/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17770919]

Why aren't classics written any more?

[Anonymous No.17770924]

>>17770919
If /wg/ is any indication only animefags and weebs do any writing now.

[Anonymous No.17770931]

>>17770919
Classics aren't written, they establish themselves as such over time

[Anonymous No.17770932]

>>17770919
its a social construct

[Anonymous No.17770936]

>>17770919
Because nobody writes but weebs.

[Anonymous No.17771006]

>>17770919
Classics are written but you will NEVER hear about them

[Anonymous No.17771017]

>>17770931
If they aren't written, then how do they exist? You say Don Quixote wasn't written... that is suspect.

[Anonymous No.17771021]

>>17770919
Time makes a classic, classic.

[Anonymous No.17771029]

>>17770919
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke has the potential for being a Classic.

[Anonymous No.17771035]

>>17770919
Because the people who are supposed to make the new classics are wasting their creative energy on an imageboard where the threads are deleted or archived and no profit is made from their work.

[Anonymous No.17771050]

>>17771029
Eh, it's very good, but way too short. Understandable, given her condition, but to really be considered a 'classic' it would need a lot more to it. Strange and Norrel though, that certainly could be one, though it's kinda a pastiche on 18/19th century classics anyway.

[Anonymous No.17771123]

>>17771017
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Anonymous No.17771140]

The social cohesion necessary for a society to create people who will grow up to write classics, and the social cohesion necessary to appreciate and agree on the canonization of a classic, does not exist in the west anymore.

[Anonymous No.17771143]

>>17771006
This. I'm sure there are some more than decent works being produced, but we won't hear about them until much later.

[Anonymous No.17771149]

>>17770919
they are but you aren't reading them

[Anonymous No.17771185]

>>17771050
>to really be considered a 'classic' it would need a lot more to it.
So poetry and short stories and plays can't be classics? Jesus shit

>>17770919
As the other guy said, classics do not become classics by being written, but by being turned into classics. And the current state of the US culture and economy is largely set up against establishing new classics.

[Anonymous No.17771535]

>>17771149
This is marketing strategy not classic

[Anonymous No.17771620]

>>17770919
Classics were written in the classic age, which is over. Now we are in the metamodern age and write metamoderns.

[Anonymous No.17771631]

They are.

[Anonymous No.17771633]

>>17770919

[Anonymous No.17771721]

>>17770919
History ended in 1991

[Anonymous No.17771864]

>>17771017
There is a tale from borges about a guy that wanted to re write el Quijote. Word for word.

[Anonymous No.17771871]

>>17770919
Your question doesn't make any sense. A classic is a piece of art that resisted the passage of time.

[Anonymous No.17771883]

>>17770919
Because in a rotting civilization you can't have great works.

[Anonymous No.17771939]

>>17770919
I have a reason why Epics aren't written anymore.

>The old world, speaking strictly, knew but one poet, and named him "Homeros." The Greek word "Poietes," which [138] the Latins—unable to translate it—reproduced as" Poeta," recurs most naïvely among the Provençals as "Trouvère," and suggested to our Middle-high Germans the term of "Finder," Gottfried von Strassburg calling the poet of Parzival a "Finder wilder Märe" (" finder of strange tales "). That "poietes "—of whom Plato averred that he had found for the Greeks their gods—would seem to have been preceded by the "Seer," much as the vision of that ecstatic shewed to Dante the way through Hell and Heaven. But the prodigy of the Greeks' sole poet—"the"—seems to have been that he was seer and poet in one; wherefore also they represented him as blind, like Tiresias. Whom the gods meant to see no semblance, but the very essence of the world, they sealed his eyes; that he might open to the sight of mortals that truth which, seated in Plato's figurative cavern with their backs turned outwards, they theretofore could see in nothing but the shadows cast by Show, This poet, as "seer," saw not the actual (das Wirkliche), but the true (das Wahrhaftige), sublime above all actuality; and the fact of his being able to relate it so faithfully to hearkening men that to them it seemed as clear and tangible as anything their hands had ever seized—this turned the Seer to a Poet.

