/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4210985]

What is the greatest thing ever written and why is it The Wasteland?

[Anonymous No.4212747]

bump

[Anonymous No.4212760]

reformulate your question to make sense

[Anonymous No.4212765]

The Aeneid

Lovecraft's parody of The Wasteland is better than The Wasteland

[Anonymous No.4212771]

>>4212765
>Lovecraft better than Eliot
wat

[Anonymous No.4212775]

>>4212771
Lovecraft is shitty pulp but his parody of The Wasteland is funny
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Waste_Paper

[Anonymous No.4212780]

>>4212775
that doesn't make it better than the waste land

[Anonymous No.4212785]

>>4212780
it kind of does, because The Wasteland is shit and Lovecraft's parody points out that The Wasteland is shit, and so the latter achieves more than the former.

[Anonymous No.4212787]

>>4212785
guess what, the waste land isn't shit.
see what i did there? arguing without arguments

[Anonymous No.4212794]

>>4212785
>Lovecraft's parody
>not just him being unable to understand the genius of it

It went completely over Lovecraft's head and you know it.

[Anonymous No.4212795]

>>4212787
The link a gave has a quotation from Lovecraft that sums up The Wasteland
>a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general
The Wasteland achieves nothing poetically, aesthetically. It is pure scribbling. There are a few quotations that are beautiful quotations, like "April is the cruellest month" and "for you only / know a heap of broken images" in the first part, but these statements aren't a part of an aesthetical framework, they are merely quoted, stated.

Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn ends with
>'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
>Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

This is a quote, but the reason why it is beautiful in the context of the poem is because the poem imbues it with aesthetical content. In and of itself the quote is pretty, but it's hardly remarkable poetically. If somebody quoted that to me in conversation I would say, "yes, that's a beautiful quote", but I wouldn't say that he was a poetic mastermind for merely stating the quotation.

[Anonymous No.4212798]

>>4212795
>"for you only / know a heap of broken images"

sorry
it's
>"for you only know / A heap of broken images,"

[Anonymous No.4212799]

Was getting caught / part of your plan

[Anonymous No.4212801]

>>4212795
Also, you could argue that this scrappy, scribbling style is itself the aesthetic that Eliot was aiming to achieve, because "it mirrors modernity, the human condition in the modern world", well, in that case, he achieves exactly what modernity achieves aesthetically --- hardly anything, a "whimper" rather than a "bang".

[Anonymous No.4212810]

>>4212801
>being this rooted into aestheticism

HAAH WAAW

[Anonymous No.4212811]

>>4212798
actually, I got it wrong again
it's "know only", not "only know"

[Anonymous No.4212814]

>>4212810
T.S. Eliot is too rooted in aestheticism. He insists on giving us the "modern aesthetic" even though he knows that the modern aesthetic is a very impoverished aesthetic. He insists on it, absolutely insists on it, even when he's guilty of barbaric writing he insists on it.

[Anonymous No.4212817]

>>4212795
This is simply not true.
How can you miss the deeply poetic settings in the Waste Land? The first part opens up in a childhood garden, among mountains and patios, where the narrator speaks --though bitterly, of his lost childhood. The scene where the narrator, after mentioning Marie, receives the flowers and looks into "the heart of light / the silence" is truly moving.
Same thing for the dead city of London, where nothing grows and the narrator is forced into sterility. Haven't you noticed the running music -the beauty you spoke of- in the poem? In the Unreal city, the tone grows duller and duller, close to a short breath.

I could go on forever. Likewise, in the second section, the scene between the narrator and his wife is also troubling. The exchange between the unhappy couple shows how hollow mundane life is, pretty much doing what Beckett will do 30 years later.
The Waste Land is not just a posh collage of incoherent things, it actually makes sense, that's the utter beauty of The Waste Land.

[Anonymous No.4212827]

>>4212817
>, it actually makes sense

I agree, but it makes sense of the senseless, incoherent and ugly modern world, and I would rather not contemplate the senseless, incoherent and ugly, I find it polluting. This is why I like the poetry of antiquity --- it's not because they have more skill in writing, it's that they have a more discriminating taste in what they choose to contemplate and write about in the first place.

>The exchange between the unhappy couple shows how hollow mundane life is,

See, I don't want to know how hollow and mundane life is, because I don't think life is hollow and mundane and that the modern world is a complete lie. This is why I prefer to read Homer and Virgil, because they show us the fullness of life and not its hollowness. To ask me to worship the beautiful presentation of the mundane and hollow is still to ask me to worship the mundane and the hollow, and I refuse, it would make a barbarian of me (and I think that the modern world is populated by barbarians).

