/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22566347]

>Purple prose
I like it. And I'm tired of pretending we should cater to efficiency over beauty.

[Anonymous No.22566349]

>>22566347
Right on!

F Scott Fitzgerald all the way!

[Anonymous No.22566356]

>>22566347
Based. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but wit is the soul of the obnoxious pseud. Ideas that seek for beauty above mere cleverness need prose to match.

[Anonymous No.22566366]

>>22566347
You need to find the halfway point, don't go full Nabby or Hemmy, but find the right spot in between.

[Anonymous No.22566376]

>>22566347
prose is the knife and fork, ideas are the steak.

[Anonymous No.22566413]

>>22566356
to communicate complex ideas in simple and understandable language is the highest form of intelligence

[Anonymous No.22566428]

>>22566413
What about communicating complex ideas while filtering out midwits

[Anonymous No.22566451]

I don’t know I understand purple prose to not be beautiful but ugly in being overly ostentatious and tacky. Sort of like Trump tower golden plated toilet. That’s not to say we should be overly Spartan with language but instead language should appropriately suited to its medium and words should flow well together with only certain fancier words used for special emphasis. Kinda of like how a beautifully building should be surrounded by other more common buildings that create an appropriate backdrop without competing for attention.

[Anonymous No.22566453]

>>22566428
the best way to filter midwits is with a handgun and a "do black lives matter?" sign

[Anonymous No.22566474]

>>22566347
>purple prose
kitsch as it gets now catch this

>I need to have sex soon or I will die. Specifically, I need to have unprotected sex with a woman between fifteen and twenty seven years of age. Women, you understand nothing. Have a kid and maybe you’ll know. Watch your baby get run over by a dump truck. The way you want to throw yourself under the wheels to save it is about the way I want to forcibly rabbit fuck this sorority girl on vacation. All men, always, are just walking around with this. You can’t jerk it out of you. It’s just raging constantly, bubbling agony in your guts now and forever. You need pussy like breathing. And the world just waterboards you.

[Anonymousn No.22566675]

>>22566347
Purple prose is, by definition, not beautiful.

[Anonymous No.22566692]

>>22566675
show me an example of purple prose and i will tell you if i like it

[Anonymous No.22566699]

>>22566413
so every arthouse movie and every classical music and every painting is low iq? haha nice try incel now rope

[Anonymousn No.22566759]

>>22566692
If you like it, then for you it's not purple prose. Words emerge because they serve a useful function, not because they correspond to some strictly defined objective thing in the world. The useful function of the term 'purple prose' is that it's a quick and easy way to refer to writing that you think is flabby, overwrought, pretentious and unfocused.

Anyway, sorry I don't have a good example for you; the thing is, my library is all hits.

[Anonymous No.22566761]

>>22566413
then fiction is retarded. every classic work of fiction should instead be an essay

[Anonymous No.22566927]

The foure Elementes of mankinde, as it is euident, by their vertues and naturall properties, by there incommutable qualitie, by their appurtenancies, in the likenesse of all their contraries, so likewise by the similitude of vertues one and another, and contrariewise; must be knowen by one principall name and token of one nature, which is that name of the Sodome-prophettie, The Fire of the Furnace, as that in the worlde is one alone that which is all in all vnified to all, as that is that the which is no part vnited vnto that wherunto it belongeth.

[Anonymous No.22566965]

The negro, in fact, not only in the South, but wherever negroes form a body, or even conglomeration, is a distraction—incredible of the kind. I do not for a single moment intend to imply that the negro, in the sense of body, so conceived, or the bulk of his physical organism as a unit of the system of the negro body, is in itself anything but an excellent apparatus of physical adaptation to the climatic and physical necessities of his environment. He himself, however, cannot be thus conceived; he cannot be imagined simply in so far as his being does not consist in himself. There is here no problem of individual, social, or of any other kind of psychology; in short, there is no problem, in any case, except that of the economic interpretation of history, but of course insofar as its analysis shall be possible, so, however, only insofar as the negro can be conceived not merely as a physical entity, which indeed has certain special conditions of adaptation to the necessities of what, with great respect for the most venerable of philosophical distinctions, I shall be pardoned for designating with a more vulgar term, but as a social mass, and, so far as is necessary in this connection, of its social psychology. I have written elsewhere in terms too laconic for our present purpose a number of sentences, at the cost of at once a number of other possible, nay actually valuable, words, about the negro.

[Anonymous No.22566967]

Who are your favorite purple prose writers, /lit/?

[Anonymous No.22566975]

>>22566692
What say you to these?
>>22566927
>>22566965

[Anonymous No.22567525]

>>22566347
Just get into Victorian literature. It's florid in style and there are plenty of forgotten gems.

[Anonymous No.22567537]

>>22566761
Sometimes the simplest way to communicate is to tell a story

[Anonymous No.22567596]

>>22566347
Picrel gives me erection.