>[...] Whoso should seek to demonstrate the art of Homer, would have as hard a task before him as if he undertook to shew the genesis of a human being by the laborious experiments of some Professor—supramundane, if you will—of Chemistry and Physics. Nevertheless the work of Homer is no unconscious fashioning of Nature's, but something infinitely higher; perhaps, the plainest manifestation of a godlike knowledge of all that lives. Yet Homer was no Artist, but rather all succeeding poets took their art from him, and therefore is he called "the Father of Poetry" (Dichtkunst). All Greek genius is nothing else than an artistic réchauffé (Nachdichtung) of Homer; for purpose of this réchauffé, was first discovered and matured that "Techne" which at last we have raised to a general principle [139] under name of the Art of Poetry, wrongheadedly including in it the "poietes" or "Finder der Märe."

CONT

[Anonymous No.17771948]

>>17771939
>The "ars poetica" of the Latins may rank as art, and from it be derived the whole artifice of verse-and-rhyme-making to our present day. If Dante once again was dowered with the Seer's eye—for he saw the Divine, though not the moving shapes of gods, as Homer—when we come to Ariosto things have faded to the fanciful refractions of Appearance; whereas Cervantes spied between the glintings of such arbitrary fancies the old-poetic world-soul's cloven quick, and sets that cleavage palpably before us in the lifelike actions of two figures seen in dream. And then, as if at Time's last stroke, a Scotsman's "second sight" grows clear to full clairvoyance of a world of history now lying lost behind us in forgotten documents, and its facts he tells to us as truthful fairy-tales told cheerily to listening children. But from that ars poetica, to which these rare ones owed no jot, has issued all that calls itself since Homer "Epic poetry"; and after him we have to seek the genuine epic fount in tales and sagas of the Folk alone, where we find it still entirely undisturbed by art.

>To be sure, what nowadays advances from the feuilleton to clothe the walls of circulating libraries, has had to do with neither art nor poesy. The actually-experienced has at no time been able to serve as stuff for epic narration; and "second sight" for the never-witnessed does not bestow itself on the first romancer who passes by. A critic once blamed the departed Gutzkow for depicting a poet's love-affairs with baronesses and countesses, "things of which he certainly could never have had any personal experience"; the author most indignantly replied by thinly-veiled allu sions to similar episodes that actually had happened to himself. On neither side could the unseemly folly of our novel-writing have been more cryingly exposed.—Goethe, on the other hand, proceeded in his "Wilhelm Meister" as the artist to whom the poet had refused his collaboration in discovery of a satisfactory ending; in his "Wahlverwandtschaften" the lyric elegist worked himself into a [140] seer of souls, but not as yet of living shapes. But what Cervantes had seen as Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa, dawned on Goethe's deep world-scrutiny as Faust and Mephistopheles; and these shapes beheld by his ownest eye now haunt the seeking artist as the riddle of an ineffable poet's-dream, which he thought, quite un-artistically but thoroughly sincerely, to solve in an impossible drama.

CONT

[Anonymous No.17771953]

>>17770919
There's more than enough as it is.

[Anonymous No.17771970]

Dumb statement. Theres no such thing as an instant classic - nobody knows what a classic will be until 20ish years down the line. Infinite jest might make it, it makes many people seethe but it defines the times really well and thats a good way to predict a classic.

[Anonymous No.17771980]

>>17771948
>There may be something to learn from this, even for our members of the "German Poets'-grove" who feel neglected by their none too ardent publishers. For alas! one must say of their novels, their spirit's ripest fruits, that they have sprung from neither life nor tradition, but simply from theft and traduction. If neither the Greeks at their prime, nor any later great nation of culture, such as the Italians and Spaniards, could win from passing incidents the matter for an epic story, to you moderns this will presumably come a trifle harder: for the events they witnessed, at least were real phenomena; whilst ye, in all that rules, surrounds and dwells in you, can witness naught but masquerades tricked out with rags of culture from the wardrobe-shop and tags from the historical marine-store. The seer's eye for the ne'er-experienced the gods have always lent to none but their believers, as ye may ascertain from Homer or Dante. But ye have neither faith nor godliness.
- Wagner's On Poetry and Composition

[Anonymous No.17771989]

>>17771149
i love morrissey
is his autobiography worth reading?