[Anonymous No.4212831]

>>4212827
>the modern world is populated by barbarians

learned barbarians though --- I will give them that, these barbarians are very learned in their barbarism.

[Anonymous No.4212833]

>>4212827
OK.

[Anonymous No.4212835]

>>4212827
Why dismiss The Waste Land then? I can understand that you don't find the modern life as aesthetic materials appealing (though it is debatable, since it's been the heart of art since the late 19th), but it doesn't mean such beauty doesn't exist.

I like seeing the hollow and terrifying scenes in The Waste Land because it prepares me to the purification that is to come: the pilgrimage of the poet, going through those cities, whores and capitalism, into a remote mountain.
I think beauty resides in meanings --the mundane and the horrifying is beautiful to us, modern readers, because it's the only form of reality we've got. This is why Eliot is so relevant and sharp.

Anyway, Eliot actually thought about all you've said. After The Waste Land, he "renounced" all forms of modern poetry, and went back to a very rigorous, strenuous classical style (though you can still feel and hear his utter fatigue), with religious symbols and devoid of modernity.

[Anonymous No.4212846]

>>4212835
>but it doesn't mean such beauty doesn't exist.

I'm not contending that point. This beauty does exist, but it's the beauty of the "hollow and mundane". As Nietzsche said of the French realist Zola --- that he "loved to wallow in his own stink".

>-the mundane and the horrifying is beautiful to us, modern readers, because it's the only form of reality we've got.

It's swinishness, to look into the modernism of The Wasteland and worship it "because it represents me". It's basking in your own stink. I would rather have no reality than that reality, and that's why I am repulsed by The Wasteland.

[Anonymous No.4212850]

>>4212846
> As Nietzsche said of the French realist Zola --- that he "loved to wallow in his own stink".

I found the exact (translated) quote:
>Zola: or "the delight in stinking". From The Twilight of The Idols, section - "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man".
Not the title, "an Untimely Man". I would rather be an Untimely Man than fit into the modern world.

Not that I like Nietzsche. I abhor Nietzsche in his depths, but he did speak very intelligently on certain topics. He was, like Marx, apt at pointing out what was bad, but hopeless and misguided when it came to what was truly good.

[Anonymous No.4212854]

>>4212846
I don't get your point. It's not like you are reading Joyce's Ulysses, which consciously and criminally rejoices in the filth of modernity. You are reading Eliot, for God's sake. Eliot must be THE modernist writer who hated the most modernity. Your point is altogether shared by him; there is nothing here, let us go back to our classics, let the modern poet only be a ghost who is able to channel the ancient voices, let's make those voices relevant once again. Art is about "creation", there is a reason why there is only one Homer or Ovid; in the 20th century, no matter how deeply you are in love of the classics, you cannot simple write like a classical writer. In fact, The Waste Land you resent so much might be the closest thing to a tribute to those classics.
Moreover, if we take the actual poem, it shares your viewpoint. The only purpose of the poem, the narrator, is to cleanse himself of the modern curse --to find the graal, to free the fisher king. In the last chapter where all signs of modernity is forsaken, there takes place a sort of mystical crisis, very much like the one of ancient poets.

You can resent Eliot for being so conservative, but you can't criticise him for something he isn't, and is in fact deeply against.
Try Ash Wednesday or Four Quartets, if you will.

[Anonymous No.4212857]

>>4212854
>Art is about "creation", there is a reason why there is only one Homer or Ovid; in the 20th century, no matter how deeply you are in love of the classics, you cannot simple write like a classical writer. In fact, The Waste Land you resent so much might be the closest thing to a tribute to those classics.

This is why I think it is irresponsible to be an artist in the Modern World. If the Modern World can only produce Modern Art, then it is irresponsible and evil to be an artist, because Modern Art worships everything that is decaying and dead.

Yes, I agree with you on Eliot's intent. His intent was to decry Modernism, to tell us to look elsewhere. Well, I have learned to look elsewhere, and so now I don't need to read Eliot anymore. I appreciate his pointing me in the right direction though!

[Anonymous No.4212861]

>>4212857
to clarify, he decries Modernism THROUGH Modernism. He chooses an evil means to his good end. I think it is inexcusable. The only reason why he would choose these evil means to achieve his good end is because really he wanted to become famous through his poetry. Well, as you said, he later renounced modern poetry, so at least he came clean in the end.

