/lit/ - Literature

>>4784073
>In general the more rewarding and accomplished work the more demanding the demands from the part of the appreciator,

urgh...needs revision:

*In general the more rewarding and accomplished the work the more demanding the requirements from the part of the appreciator

>>4783992

lel

The paradox of art is incredible. In general the more rewarding and accomplished work the more demanding the demands from the part of the appreciator, but the majority of people simply refuse to make even the small effort of overtaking some minor initial difficulties for the promise of greater riches in the end. People in general are simply lazy, and that’s why we have so few real achievers.

Character is as important as innate mental capacity. If people were taught to fight more for their objectives; to strive harder to become better humans beings; to despise mediocrity, especially in themselves; to don’t let defeats put them down forever; to have the courage of molding their minds and bodies into the best they could be, then we would realize that great part of humanity is indeed incredible.

But character – that’s the problem. Even for artists: we would have much more great artists and scientists if dreamers fought beyond the simple initial efforts and actually sit down every day to work on their personal projects. How many people want to write, but refuse to decline invitations from friends to go out, from lovers to make out, to watch TV, to play computer games, to chat on Facebook, etc. and really sit down to write for something like 2-3 hours, five days a week? That’s hard, that’s demanding, that’s frustrating, yes, and it is on this situations that you need a strong character.

But the average of humanity walks on the flat and clean away, avoiding the arboreal and long-grass woods of the mountain. It’s not that they don’t have biological conditions for greater achievements, but they simply don’t have the personality traits for that.

And so books like “The Secret” and “The Alchemist” become personal bibles to entire generations. It’s sad, but it’s also human.

>>4783744

part 3 (end)

4) Tolstoy had enormous amounts of energy, and, as a rich man, he could sleep and eat well, without any preoccupation with the future. He always enjoyed a good health, and could spend hours and hours every day sited in his office reading, writing, rewriting and then rewriting some more. His energy was so exuberant that even his sex life presents huge surges of luxury. His diaries are replete with sexual adventures, to whom Tolstoy crawled, drooling, like a beast at one night, only to repent himself to the very marrow of his soul the next day. He was a powerhouse of a man, and, like I said, he had the time and comfort to recover he’s being.
5) A large organization was needed to deal with the whole mass of leaves and material produced during the process of writing Tolstoy’s major novels, but Tolstoy had in his young wife, Sophia, a great ally: she organized his papers and copied the almost illegible manuscripts of her husband, something that she would make seven times for War and Peace. Had Tolstoy not find such an able, caring and effortful partner, he maybe would not have remained working to War and Peace for the whole time of the project, for example.

Several universal conditions had to meet in order to Tolstoy’s work to be generated.

>>4783742

part 2

2) He was a rich man. Tolstoy could live several experiences and know several people because he could afford the luxury of leading a dissolute and carefree life. Most of us leave school to University already needing to sustain ourselves with jobs and loose many important living hours in boring offices. Tolstoy was a heir to a great fortune, and although he always felt some ambivalence toward it (guilt), he also enjoyed with little care. He lived his live when he was young. He gambled (and lost a lot of money); visit hookers; pay gypsies to play music for him and to fuck their girls; visit the great cities of Europe; visit the great cities of Russia; enjoyed balls with the high society (when he almost always didn’t do nothing, just stay there, shy and with fear, contemplating the other dance – he was thought to be a “boring partner” by most of the girls). Also, like a rich man he could choose even to go to war and get out of the war whenever he wanted. So he also had the experience of the battlefield, but not the traumatic experience (which destroys a man forever) of being forced to fight until the very exhaustion of his physical and mental forces.
3) Tolstoy was a very, very, very ambitious man - Tolstoy was arrogant and proud, and wanted always to be the best at what he did; when he decided that he would be a writer, his desire was to defeat all the other writers, to be the greatest, and that desire to win, coupled with an enormous courage and boundless ambition were the ferment required for the construction of something as big as War and Peace, for example. Whenever his mind settled at something (sports, gymnastics, music, economy, agriculture, theater) his goal was to completely dominate that field, and even to wrote definitive treatises about it (even on gymnastics he planned to write the most complete and definitive treatise). To be fair even his religious quests were moved by ambition. Having succeeded financially, aesthetically, historically, Tolstoy also wanted to be, not only a great landlord and supreme artist, but also a spiritual leader and father. There were no limits for his egocentrism.

