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/lit/ - Literature

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5824503 No.5824503 [Reply] [Original]

Best epic poem?

>> No.5824516

>>5824503
The siege of Jerusalem

>> No.5824525

divine comedy. how is this even an argument

>> No.5824526

>>5824525
Because The Iliad and Paradise Lost are also entirely acceptable answers.

>> No.5824536

technically not epic but "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" is really beautiful.

>> No.5824556

El estudiante de Salamanca

>> No.5824558

>>5824526
how can you enjoy the iliad more than the odyssey?

>> No.5824566

The Odyssey

>> No.5824587

>>5824525
>no metre

>> No.5824591

Cantos -- Pound

>> No.5824609

>>5824558
It's fun reading endless passages that resemble Dwarf Fortress combat logs

>> No.5824610

>>5824587
You try writing something with a fucking triple rhyme and have a fixed syllable count for each line.

>> No.5824616

>>5824609
whoa that would be cool as fuck if dwarf fortress combat logs were in dactylic hexameter

>> No.5824620
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5824620

>>5824526
It's called Paradife Loft dumbfuck

>> No.5824623

that's silly
the divine comedy has meter, it's named hendecasyllable

>> No.5824626

>>5824503
The Kalevala

>> No.5824629

Paradise Lost is much better than the Divine Comedy.

>> No.5824633

>>5824616
haha, when for all the hundred years of translations only merrill managed to make a decent hexameter of iliad in english

and not like it's even that hard, they just didn't try

>> No.5824640

>>5824620
licenfed and entred according to order

>> No.5824660

>>5824633
what did that have to do with what i said?

>> No.5824664

>>5824660
She's retarded. Ignore her.

>> No.5824677

>>5824660
you imagine somebody would/could write hexameter logs for a video game when they hardly could even use hexameter to translate 'iliad'

>> No.5824679

>>5824664
You're a child.

>> No.5824686

>>5824677
but...
>and not like it's even that hard

>> No.5824690

>>5824679
Okay, retard.

>> No.5824691

>>5824690
;)

>> No.5824723

>>5824629
this

>> No.5824748
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5824748

>reading The Iliad
>literally every character is named and described
>even if they only appear once
>mfw

>> No.5824754

>>5824748
> i have never read anything but modern fiction

>> No.5824758

>>5824754
Shut up, Allen Bloom.

>> No.5824762

>>5824758
>inadvertently admitting to being a pleb

>> No.5824775
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5824775

>>5824762
I bet you also thought the gods waffling harder than Bill Clinton at a continental breakfast made for a riveting plot.
>liking Allen Bloom

>> No.5824778

>>5824775
i have never heard of allen bloom til you brought him up
you are a pleb for not reading classics

>> No.5824810
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5824810

>>5824778
I'm literally reading nothing but Greeks right now, you're a retard. Just because I don't think The Iliad is completely without flaw doesn't make me a 'pleb'. If anything, your inability to decide for yourself whether you like a particularly respected classic makes you a pleb.

>> No.5824814

>>5824810
you're complaining that homer describes characters, a feature of nearly all fiction up until about 1890

>> No.5824825

>>5824814
That doesn't make it good, just understandable that it's there.

>> No.5824829
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5824829

>>5824814
>you're complaining that homer describes characters, a feature of nearly all fiction up until about 1890
>describes characters
>nearly all fiction until 1890
A) When did I complain that he 'describes characters'? I was merely remarking that his naming and describing of unimportant characters was superfluous.
B) Have you ever read a book written before 1890? I've read plenty and I can't recall this being featured in 'nearly all' of them.
C) Have you even read The Iliad?

>> No.5824840

>>5824829
>literally every character is named and described

>> No.5824848
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5824848

>>5824840
Now you're just being silly
>'describing characters' is the same thing as 'describing every character, no matter how unimportant'

>> No.5824856

>>5824629
no way

>> No.5824858

The Prelude

>> No.5824865

>>5824848
And by 'describing every character', I'll give you an example.
>At that moment the valiant soldier Dolops, son of Lampus, sprang upon him; Lampus was son of Laomedon and noted for his valor, while his son was versed in all the ways of war. (Book XV)
Did the reader really need to know all that?

>> No.5824866

>>5824526
Paradise Lost, despite being a masterpiece, is not an acceptable answer. Divine Comedy, or either of Homer's works, are the only acceptable answers, along with Shakespeare that are the greatest verse ever written.

>> No.5824869

>>5824865
How would you know Dolops was versed in all the ways of war without that helpful aside?

>> No.5824893

>>5824869
that isn't so much of an issue, but why do you need to know who his father was and what he was noted for?

>> No.5824895

>>5824893
why do you need to know any of this shit fool get over yourself

>> No.5824913

>>5824866
you're a retard

>> No.5824915

>>5824865
I think a major problem is you are looking at it from the perspective of the modern reader and ignoring the context and environment in which this work was originally composed, how it was performed and how the audience received it.

>> No.5824921

>>5824915
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author

>> No.5824922

>>5824866

Um, Shakespeare never wrote any epics. Epic is not merely a description of size. Do you consider the historical plays epics? I don't.

>> No.5824938

>>5824921
Completely missing the point. There was no author of the Iliad. Homer was not an individual who sat down and wrote this work. It was not a written work at all. It is of a completely different medium than novels, epics like The Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost, or any other literature initially composed by a particular person and written down.

>> No.5824941

Beowulf

>> No.5824947

>>5824938
prove it

>> No.5824950

>>5824921
Also I wasn't talking about deriving meaning from information about the author at all. Instead I was saying that the reason behind one the presence of the conventions in the work has everything to do with how and why it was performed as it was originally. Your post is completely irrelevant.

>> No.5824958

>>5824947
Sorry I never intentionally feed the trolls.

>> No.5824961

>muh canonical author is more canonical than yours!!!!!
great thread

>> No.5824965

>>5824958
in all seriousness taking for granted that homer was a collective is as dumb as taking for granted that he was an individual

>> No.5824976

>>5824965
Of course someone was the first to put it down in written words, regardless of their name, but the work as we know it quite definitively came from a tradition of many performers.

>> No.5825201
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5825201

>>5824976
I'm embarrassed at how that is worded. I'm gonna go sit in the corner and think about what I've done.

>> No.5825432

>>5824922
No, I didn't say he did. I said they were the greatest verse writers.

In regard to epics, I said Divine Comedy or Homer are the only acceptable answers. Along with Shakespeare, they are the greatest verse every written, but if you'll care to notice, I did not say Shakespeare was an acceptable answer to epics, just that he rated with the top epics in quality of verse.

>> No.5825575

>>5825432
The poor sentence construction in your original post left your meaning ambiguous. An unimpressive grasp of the English language is to be expected, though, since you don't properly appreciate Milton.

>> No.5825911

>>5824640
>licenfed and entred according to order

Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth and our woolpacks.

EXCEPT FOR JESUIT LIES, FUCK THE POPE

>> No.5825961

>>5824938
Excactly and this is why Vergil is superior

>> No.5826074

>>5825575
I appreciate Milton, I'm just not stupid enough to consider him superior to Dante or Homer.

>> No.5826081

>>5824938
>Homer was not an individual who sat down and wrote this work
He almost surely dictated, considering the uniformity of style in ability of imitators to match him, considering his works stood out as vastly superior to all the other epics of his time.

Your ideas of Homer are 19th Century.

>> No.5826084

>>5826081
>and inability of imitators

>> No.5826127
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5826127

Has no one on /lit/ read Nostoi?

r u even trying plebs?