[Anonymous No.4212862]

>The Waste Land is an EVIL poem

[Anonymous No.4212863]

>>4212857
>This is why I think it is irresponsible to be an artist in the Modern World. If the Modern World can only produce Modern Art, then it is irresponsible and evil to be an artist, because Modern Art worships everything that is decaying and dead.
Agreed. But intellectual justifications fall apart when it comes to making art. You don't actually chose whether it's responsible or not, you just feel an urge to do so. Modernity or not, art goes on.
That being said, not everything should be considered art, especially in our times (where most of it is shit), I like The Waste Land because it has a fine balance between the bleakness and the hollowness, and actual beauty, the musical meters, the imageries and such.

[Anonymous No.4212865]

>>4212861
He, along with other contemporaries, invented modernism. He didn't "use" a school of thoughts, but was the pioneers of a unknown, unqualified feeling of angst and distress. This is anachronistic reasoning.

[Anonymous No.4212871]

>>4212865
Eliot did not pioneer the feelings of angst and distress, he pioneered the poetic expression of them. There's an important distinction. They did not "invent modernism" at all, they only invented modernist literature.

[Anonymous No.4212874]

>>4212871
There wasn't such an acute and defined angst before its expression through artistic means. At least I don't believe so.

[Anonymous No.4212877]

>>4212863
> You don't actually chose whether it's responsible or not, you just feel an urge to do so.

They should check that urge. They should stop listening to their precious Muse, because the Muse of Modernism is a vile whore.

[Anonymous No.4212878]

>>4212874
You could argue that some others preceded them (Conrad, for one, or even James), but it remains that art created such feeling.

[Anonymous No.4212880]

>>4212877
>all those "should's"
hypertrophied morality kills art my brother
they have no duty but to create meaningful things

[Anonymous No.4212881]

>>4212874
Well millions of Europeans managed to feel the distress and angst of modern society without ever reading Eliot or any other literature.

[Anonymous No.4212884]

What's the difference between post-modernism and modernism? Nobody can seem to agree on a single thing or when we actually entered the post-modern age which leads me to believe we're actually still in the modern era.

[Anonymous No.4212887]

>>4212881
I don't think so. It's like likening teenager's rebellious attitude to phenomenology and german idealism...

[Anonymous No.4212889]

>>4212880
>says duty is bad in one sentence
>says that artists have a duty in the next

Oscar Wilde pls go.
The worship of beauty is the death of beauty, the worship of art is the death of art.
Homer produced beautiful art not through worshiping art, but through worshiping heroism.

Shakespeare was a consummate artist, and he had a good understanding of how vain and vile an artist really is. In Julius Caesar when a poet tries to talk to, I think it is, Brutus, Brutus dismisses him as a ridiculous and vain thing. Real artists have a contempt for art, because art is just the servant of the artistic vision, it's not the vision itself. As Pascal said similarly, "real philosophers make light of philosophy".

[Anonymous No.4212891]

>>4212884
Modernism believed in some greater truth (value). Postmodernism doesn't.

[Anonymous No.4212899]

>>4212878
Well if Modern Art did really create Modernity --- and isn't just "the mirror being held to society", as many of them claimed --- then it's far, far more evil than I stated before.

[Anonymous No.4212900]

>>4212889
I said hypertrophied morality, not duty in general. You are misreading.

The worship of beauty isn't the death of it; unless you think art has been dead since the 18th century. In that case, helgel pls go.

[Anonymous No.4212902]

>>4212889
>Pascal

here's the quote

>Mathematics, intuition.—True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.

>For it is to judgment that perception belongs, as science belongs to intellect. Intuition is the part of judgment, mathematics of intellect.

>To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

[Anonymous No.4212903]

>>4210985

not the cantos?

[Anonymous No.4212904]

>>4212900
>helgel
i mean hegel, obviously, my bad

>>4212899
Not modernity, but I believe that it gave us the tools to "grasp it", or to put a name to it.

[Anonymous No.4212908]

>>4212900
> unless you think art has been dead since the 18th century.

That is certainly when it started to die. Once artists started to think themselves as worthy subjects of art, art began to die. Artists are the least poetic creatures in existence, art is the least artistic thing in nature. There's a letter by Keats where he says this himself
>A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity - he is continually in for - and filling some other Body - The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute - the poet has none; no identity - he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God's Creatures.
http://www.john-keats.com/briefe/271018.htm

[Anonymous No.4212918]

>>4212891
Oh. Well that's depressing.