>>4777901

part 1

Tolstoy is the wonder that he is because of the congregation of several different factors. There is a very real quote about the nature of Genius, that partially explains its rarity, which states that: “Genius is the happy result of a combination of many circumstances.”; it was made by Havelock Ellis, in his Study of British Genius. Tolstoy, not only a literary genius but one of the supreme literary genius of all time, was, him too, a combination of several factors.

1) First things first: he was a very intelligent person and a very sensitive man. He was always paying attention not only to himself (he wrote obsessively about his own life, personal doubts, problems, achievements, disappointing’s, fears and desires, in a diary which he kept for almost all his life, from 16 onwards), but also to people around him. He was very proud, a huge egocentric, and he searched fervently for the approval of others. Thus he was always paying attention to others, to their expressions, their words, their thoughts, their simple gestures, their facial movements – he was deeply sensitive to that and could read on other what they were feeling. Many intelligent men have only contempt for the public, and walk in their lives inside some sort of bubble: they despise others and remain faithful only to themselves and their spiritual teachers (composers, writers, mathematicians, philosophers, and other mental heroes): this is some sort of defense; they fear the public; they fear rejection, or maybe they simply don’t care with other people – they are sufficient to themselves. Even many writers are like that, but those writers will never be supreme genius (like Shakespeare and Tolstoy), because they lost many of the prisms and facets of humanity that socially ambitious man (again, like Shakespeare and Tolstoy: for Tolstoy desired literary fame and recognition fervently – as well as any recognition he could get - , as is stated in his diaries) absorb during their life’s. Make a test: go to a restaurant and observe that many people just sit down, enoy their meal silently and don’t even look to their sides, while other people are always paying attention, looking to the people in other tables, perhaps thinking about their physical appearance, their clothes, their gestures. Tolstoy was one of those people who pay attention – he was always trying to guess what impact he made on others and what others were thinking of him.

>>4158955

You are right. Sorry. I'm ashamed right now.

>>4158951
>Are you enlightened by your own intelligence?

I'm not very intelligent: just got facility with metaphors.

The publisher specializes in books of philosophy, literary criticism and theater. It's called: Editora Perspectiva. Is small, but respected.

Here's her website:

http://www.editoraperspectiva.com.br/

>>4158928

Yes, it was, but not by a big publisher. I submitted the thing to 3 big publishers first who did not respond, and the 4 (a more modest one) accepted, but it will only published in the second half of 2014.

But after I made my egocentric statements I am now even more repulsed by my own mediocre production; often I feel ashamed of myself.

I will erase that posts. Sorry for them.

>>4158930

I was angry and spoke without thinking. I just wrote one play and the thing is a huge monster, fat and disproportionate.

It would not be fair to compare a play composed of several stitched shreds with works widely praised and revered by the critics and the public.

It was just anger: often when I get angry I speak without thinking. When I regain calm I am generally terrified with the stupidities that I spoke.


(To be honest I have even see people here on /lit/ with works better than my own)

>>4158925

lol.

Good one.

I admit I was angry and trolling a bit, but really: young writers in general are very submissive. They should be bolder.

>>4158912

Lots and lots of them (even Hemingway).

I just dont like this kind of thing:

>>4158658
>>you will never be as manly or as good of a writer as Hemingway

>>4158910

Ok, wait just a minute.

Just one thing: I have seen many talented writers here on /lit, but it is remarkable how their posts receive little criticism (nobody seems to want to read their stuff) or the critical remarks are unfriendly and cold (there is no other explanation than that of jealousy).

Now, when someone posts a satirical poem or text, with no purpose other than to troll or be funny, 10/10 and congratulations rains from all sides.

Many people here are not serious. I think you all should be more ambitious. I'll be honest: I do not know if I am or if I'm will be better than Hemingway, but that thing of simply surrender yourself already in the beginning, like a coward, is something that I abhor.

It is important to have courage and confidence in yourself. I think that a lot of you guys could achieve truly greatness if you dare more.

>>4158880

If you could read Portuguese I would pluck the breath out of your ribcage.

But if you want to use small posts on the internet in a language that is not mine as evidence of my ability be my guest.

>>4158871

No, I'm serious. I am still very young (I still have a lot of years to develop even more), and if there is something that disgusts me is young people who desire to be writers but that begun their career already thinking that they cannot be the best. You have to have courage and say to yourself that you will try to be the best of all (if you fail, you fail, but aim for the top of the Mountain). I write in Portuguese, and to tell the truth my native language does not have any major competitors, for this reason I have an advantage in comparison with you English guys.