[Anonymous No.17772628]

>>17771989
>i love morrissey
Dude, get a life.

[Anonymous No.17772710]

>>17770924
There’s a lot of untapped literary potential in the light novel/manga/anime community. You can’t blame them. Consider the influences of a young person with creative tendencies 50-100 years ago. Now, consider that the influences of young people with creative tendencies today might largely be manga and light novels.

[Anonymous No.17772720]

>>17771140
There’s a book about this called The Dispossed Majority. I’m not sure it’s the sole reason but there’s almost certainly some truth to it.

[Anonymous No.17772731]

>>17770919
Don't get in my face or I'll spit.

[Anonymous No.17772748]

>>17771970
IJ is already a classic imo. We only need to see if it enters the canon or not.

[Anonymous No.17772828]

>>17772748
It might become burger classic, nobody in Europe cares about him though.

[Anonymous No.17773658]

>>17771149
>Gay vocalist from art hoe pop band
>Classic

[Anonymous No.17773708]

>>17772828
They should. Everyone is following the blueprint of america.

[Anonymous No.17773748]

>>17772828
Europe is headed down the same pipe the states is on now. IJ will be understood there too.

[Anonymous No.17773795]

>>17773658
there's a story how he blackmailed them into making it an instant classic, but I lost the pasta and source of the true story

[Anonymous No.17773806]

>>17772748
> IJ is a classic
Isn’t that in a way ironically ironic and actually quite sad

[Anonymous No.17773915]

>>17771631
/thread

[Anonymous No.17774538]

>>17770919
We don't produce any less great pieces of literature per decade now than we did, say 150 years ago. We are still in the middle of an artistic explosion, literature is really not in decay. Sometimes I think you embittered incels want the West to be in decline more than it really is

[Anonymous No.17774844]

>>17774538
>no examples
of course. wouldn't wanna spoonfeed

[Anonymous No.17775843]

>>17770919
I write them anon AMA

[Anonymous No.17777409]

>>17771989
East LA mexiMERICAN detected

[Anonymous No.17779247]

>>17770919
Because the well of Westenr arts and philosophy has run dry. Only in science and technology can we still find development.

[Anonymous No.17779378]

>>17772828
Give it time.

[Anonymous No.17779396]

>>17771631
"Call of the Crocodile" is the first installation in Gardner's breakout series of horror novels. The story follows its protagonist, a young boy named Faggot Gardner (no relation to F. Gardner, the author), as he searches the grimy streets of Chicago for "the Crocodile", a local leather daddy notorious for putting bad little boys like Gardner in their place.
Young Faggot Gardner searches high and low for the fabled dominant: in dillapidated crack dens, in public restrooms, in subterranean glory holes. Yet no matter how assiduously he searches, how quickly he moves from clue to clue, how many dirty men's toes he sucks (an activity constantly referred to in the novel as "pussing the boots"), Gardner seems always to be one step behind the object of his obsessive desire.
The twist comes near the end of the novel, during a scene reminiscent of Polanski's "Repulsion", where the beautiful Carole, played by a young Catherine Deneuve, finally descends into madness, and hallucinates human arms reaching out of the walls of her apartment and grabbing her, thereby externalizing her fear not only of sexual assault, but of any form of intimate contact whatsoever. F. Gardner (the author) parodies this scene, effectively turning its tone and implications upside down, by having his protagonist, the now cock-starved and desperate Faggot Gardner (again, no relation) crawl on his knees through a dark apartment, groping along the walls to find his way, only to feel, poking firmly out of the holes in the walls, not scary arms with grabby hands, but dozens of diamond-hard dicks. They poke him in the eyes. They shoot gobs of bitter gravy into his nose and ears. They wag reproachfully at him, like the index fingers of the stern private school teachers who buggered him in his earliest childhood memories, as he slowly makes his way to the end of the hall. The twist is this: when he finally reaches the end of the hall, and opens the door there, he finds himself staring into a blinding white light. He believes that when his eyes finally adjust to the glare, he will see there, waiting for him, horse-whip in hand, croc-skin chaps pulled snugly against his obese thighs, the man he has been seeking for so many days, seeking, in a way, for all of his life. But instead what he sees is a hospital room. He is lying in a hospital bed. The bright light is coming from the naked bulb above him. There is a nurse at his side, changing his IV fluids.
"Where am I?" he asks.
"Loretto Hospital," the nurse replies.
"I was eaten by a crocodile, wasn't I?" he asks.
"No," she says. "You were violently assaulted by hundreds of corpulent and diseased men, with disgusting rotten teeth and putrid breath. That's why you smell like corpses and semen."
"No," he says firmly. "I was eaten by a crocodile. It caused my family to go insane. I'm going to write a novel about it, and force people to read it."
"Whatever you say, Faggot," the nurse replies.

