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/lit/ - Literature

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9160583 No.9160583 [Reply] [Original]

Explain something to me.

Does reaching the level of cervantes and shakespeare is really hard or is actually humans who are pretty mediocre on average?

>> No.9160589

what a pointless question, how can you judge a human activity by anything other than human standards

>> No.9160592

>>9160589
It's been bothering me latelly.

whenever I see a genius writing, I see it as a mere mortal, who is a skilled writer, but still don't see the fuzz about geniuses.

sure, they may be skilled, but they're mere mortals.

>> No.9161229

>>9160592
In writing, what matters is your experience. Read and write a lot and you'll get better. Even writers whose first book was a slam dunk success didn't publish literally the first thing they ever wrote.

>> No.9161301

Yeah, they're mortals, but so was da Vinci. So is Michael Jordan. If everyone could, with a little work, write verse like Shakespeare, we'd have fifty Shakespeares a century. But we don't. Skill like his is a true rarity. His plays are as astonishing an achievement in language as the great paintings are in art. The difference between competent writers and the greatest writers is vast. And the more you learn about literature, the more inclined you will be to use the word "genius."

>> No.9161345

You say "reaching their level," as if life was an RPG! Just accumulate enough XP and you too could write the Tragedy of Cymbeline.

>> No.9161565

>>9161345
Is Cymbeline a tragedy or a romance?

>> No.9162787

>>9160592
>If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
So yes. In our society people are very uneducated and there is detrimental popular understatement of knowledge.

>> No.9162791

They just got the low hanging fruit of the field first.


You were simply born too late.

>> No.9162943

It is just a travesty that that beautiful boy is wasting his youth in an era of shit hairstyles. Shave it all and he'd be perfection.

>> No.9162961
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9162961

>>9162791
>want to write about man being master of his destiny
>spend 5 years agonizing over how to say it in a historical fiction novel
>well-read people: "Lol, are you writing YA fanfiction? This shit is so cliched"
>shelley wants to write about man being master of his destiny
>talks to his friends about it
>they say it sounds like a cool idea
>hammers out first draft over the weekend
>publishes second draft
>world-renowned