/lit/ - Literature

Please detail a few times you have done this

>>12271260
I don’t, but my favorite person did.
Bring beauty not terror

>>12271273
A few years ago I quoted Dante (in Italian) to the woman I love while brushing her long auburn hair behind her ear. She became cold because she didn’t return my feelings of course and was distressed that I was making a move on her. She didn’t know italian or Dante so she didn’t understand that I had predicted her spurn and that my recital was a semi-ironic preemptive acceptance of my life spent without her that was to come. I was telling her she was my Beatrice.

>>12271314
what the fucc. i thought you meant you were brushing her hair with a brush, but you just like randomly reached out and brushed her hair behind her ear?

>>12271525
It wasn’t random. We had been having an intimate conversation and I was reciting beautiful poetry to her.

>>12271530
In here to tell you it’s ok to be gay

>>12271314
oh my

>>12271314
I feel you anon. You're a knight of the fair language.

>>12271260
I try to do that but I'm a shit recitator.

Currently I only have memorized Flowers of Evil, Valéry's La Jeune Parque and a couple handul of poems i, English, Spanish and French. Planning to spend a few months on Rimbaud and Gongora next.

>>12271588
I think you and I would be friends.

>>12271260
I've memorized lots of Psalms and other scripture in the Authorized Version.

I managed to impress a couple of old ladies once who proceeded to ask me why I'm not married yet and also told me that it is about time I should be having children. JUST

>>12271675
You should have proceeded quote something else to them. Maybe something from Dickinson. That’s why it’s good to keep a large arsenal.

>>12271710
It happened during a discussion about Bible names for children and I heard some obscure names mentioned and I couldn't help but quote the passages the names came from.

>>12271658
We can be friends anon. Just know that if you're hot and a grill I will probably try to fuck you, but in a friendly way.

>>12271314
Fuck yes, this post is so based.

>>12271314
Holy shit, how do I become you. I used Anki to memorize a bunch of quotes, but end up sounding like an autist IRL. This year my class went on a school trip to NYC and in the bus I recited: "For it soars to a height to match the sky, and as if surging up from amongst the other buildings it stands on high and looks down upon the remainder of the city, adorning it, because it is a part of it, but glorying in its own beauty." from De Aedificus- the original passage is about the Hagia Sofia, but I recited it while gesturing towards the empire state building, after having related overwhelmingly to Procopius's wonder in that moment. Molly thought I had a piece of paper in my pocket or smth and had just memorized it for this occasion in particular and her friend from the french foreign exchange program didn't comprehend the quote very well. My shame and embarrassment was palpable and hung in the air for the rest of the ride... suffice to say they didn't sit in the same row as me on the way back...

I know most of Shakespeare’s plays pretty much by heart, so I will break out some of the darker lines when I feel edgy. Aaron the moor being a particular fav.
Also the epilogue from Blood Meridian.

>>12271922
as an aside, I know you'll rail on my for not reciting it in latin, but I'm only 1/2way through Lingua Latina PSI and frankly wouldn't understand all of what I was saying and I don't want to LARP..

Unironically this and it's scary. The state of literary discussion is so bad that /lit/ is undoubtedly the best place on the Internet for it and there are people who browse and post here who genuinely don't read.

>>12271922
Sounds like you already are me, just with less confidence.

>>12271314
LMAO what a fucking weirdo

>>12271922
>>12271954
>>12271948

Wow, this is autism.

>>12272044
Sweet glorious autism. Embrace it anon.

>>12271972
Thanks, I've read some epictetus and I need to reread meditations, both helped but I know deep down that what I really need to do is engage more with people. It's difficult not to disengage at social functions and dialogue internally. I read some modern books on body language, psychology and persuasion in an attempt to improve my perceived congeniality, but all it's made me want to do is tune out of what people are saying verbally and analyze their reactions.
>>12272044
After my parents divorced I went to a court ordered psychologist who diagnosed me with enough behavioral impairments to constitute falling on the spectrum. It's never affected me besides seeming somewhat awkward and literally only my family and I know.

>>12271314
How do I reach this level of /lit/

>>12272105
Read the complete works of Dante in bilingual edition. Chose a passage you like. Read it ten times. Then see how much of it you have memorized. Repeat until you can recite the passage seamlessly without looking at the page. Do it for at least 10 such passages. Repeat every three months so as to keep the memory alive.

>>12271260
>It’s patrician as fuck
it's pretentious as fuck

>>12272157
a fine line

>>12271260
Probably the most relatable thread on /lit/. I have this from my father, who does this all the time. Random lines from Faust, Schiller, Fontane, etc, with absolutely zero effort it just comes out for the appropriate situation.

my repertoire is verse is not yet good enough to use it often but it's getting there. I think I'll start serenading tinder girls with some english romantics.