My mentor is Shakespeare: I consider him the greatest writer of all time and as I always had an astonishing facility for metaphor, simile and various other poetic techniques I picked him as a teacher after I discovered his work. My first play (actually my third work, but the first that I submitted to a publishing house and the place where I really learned how to write) was the result of more than 10 years of studies of versification techniques, rhyme, accent, metrification, prose creation, etc. (I have also had lots of life experiences, and always managed to absorb everything I could of them – I love to create characters that have nothing in common with myself). This play (my first one) is huge: more than 400 pages; it is deformed by several different writing styles and levels of ability (I wrote this leviathan in 5 years); the work is a laboratory whose creation made me suffer a lot, but in which I could create a multitude of different writing styles.

I do not care if you will believe me or not: I know my own talent. I promise that in the future, when the work is finally published, I'll come in here talking about it on /lit/ (I like the people here).
But honestly: be braver. If you want to be a writer defy your masters and heroes, and don’t be only a flatterer.

And Hemingway is not that good. He is limited: his books all have the same style and atmosphere. I would not choose him as a teacher.

>>4158658

I'm already a better writer than him ;) (I'm serious)

My first play will be published next year. This year is the last in which I will have to study law, and from the next year on I will be able to have enough time to dedicate myself to my writing projects.

I feel the creative powers that inhabit my mind fill me with enthusiasm. But the perception of the long task I have ahead makes me anxious.

Also: Hemingway is a little bitch compared to Tolstoy.

The best book I have ever read on the subject is this one:

Before the Gates of Excellence: The Determinants of Creative Genius

http://www.amazon.com/Before-Gates-Excellence-Determinants-Creative/dp/0521376998


In short, although a high intelligence coefficient is necessary, it is not necessary that it be absurdly high, but just a little above average. The majority of /lit/ posters, for example, have an IQ that it is in the spectrum of some of the great genius of history. The great geniuses usually had similar personality traits, that motivated them to spend hours and hours and hours, days and days and days working and improving themselves. Great geniuses are a mix of genes (just good genes, a little above the average – being the average today around 100 IQ points) + creation + specific features of personality beget by the life experiences and genetic material of the child.

All great geniuses were ambitious and had broad desire to be recognized and admired for their work; all of them they also had obsessive personalities and thought that they creative jobs were the main function of their lives.

Another interesting point: although the child who becomes a genius in the future start his career in the specific area of activity in a playful manner (playing with musical instruments, drawing for pleasure, reading for pleasure, etc.), in the future the conscience of their own emerging talent (the child or teen realizes his ability in the field and starts thinking on the possibility of achieve fame with his work) makes the chosen activity becomes not just a pleasurable hobby, but an terribly stressful and overwhelming obligation. The great geniuses often had to work without having the slightest desire to do so (all writers relate the difficulty of having to sit all day, in a routine, and fill the paper with significant literature). Even Einstein, when he worked on the theory of general relativity, eventually was tormented by stomach pain, nausea, anxiety, tachycardia and tremors. The anxiety and fear of failure are constant companions of geniuses, and also the constant dissatisfaction with oneself. The moments of pride and joy are quickly dissolved into new ambitions.

It is also a common feature of geniuses that certain feelings, mainly of respect or value, are wanted but not provided in childhood (sometimes this is even imaginary: the child receives attention and love, but not the enormous amount of attention and praise that it commonly desired). The huge ambition that they have is, in a way, a response to not receiving all the admiration they wish they had received when they were children and teenagers. Genius are generally very proud of themselves.

>>4155039

c) And, of course, there is Falstaff and the famous prose scenes of this historical plays. The dialogues portrayed on these scenes are the most natural and lifelike that Shakespeare ever wrote. He adored metaphor, simile and the tools of rhetoric (every great poet loves them), and usually could not control himself: he simply stuffed the verses and the prose with as many images and pyrotechnical fires as he could. His mind was so fertile that it was always bubbling with images, and he simply could not resist the temptation of putting all of them on paper. With time, whoever, he learned to control this inner demon (or inner muse, fairy, sorcerer, force of nature). About this the scholar B Ifor Evans wrote (in his wonderful book -one of the best on Shakespeare - The Language of Shakespeare's plays) this lines:


>"Out of this great welter of language [He is talking about the verbal games of Love's Labour's Lost], this rapier play of words, Shakespeare was later to develop his own imaginative diction highly metaphorical, and, at its best, disciplined for the service of drama. But the fascination of words themselves, their sound and shape, their music and their arrangement, remained with him to the end as a power capable in moments of danger of overwhelming any other purpose he might have in hand. The vitality in Shakespeare's language means that there is ever this struggle to retain control 'to beget a temperance in a storm of passion'. Even in the most mature plays a character can be led away on one occasion or another by the fata morgana of a phrase. It is as if Shakespeare were riding some spirited animal, capable of moving with beauty and swiftness, but whose power remains a problem calling for dexterity and concentration."