[Anonymous No.17779466]

>>17771948
>And then, as if at Time's last stroke, a Scotsman's "second sight" grows clear to full clairvoyance of a world of history now lying lost behind us in forgotten documents, and its facts he tells to us as truthful fairy-tales told cheerily to listening children.
This is Ossian, right?

[Anonymous No.17779476]

>>17771006
makes no sense since internet exists

[Anonymous No.17779695]

>>17779476
Thats why you dont hear about them get off your ass and stop watching hentai you knob

[Anonymous No.17779701]

>>17779466
I think so, yes. In the 19th century he was very highly praised.

[Anonymous No.17779758]

>>17772710
>There’s a lot of untapped literary potential in the light novel/manga/anime community.
I sure as fuck don't blame them. They see untapped potential and are trying to harness it. Can't fault them for it for trying to exploit it. No, my contempt is reserved for the rest of /wg/ who don't write and would rather insult the animefags and weebs for not writing to their ridiculous standards. Bunch of pseuds writing as if it were the 19th century or the early 20th century.

[Anonymous No.17779762]

But my diary is currently being written.

Desu.

[Anonymous No.17779763]

>>17777777

[Anonymous No.17779773]

>>17779758
>>17772710
The light novel/manga community dont write anything of value. Its always the same 3-5 novels with different character names that dont give half a fuck about writing something actually readable or valuable and just want to relive highschool and shit out garbage into the mouth of a yes man community who wouldnt know a piece of good literature if it had names like shimamura or komako.

[Anonymous No.17779777]

>>17779247
not true

[Anonymous No.17779793]

I really think that the Doujin Shojo M by Suzuki Nago stands above even the most revered classic tragedies.

So yes, the classics of tomorrow are written today.

[Anonymous No.17780383]

>>17770919
>what is Moore's Jerusalem

[Anonymous No.17780394]

>>17780383
Not a classic.

[Anonymous No.17780684]

>>17771721
Explain

[Anonymous No.17780792]

Usually things heralded in their time as a classic are forgotten, while things cast aside eventually are seen in new lights.

This is why Gravity’s Rainbow will be remembered but Infinite Jest will not.

[Anonymous No.17781290]

>>17780792
This is literally what happened with GR though. You clearly don't know its history. Very praised at its release but now has been mostly forgotten apart from a small section of internet audience trying and reading it. It lived and died by the post modern movement, which died in the 80s.

[Anonymous No.17781314]

>>17781290
>small section of internet audience
you realize the internet isn't le sekrit club right?

[Anonymous No.17781362]

>>17781314
It's not, but general trends are visible. It's the same with Ulysses being "talked but little read", again general trend. There is always number of goodreads' ratings alternatively.

[Anonymous No.17781488]

>>17779777
Neat digits

[Anonymous No.17781775]

>>17780792
Seethe about ij but its gonna be remembered. Defines the times too well.

[Anonymous No.17782471]

>>17771149
why do amerimutt overrate shit like this >>17771149, or bullshit artists like bruce springsteen and bob dylan (muh nobel prize)

[Anonymous No.17782520]

>>17770919

[Anonymous No.17782609]

>>17770931
"Romantic" is the new word for novelty though