So, I just bought this. Is it as good as I'm hoping? What are some of your opinions on it? What is some other epic poetry that might be good?
>>8259262
No idea.
Don't have any.
Paradise Lost.
>>8259280
Paradise Lost was fun, but I was underwhelmed, since I had read Inferno right before, I did like Satan's machines though.
It's far better.
It's amazing.
Orlando Furioso and The Liberation of Jerusalem.
>>8259289
>paradise lost was underwhelming
care to explain?
>>8259396
you know, I have both of those, so I'm pretty fucking comfy right now I think.
>>8259418
it's like i said, i had just read Dante's Inferno, and at the time i was still a normie, and it was just not as action packed and fantastic as i had hoped, after reading through hell. I have a copy of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained somewhere, so I'll just put them in my list for re-reading. The only real moment I recall is when satan used his machines against the army of heaven, but even that's very very foggy.
>>8259396
I also grabbed Don Juan, read that one?
What does lit think of Gilgamesh?
>>8259509
I tried reading that about a month ago, got about 15 pages in and had to stop, the format of the tale was really clunky since a lot of it was missing or whatever, and the translation gave me the impression that it was like a very simply told fable. what did you think of it?
>>8259509
it's interesting historically. not a good read.
I have The Tain coming in the post, is it any good? My favourite epics that I have read so far have been the Iliad and Beowulf
/lit/ opinions on Kalevala?
>>8259439
Try Faust (especially this), Aeneid, Odyssey, Illiad, and some of Eliot including his popular stuff like Prufrock and the Waste Land, but also the relatively unpopular stuff.
If you're feeling really edgy read Pounds Cantos and try to dislodge meaning or a story from it all.
Read the rest of the divine comedy even though it will not live up to Inferno for anyone who has read inferno first
The Master and Margarita. Once you read it I guarantee that from that moment on the devil will notice you.
>>8259726
Yeah I appreciated Beowulf but thought both versions I read were pretty garbage. Linguistically it's neat
>>8259749
I've read purgatorio, and some of paradiso, it spawned the idea in me that the closer you got to god, the more boring everything becomes, I've read faust, recently, pretty epic, especially the ending of the first part, the climax was incredible, really. I've read much of the Odyssey, but not enough to say I've completed it, it was a prose translation, it still seemed rather good. the Aeneid pissed me off, it felt like from what i read just a rinse and repeat of the Odyssey in some ways. I wish I had studied both, so I could see the differences more markedly, but I had trouble with it. Eliot has been suggested quite a lot to me, but I haven't really taken it up quite yet. Pound, I'm a little scared to try pound yet, maybe in a few years, after I stretch my epic poetry muscles.
>>8259751
I didn't like it, tried two different translations, never could finish it. That was before I read faust, and while i read it, memories of M&M came back to me and made more sense. Will be reading it when I return to the russians to fill in the gaps.
>>8259439
Paradise Lost is more psychological in scope than anything else. You're also missing the point if you're reading purely for the plot (sorry, but it's true, esp. when we're talking of poetry). Dante's imagination was greater than Milton's, but Milton's rhetoric was greater than Dante's (greater even than Shakespeare's). If for nothing else, read PL for the characters and the poetry, esp. Satan's. (Not that Dante's isn't fantastic also -- I just mean no fair-minded view can possibly find PL's "underwhelming".)
>>8259975
Well I like to think I explained my reasons for finding it underwhelming, and that I will give it a fair shake again, and always with an open mind. I just remember that my initial experience with it was underwhelming. Not much I can really do about my past self's perceptions, I wish though, I wish. heh.
>>8259289
had you just read Dante in the original Italian or did you read both in Portuguese translation or some shit
>>8259944
>it spawned the idea in me that the closer you got to god, the more boring everything becomes,
you have a very shitty imagination then
>>8259995
English, I was sitting alone in jail, and it was penguin's portable dante. milton was about two weeks later.
>>8260001
That may be, I haven't read it since then. Not sure why you'd be insulting, it was just my impression of it. It was unquestionably a genius work, and I look fondly towards the moment I read it again. I was about 15 when I read it first anyway. still a wee normie, I thought Count of Monte Cristo was the greatest book in the world.
>being this much of a pleb
>>8260004
you went from a translation to the real deal and you felt underwhelmed?
don't get me wrong, I think Dante IS a greater poet than Milton, but PL is far better than any translation of Dante
>>8259262
Isn't this just like a big circle jerk over the monarchy, or elizabeth, or something stupid like that?
>>8259262
>"Is it as good as I'm hoping?"
It depends on how much you love Elizabeth
>Take up the reins of you kingdom
>To furnish matter for another epic.
>Let the world tremble as it senses
>All you are about to accomplish,
>Africa's land and Oriental seas
>The promised theatre of your victories.
>>8259995
wtf why portuguese?
>>8262813
>portugese empire
kek
you know the portugese struggled with illiteracy into the late 20th century
>>8259698
The Tain is based but it's prose. The ending is one of the most powerful moments in any mythology I've read
If you like it and want more Irish shit read buile Suibhne and Agallamh na Seanorach
>>8259474
Byron's Don Juan? It's fantastic.
I think with both FQ and DJ you just have to have accurate expectations. Spenser is action driven, but also properly allegorical. Allegory often seems flat to contemporary readers and Spenser suffers for it these days. His language is also deliberately archaic and difficult, but it is part of the charm. But it is amazing and vitally important for the development of both English poetry and the English language.
Don Juan is also fantastic, so long as you know that it is satirical and highly ironic. The key to my enjoying it was getting a sense of who the narrating voice was... not Byron per se, but a similarly experienced and jaded figure. His sense of fatigue and age is contrasted by Juan's naivety and innocence. Though written in Spenserian stanzas, its method is very different. It made me laugh a lot, but it was also quite moving (for example, Juan's relationship withHaidee).
Both important and very very enjoyable texts, but meant for different moods.
>>8259713
Looks interesting.
