Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 217. page
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whats up with goethe's faust part 2
on goodreads way more people have read part 1 than 2 and some translations only cover part 1
is part 2 like an unecessary sequel? should i read both?
They're pretty different in approach and were written decades apart iirc. I think preferred part 2, but if you read 1 you should probably read 2 as well.
There are about 40 years between the publication of both. The second part was published after his death.
The second part came out of Goethe taking the "start with the Greeks" meme very, very seriously, to the point that it's a hard read when you don't know the allusions, so most people skip it. The first part works fine on its own.
>>8197518
ah okay. i know the basics of the faust myth, is that covered in its entirety in part 1?
is part 1 a more or less complete narrative?
What reasons to study one over the other
If you could only do
1. philosophy, or
2. literature sans philosophy
which one would you do and why
>>8197412
Don't go for philosophy.
Here are some unreleased thoughts of Cioran (unreleased in English) about philosophy. It sums up my own sentiment quite fairly.
Translated with Google Translate because I'm lazy, but you'll get the meaning:
>The most stupid thing we can do is to study philosophy. One can study a problem, but it is absurd to merely study… all the problems. To say that I went through that error!
>Essential condition if we want to think, refrain from thinking about philosophy.
>There is nothing more sterilant for a poet to read other poets. Similarly, they read philosophers and nothing (that is what the prof. do), is to condemn oneself to never have one philosophical thought.
>The history of philosophy is the negation of philosophy.
>One of the few advantages I had, it was to have understoof, in twenty years, that philosophy had an answer for anything, and that even its questions were inessential.
>I hate to develop, explain, comment, support, I hate everything that reminds the philosopher, thus the teacher.
> The philosophy: spread a thought (as they say of a dung it stretches, stretches). I do not like the thought picked up, blasted into a formula.
> Except Pyrrho, Epicurus and others, Greek philosophy is disappointing: it seeks only the truth ...; on the contrary Hindu philosophy does not pursue the issue: what is otherwise important.
>"This philosophy is not worth an hour of trouble. "- This affirmation of Pascal, I did it unconsciously since my time insomnia, whenever I read or reread a philosopher.
>Sartre managed to make good Heidegger but not good Celine. Counterfeiting is easier in philosophy than in literature. This ambitious who thought wanting was enough to have talent. He has not even managed to give the illusion of "depth" which is very easy for any philosopher who encroaches on the letters.
>A philosopher is someone who indefinitely explains his thinking. The artist fortunately can't have such bad taste.
>I name non-philosopher the one who can not have the bad taste to explain his thinking.
>Any exegesis is desecration. A text explained is not a text, like a corpse is no longer a body. The history of philosophy is the negation of philosophy. We struggle with an idea, we do not describe the steps. The scholarship is to be avoided. The same criticism. Find innocence. Let destructive.
>It took me a long time to get rid of the fascination on me philosophical jargon. But I finally got rid of it. This style of teachers, pedantic, laborious, which turns round, and whose essential aim is to hide away the problem is the long intolerable. But we understand that deceives young and fills teachers.
>I just read a very fair thing in correspondence of an English critic. According to Aristotle, there has been no poetry in Greece.
> The philosophy kills inspiration.
>>8197608
These quotes are some of the most idiotic things I've ever heard. How can you possibly claim that thinking and learning are bad things?
In regards to studying literature of philosophy, its a matter of taste. Do you enjoy philosophy? Do you enjoy literature? Which one do you enjoy more? That's all that's really important.
>>8197852
>How can you possibly claim that thinking and learning are bad things?
Swing and a miss. At least you tried.
For instance, I always wanted to direct As You Like It with Rosalind's disguise fooling no one. There'd be a lot of snickering and eye-rolling and 'get a load of this guy' cam stuff going on behind her back. Orlando would always talk to her as sarcastically as possible, and she'd never pick up on it. I'd direct it this way for no other reason than to antagonize Bardolators (and you know who I mean).
If you guys were going to direct a Shakespeare play, would you be traditional or do something different?
>>8197403
I once see a King Lear where all characters were in contemporary dress (suit and tie), and Lear was actually the CEO of a company named "Lear, Inc."
It was appalling.
The right thing to do as a director for classic plays is to be vaguely historical (not too precise, not trying to emulate too hard the "old time" unless it's required by the play), and be discreet. The audience must focus on the text, not on the director's quirky ideas. The text is king.
