>>22273861
what religion did these guys follow?

[Anonymous No.22278903]

>without a king there is no huhhh feodalism
your brain on 0 historical consciousness

[Anonymous No.22278926]

>>22278694
the right one

[Anonymous No.22278939]

>>22274995
Shut the fuck up faggot. He included pre Christianity also the Christian world was not the entire world, which is why its classified as the Christian world

[Anonymous No.22278944]

>>22277215
It's your atheist bias. Not an argument btw. Don't talk in here anymore, k?

[Anonymous No.22279211]

>>22273861
Not necessarily true. Stories about family or "tribal struggle" (war, nationalism, alienation) are sources of great art.

[Anonymous No.22279240]

>>22273861
*Blocks your path*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2emFTTR7heg

[Anonymous No.22279243]

>>22277145
Based