In the prose scenes of Henry IV Shakespeare was able to control this urges, and managed to wrote lots of realistic scenes that reveled his knowledge about poverty, prostitution, theft and a lot of other aspects of the urban low life of England. Read pages 64-67 of this study of Paul Johnson: he writes about this realistic scenes (here is the Google preview of Books):


http://books.google.com.br/books?id=GReWGl4g7QoC&pg=PA53&dq=creators+shakespeare+paul+johnson&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ei=i6JMUoH1FYj69QS1yoDwDA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=creators%20shakespeare%20paul%20johnson&f=false

Falstaff also shows how much Shakespeare could achieve in the field of prose, for in his best moments this character speaks some of the best poetry ever created by Shakespeare's pen.

My advice: go for it. This plays (Henry IV part 1 and 2) are some of the best ever written. No other playwright has the same control over so many diferent styles as Shakespeare in this two plays.

>>4155030

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, 1710
That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 1715
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch 1720
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds, 1725
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 1730
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.


The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go, seek him out.
Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
My sleep my death?
Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
[Exit WARWICK]
This part of his conjoins with my disease
And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
For this the foolish over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
Their brains with care, their bones with industry;
For this they have engrossed and pil'd up
The cank'red heaps of strange-achieved gold;
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises;
When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd,
We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
Are murd'red for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

>>4155024

(here is another Hotspur example)
Let them come:
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood.


b) There is also the glorious court poetry of the nobles of England. Shakespeare was very found of this kind of majestically severe poetry, this noble poetry from the world of kings, earls, dukes and legislators:


All furnish'd, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

>>4154654
>I still have yet to fully get into the history plays. My autism wont let me do them out of order.


Do not worry about the story itself, just read the piece. This play (both parts) features, in one of the most evident ways, the variety of Shakespeare's dramatic talent.

Read this play in the first place for this reasons: a) The poetry Hotspur. He is one of the most famous "warriors" characters of Shakespeare, and his language has a extremely addicting bombastic strength. If Mars, the god of war, spoke in human language, he would talk like Shakespeare's Hotspur:

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drownèd honor by the locks


I had rather be a kitten and cry mew
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.


Hotspur (Henry Percy). My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done, 355
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home; 360
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took't away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there, 365
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 370
With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay, 375
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,
He should or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 380
Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd 385
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, 390
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

>>4154654
>I still have yet to fully get into the history plays. My autism wont let me do them out of order.

Do not worry about the story itself, just read the piece. This play (both parts) features, in one of the most evident ways, the variety of Shakespeare's dramatic talent.
Read this play in the first place for this reasons: a) The poetry Hotspur. He is one of the most famous "warriors" characters of Shakespeare, and his language has a extremely addicting bombastic strength. If Mars, the god of war, spoke in human language, he would talk like Shakespeare's Hotspur:
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drownèd honor by the locks
I had rather be a kitten and cry mew
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
Hotspur (Henry Percy). My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done, 355
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home; 360
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took't away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there, 365
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 370
With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay, 375
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,
He should or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 380
Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd 385
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, 390
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

>>4150618

I really wish I could help you, OP, but I have zero mathematical ability to really understand this theory.

The only people of whom I have jelly are scientists, especially physicists and mathematicians. I always feel inferior when comparing my skills to theirs.

Oh well, at least I have an extraordinary ability for metaphor and poetry, as well as for creating characters. :)

You have to be happy with what you possess.

>>4136124

lel, true. I'm Tolstoy and Shakespeare's bitch.

>>4136118

Thank you. I love this book so much I try to convince as many people as I can to buy it and read it. I wrote this review a long time ago, and whenever someone asks for information I generally copy and paste it online.

I apologize for the seeming arrogance, but it's just that I love Tolstoy so much that I tried to infect OP with a little spark of that love.