>>8197439
There are also excellent non-traditional productions that are revolutionary precisely because of the "director's quirky ideas". For example, Peter Brook's 1970 Midsummer Night's Dream.
The problem lies in the director's competence to effectively convey and express those ideas without sacrificing the text or the whole production.
>>8197403
in the winter's tale, i would have actual bears
>Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.
Come on, guys. He's not that bad.
He's not. Those who dislike him typically have not read his books and are bogged down by the labels associated with reading one of his books. I'd like to think the typical /lit/ anon would be smarter than to let that determine their reading tastes, but you never know.
>>8197389
wow that was actaully good, what book of his is that from? :)
>>8197406
I guessed it right from the first sentence :)
So I started reading Greek philosophy because you fags told me it was needed to understamd the cool philosophers like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Is it wrong if I disagree with a lot of things that this commie faggot Aristotle blurts out?
Yes. If he had everything right, there wouldn't figures like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard in the first place.
>>8197273
>wouldn't be
>>8197273
>Is it wrong if I disagree with a lot of things that this commie faggot Aristotle blurts out?
it is if you don't think about what you're reading and just see shit you don't agree with and move along.
Are Buddhist ethics and Buddhist liberation two things that can be approached isolated or are they necessarily intertwined?
>>8197057
>8197057
Yes, they can.
/thread
>>8197060
So one can be a murderous cunt acting only in one's self-interest and be enlightened?
>>8197096
Sort of.
At least what most people refer to when they talk about enlightenment (the phenomenon that can occur during meditation) can happen regardless.
Case in point:
Shoko Asahara
If we are talking "true enlightenment", then no. And the other one probably comes easier when you aren't a cunt.
What the fuck does dialectical mean?
>>8196903
It originates from the word dialectic, as in Hegelian dialectic.
>>8196903
It's arguing to reach a conclusion.
>>8196903
It's an obsolete form of diabetes.
Anyone read it?
I'm not even done but it's definitely going to be one of my favorite books of all time. I haven't laughed out loud so many times while reading since I first read Confederacy of Dunces, probably.
It is a hard book to describe though. The "plot" progresses in a spiral fashion; or maybe concentric circles is a better metaphor. A character will be interrupted mid-sentence by a digression on the character's personality, history, thoughts, etc. Or by a theological dispute, or a philosophical argument, or a fine grammatical point, all tenuously connected with whatever has been interrupted, or with what follows the interruption; or a Dedication, offered by the author for sale to anyone who wants it, with the promise it will be put in its proper place, with the purchaser's name, on the next edition, etc. etc.
It starts not with the hero's birth but with the unfortunate circumstances of his conception, and it is well into the 3rd volume of 9 before you see him born.
Stylistically it's written in what I call in my head (but not outloud because it sounds faggy and is probably inaccurate) the "breathless style" - like Burton, heaps of clauses, long and broken sentences.
It's the sort of book that doesn't just make you laugh. It actually produces joy.
I intend to read it here in the coming months. Schopenhauer thought it was one of the four greatest novels written, which is quite a weighty recommendation to me.
I have it sitting unread on my shelf because I'm admittedly intimidated by the length.
>>8196861
Yeah man you can find respectable critics/authors who can't stand it, too, though.
The most similar work I can think of is actually Petronius' Satyricon, because of the extremely digressive style, the way he both parodies and exults in these extravagant flourishes of pedantry, mixed seemingly indiscriminately with raunchy bathos and physical humor. When I reread a series of chapters, though, I see how there is a higher structure in the author's mind, and the digressive and narrative sections fit together as well as Russian dolls.
I do wish I had an edition with better notes. I forget what I have (not at home now) but it will have a gloss on something you could've googled if you didn't know it, like the name Varro, but very few explanations of the darker points that aren't anchored in some proper name.
Can /lit/ recommend me some books on WWI and WWII? I'm talking history here and just the basics genow. An overview on dates and major battles.that kinda stuff thx
>>8196759
The guns of August is a great book about the start of WWI. It's about the lead up to the war and the first month of the war. Reads almost like a novel and keeps your interest.
