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/lit/ - Literature

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18007844 No.18007844 [Reply] [Original]

>Character in novel writes a poem or song
>Poem/song is described as beautiful or exalted in some other way

Does this bother anyone else? It's basically just the writer wanking themselves off.

>> No.18007856

>>18007844
I don't mind it when it's only implied, but when the author actually writes the poem down I just drop the book

>> No.18007890
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18007890

>>18007844
>>18007856
I always write my own poems/songs, and then have my characters say that they're shit.

>> No.18007899

>>18007856
Yeah, I think that this is the only right way to do it. I've noticed it a few times in otherwise decent books and it's hard to take the story seriously after that

>> No.18007906

>>18007856
I prefer when the author writes the poem in the book, it takes more balls than just stating that it is beautiful. Even better: make the aesthetic judgment from the perspective of one of your characters, that way it can be justified through his personality/taste and it makes much more sense even if the poem is shit.

>> No.18007955

>>18007906
I don't know about that. What got me thinking in this recently was a chapter from Eco's Baudolino, where the titular character writes poems which are hen passed off by a friend of his as his own. The poems are so good, apparently, that a noble becomes the patron of the false poet and the main character writes a load more poems to keep the imposter's charade going. Now this is all being narrated by the main character, so he might just be lying, but it still comes off wrong, in my opinion

>> No.18008266

>>18007890
What's what Tolkien did, and it's cute

>> No.18008298

the fucking worst is nabokov in pale file where he writes a 1000 line poem which i believe i supposed to be above average but intentionally mediocre. to give insight into the main character but its like... just write a good poem and stop wanking yourself off.