Will I ever be able to understand literature properly? Does it get easier with time? I read things I do not understand and it makes me impatient. I do not have the patience to be this unintelligent.
You probably have "understand" at an un-achievable state.
maybe theres nothing to understand
>>7587485
nothing is something
>>7587470
It's possible. I do have a tendency to want to know everything straight away. It doesn't help that I have nobody to talk to about these things really. I'm doing English Literature at university and it feels like nobody I meet on the course really likes it at all.
I feel as though I've failed myself by not getting to a top university where there might be more people who actually like to talk about this stuff.
I love my friends at home and at university, but they just aren't me at all.
>>7587497
Failure is a regular experience. That is life. I am sorry.
>>7587508
My failure is that I thought myself the type who could succeed without trying, when really I'm the type who couldn't succeed trying or not.
>>7587513
Very good. Then you are succeeding at failing, which is succeeding at life. This is irony.
>>7587521
I don't care for succeeding at life. I want to contribute to the world in a meaningful and moralistic way. If I have to feel despair to do it then I would take it.
>>7587540
You will feel despair at not being able to do it.
>>7587465
If you're REALLY having trouble approaching lit, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" is one place to begin.
A better, but more difficult book I'd recommend is "A Short Introduction to Literary Theory" by Johnathon Culler. Those will not help you understand literature in the way you want to, but they'll at least help you approach lit in a more comprehensible way. Buying Norton critical editions (if they're available) is also helpful.
>>7587549
Despair isn't despair when it relates to things out of your control but within others. It's self-pity.
>>7587562
No. Despair is despair, broski. Nice try though.
I've read the Culler and have read some of the critical readers. A main problem I have is that modern philosophy seems so focused on language and I'm just lost on it in truth. I don't understand what makes language so important.
>>7587465
Read stuff you understand. Once you do that, read Kerouac or Burriughs. They aren't hard to understand. Next choose Hemingway and Vonnegut and before you know it you can breeze through Faulkner
>>7587570
I've already read most of these authors. It's stuff like Baudrillard, Derrida, Hegel. The Phenomenology of the Spirit drives me mad.
>>7587497
>I feel as though I've failed myself by not getting to a top university where there might be more people who actually like to talk about this stuff.
I'm at an elite university and everyone here hates literature too. Even the professors. No, _especially_the professors. Having to write two essays per week makes me hate it too, since it basically kills reading for pleasure. I read with a view to writing essays now. So does everyone I know. Studying lit. at uni is probably the worst decision I've ever made.
How do you *know* you've understood?
>>7587678
bump
>>7587577
Get some companion works. I've yet to tackle Hegel, but Baudrillard was utterly impenetrable to me until I picked up secondary literature on him. Once you get the gist of it, you'll come to understand just how justified the accusations of obscurantism are. That is not to say he is not profound - he is. But his thought could be communicated better.
Does anyone have the details of the anecdote of the prominent analytic philosopher (I think it was Searly, but I do not recall) who had a conversation with one of the continental philosophers, and the continental mentioned that around 25% of what you wrote had to be gibberish, or you wouldn't be considered deep? At any rate, that anecdote seems poignant in regards to Baudrillard.
what books are really "hard" to "understand"?
>>7589154
Finnegan's Wake
>>7589154
Basically only Shakespeare and Joyce. Everything else is easy af.
>>7587497
What uni do you go to?
>>7589156
Finnegan's Wake? Never heard of it.
>>7589194
What's the joke here, I don't get it
>>7589245
>Finnegan's Wake
>Finnegan's
>gan's
>n's
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>>7589262
oh, as in,the wake of finnigan?
>>7587497
>I'm doing English Literature at university and it feels like nobody I meet on the course really likes it at all.
Nobody at uni for English Lit seems to like English Lit. That's a fact. Except MAYBE at oxford. Maybe Yale. At least at those two you'll get good professors who like it.
I'm personally at a top state school so I can't really complain too much about people being retards in my program, but I hear it's pretty much the same everywhere. Even in the Ivies. Some say especially in the Ivies.
That said, if your school has a creative writing poet attached to it (mine does, he's a laureate of the state and heads a major conference -- imo his poetry is mediocre though) maybe talk to him and have fun there. Just don't let him or her teach you about poetry, let Shakespeare or Whitman do that.
>>7589161
Shakespeare really isn't particularly hard mate.
>>7589161
>i haven't read anything but memeposts and the wikipedia summaries of shakespeare and joyce
>i think shakespeare is hard
wew lad