>>8196759
Guns of August, Evans' Third Reich Trilogy, Churchill's Memoirs, Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar, and Churchills WW1 Book where he says I WASNT WRONG ABOUT GALLIPOLI 15 times
>>8196772
Also Storm of Steel, Grossman's On Killing, and Keegan's Face of Battle pair nicely.
I am looking to follow-up my collection of classical works of ancient greek literature - Philosophy, prose, poetry and everything in between is welcome - Currently it consists of:
Iliad
Odyssey
All known greek tragedies and comedies from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes
Apollonius' Argonautica
The Homeric Hymns
Hesiod's Works and days & Theogony
Plato's collected works
Aristotles collected
Collected works of Sappho
Herodotus' History
Are there any recommendations? Any works that I have missed? I'd be glad to fill my library and expand my collection, so please give me your best tips.
Xenophon
Thucydides
Plutarch if you count him
>>8196594
>reading ancient greek literature in english
The Presocratics
Hippocrates' Corpus
Archimedes' works
ITT we write a simple sentence and make it into something Lovecraft would write.
"Ah shit, I stubbed my toe."
"The persons involved in such an incident where ones first toe meets an unrequited invitation to the wall corner shouted, profanity spewing from their lips."
also general Lovecraft thread. Favorite Lovecraft story?
>>8196590
Probably mountain of madness but I need to read more. People keep giving me collected works and I haven't had the time to read them
Pages towered above me, stretching on infinitely on all sides. Their words unread beckoning with an ancient tongue I could not know. The towers of eldritch knowledge collapsed in and trapped me, keeping me from escaping their evil, while many hands added to the pile. I'd become obsessed with learning these elder secrets, but couldn't continue on, and a profound fear enveloped me.
>>8196590
"Aw, hell nah! What the fuck even IS that?!"
"By god, dear Richard! It was a kind of eldritch horror, wholly beyond our human understanding. It was truely an unnamable beast, if one might even call it that. I will, however, attempt to give you a vague yet detailed description of the thing. Starting with a lot of slime, goo and the occasional tentacle."
>>8196590
"I had a shitty vacation."
"I will tell you about the thing, once I can gather my senses, at least what senses remain to me after that horrid event; but first let me describe New England architecture to you in exhausting and unnecessary detail."
Im reading the Robert Fagles Illiad at the moment, but I don't have his Odyssey. I have Robert Fitzgerald's. Is it a bad idea to read Fitzgerald's Odyssey instead of Fagles after reading his Illiad or is it a non-issue?
A non-issue!
>>8196424
just read them things
>>8196424
Yeah, that's fine. Fitzgerald's Odyssey is *much* better than his Iliad, it's the best English rendition IMO.
Are there any good books that prove wrong all the bullshit he says?
>>8196288
Nope sorry. Motherfucker was 100% right about everything.
You'll all see soon enough.
>>8196291
Ok then.
Some book that is at least capable of making you think he was wrong even though he isn't? Please? :)
>>8196334
Try Aristotle
This upstanding gay fella walks up to you at the book store, smack your meme literature out of your hands and thrusts The Way Of Men into your effeminate hands; he asks you why you don't do you part as a Man adhere to Strength, Honour, Courage and Mastery.
What do you do?
>>8196256
>smacking things out of people's hands
>honorable
I'd tell him it's a shame he wasn't in that nightclub in Orlando and that the world would be better off without him.
>>8196256
>upstanding gay fella
Good joke, weak troll.
Kys.
I would whip out my snub nose katana and teach him a lesson about being polite to strangers
>tfw just finished Short History of Decay
>tfw Cioran makes a pretty decent criticism of Stirner
>tfw Cioran has made me strangely happy and has some weird optimistic nihilism going on.
>>8195902
what's his critique of Stirner ?
>>8195902
>taking anyone who writes in aphorisms seriously
>>8195945
>Dispelling a large portion of philosophy because you don't like the format
>>8195931
F L O W E R
O F
F I X E D
I D E A S
once the unique one has destroyed all fixed ideas, they take all sides, hold all opinions. Obsessions MAKE US, anon. You don't want to be GELATINOUS do you? You don't want to have gotten all your education at the WHORE HOUSE, WHERE YOU ARE TAUGHT TO LOSE ALL YOUR PRINCIPLES AND VIEW YOUR VERY SELF AS A TOOL, DO YOU ANON????