[Anonymous No.4212922]

>>4212908
And then Keats also said that nothing he said should be taken for granted, for he has no nature. I think this is closer to a poetic of beauty than any other quote.

I think art flourished after the 18th century; although I am still very fond of the Greeks, French sceptics and Shakespeare, I read them through the lenses of a modern reader, that is to say, the art created by the romantics.

[Anonymous No.4212925]

>>4212908
Also, this explains Postmodern Art.

Apparently Postmodernists believe in the death of the artist, or the author, but truly what has died is not the artist or the author --- it's the art that has died, the artist is the only thing that remains. Postmodern art is just putting the artist on display. You know how true this statement is by experience.

[Anonymous No.4212937]

>>4212925
c.f.

[Anonymous No.4212944]

>>4212925
>>4212937
Much too broad a judgement. Some forms of art are more than only ironic and purely formal demonstrations, even in our times.

>>4212908
To add to it, I think art became interesting once society starts to fall apart (hi French revolution); it replaces the sacred tie between people that used to be in the domain of religions. Beauty, along with the worship of it, became the only thing capable of generating meanings.

[Anonymous No.4212964]

>>4212944
> I think art became interesting once society starts to fall apart

This is where I am in contention.
I think art should be wholly in service to morality. Art that doesn't glorify justice and goodness does not deserve the name of Art, it should be called Make-up --- plastering over the ugly.
In Kierkegaard 3 spheres of life --- the aesthetic, the ethical, the religious --- the aesthetic sphere is ruled by the dialect of the interesting vs the boring. In the ethical sphere the aesthetic sphere becomes the servant to a higher purpose, it is not lost, it is perfected.

[Anonymous No.4212978]

>>4212964
But it does create meaning. Even in a crumbled society. You can't just deny society and go back to your old shelter. This is what modern art (i.e. post-romantic) attempts to do: to create truth, a hierarchy of morality. You quoted Nietzsche, there is a reason why Nietzsche admired the artists; they are the last ones who can create norms and rightfully tell people how to live their lives, since society has fallen apart and god is gone. Modern art does glorify justice; with the 19th century, aesthetic became morality, or rather --ethics.

[Anonymous No.4212991]

>>4212978
As Joyce said, Beauty is the splendour of Truth.
Without Truth there is no real Beauty. Postmodernity denies truth, so it denies beauty.
The "beauty" of today is not the light, it is darkness visible.

[Anonymous No.4212998]

>>4212991
I'm not arguing for postmodernism, I can't really bear it.
I thought we were discussing modernism, which is wholly different.
And "beauty is the splendour of truth" is a quote Dedalus takes from Plato, which he kind of mocks (or rather, Joyce makes fun of). I agree with it, but you are getting the causation wrong: beauty doesn't refer to a higher objective, rather it creates such an objective. Beauty is the highest instance of truth, this is what this quote, and plato, and joyce, say.

[Anonymous No.4213004]

>>4212998
>And "beauty is the splendour of truth" is a quote Dedalus takes from Plato, which he kind of mocks (or rather, Joyce makes fun of).

Yeah, you're right, but wasn't he quoting Aquinas? That's why I said Joyce, because I wasn't sure who it was quoting.

>Beauty is the highest instance of truth, this is what this quote, and plato, and joyce, say.

Yes, I stated the Keats quotation earlier that says the exact same, but I think that the romantics/modernists enshrining of beauty alone does not produce beauty in the end. Their beauty is a disintegrating beauty. What really produces beauty is Dogma, the Dogmas of the Law, of Justice.

[Anonymous No.4213013]

>>4213004
>What really produces beauty is Dogma, the Dogmas of the Law, of Justice.

Or, as Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life". This is where beauty comes from. The Incarnate Word, living Justice, living Truth, the life eternal.

[Anonymous No.4213022]

EMBRACE MODERNITY, OR IT WILL EMBRACE YOU

[Anonymous No.4213023]

>>4213022
"nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo"

[Anonymous No.4213051]

>>4212884
A modernist quotes everything and says nothing.
A postmodernist quotes (ironically) the modernist saying nothing.

[Anonymous No.4214067]

>>4212795
Just why exactly Keats quoted that bit is still unknown, I believe.

[« 零 » !vAFhebe0D6!!cLIbuDbY2e6 No.4214069]

I CONCUR WITH HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT.

[Anonymous No.4214070]

Sorry if this seems like a crude write-off, but Eliot has always, always just seemed like a huge tryhard to me.