[Anonymous No.22567638]

>>22566965
"Nor, in view of the powerful attraction of the two races, is this frenzy of love in the white Southern woman for the negro altogether inexplicable. The family is isolated on the plantations. The white young man is away at college, traveling in Europe, or practicing at his profession in the large cities, while the white girl, who matures early, is at her home, surrounded by the brightest and most intelligent of the young colored men on the estate. Passionate, full of sensibility, without the cold prudence of her Northern sister, who can wonder at the wild dreams of love which fire the hearts and fill the imagination of the impressible Southern maiden. The awkward, rude girl of yesterday, under the influence of the master passion of our common humanity, is changed in a day to the full measure of a glorious womanhood.

It is safe to say that the first heart experience of nearly every Southern maiden — the flowering sweetness and grace of her young life, is associated with a sad dream of some bondman lover. He may have been the waiter, or coachman, or the bright yellow lad who assisted the overseer; but to her he is a hero, blazing with all the splendors of imperial manhood. She treasures the looks from those dark eyes which made her pulses bound; every spot of earth, where he had awaited her coming, is, to her, holy ground.

The first bitter lesson of a woman's life — self-sacrifice — they learn when prejudice and pride of caste compels them to tear the loved image from their hearts. What wondrous romances are yet to be written on this sad but charming theme; what wealth of passional life is lost with all the heart-histories of the South blotted out by a blighting prejudice — a cruel pride of caste and color. The full mystery of sex — the sweet, wild dream of a perfect love, which will embrace all that is fervid and emotional in humanity, can never be generally known until men and women the world over are free to form unions with their opposites in color and race. The rule in love affinities is the same as in electrical affinities: unlike attract — like repel."

[Anonymous No.22568731]

>>22567525
There’s a reason why they were forgotten

[Anonymous No.22569003]

>>22566413
you cannot convey something complex in simple language; compare the anatomical drawing of a tree functioning in the ecosystem to a childrens sponge-painting of a tree.

>>22566347
>>22566356
I agree with this absolutely. Once we've shaken the notion of "be dumb" and "big words are bad" (bad education) out of the brain the whole world of human thought is suddenly accessible where it was never accessible to us before.

[Anonymous No.22569009]

>>22566347
Also I'd add, "purple prose" is really just heavily detailed scientific reasoning. It's just illiteracy to see a text wall and not be able to comprehend what's being conveyed in it; or to think that specific words and there composition are not there for precision but are there to "impress with wordiness" - which 'could' be true but certainly isn't most of the time.

Again, illiteracy and bad habit.

>>22566967
gotta be 1600-1700's essayists and ancient romans.

[Anonymous No.22569013]

there* their*
fuck, i even changed it to 'there'
that was funny
*sips coffee*

[Anonymous No.22569020]

>>22566761
>then fiction is retarded. every classic work of fiction should instead be an essay
I kind of think so. If fiction is deliberately an attempt to convey a certain idea, cloaking it in layers of personality and association of "this with that", then an essay to the same effect would be more interesting.

I mean, I find the factual essays of places and events; "high prose" or whatever, to be far more interesting and multi-faceted and yet to-the-point than a long tedious storybook. Compare Cassius Dio to Mark Twain, arguably both very similar in their subjects but...

...then again, a nice storybook is a fair means of income for any writer.

[Anonymous No.22569046]

>>22566347
Why do you think purple prose is beautiful?

[Anonymous No.22569063]

>>22569046
Purple is a pretty color

[Anonymous No.22569118]

>>22566413
To BE ABLE TO communicate complex ideas in simple and understandable language is the highest form of intelligence. You don't have to. Leave simple explanation to the technical manuals. Communicating complex ideas in beautiful and engaging language is the highest form of written aesthetic expression.

[Anonymous No.22569239]

>>22566347
purple prose is the bloating of such language.
there's no beauty in excess.

[Anonymous No.22569330]

>>22569239

[Anonymous No.22569364]

>>22569003
>I agree with this absolutely. Once we've shaken the notion of "be dumb" and "big words are bad" (bad education) out of the brain the whole world of human thought is suddenly accessible where it was never accessible to us before.
When I was in Uni they told us to say what we must say as briefly as possibly; no adjectives and careful rewording to conserve space in the paper
Then the actual stuff that we were studying and were told was beautiful was opulent and bordering on verbose

[Anonymous No.22569418]

>>22569364
>When I was in Uni they told us to say what we must say as briefly as possibly; no adjectives and careful rewording to conserve space
then
>Then the actual stuff that we were studying and were told was beautiful was opulent and bordering on verbose
Yeah I mean ... whoever came up with this couldn't have not known what the outcome would be; it's simple when you flick through grammar books from even the 70's and understand that - what I'm going to say here - is the most patently self-evident thing in the world:

Basically if you're not ever exposed to 'structured logical writing/speech' then whatsoever you're given and told is great you have no way whatsoever to process it one way or the other; on one hand you're blindly agreeing with the professor for top marks, on the other hand you don't understand what you're being given so it never takes hold in the mind; you can't defend (the idea) because you never understood the idea in the first place ... beyond maybe sophistry or highly personalized attacks which is all we see.

The thing (the idea) may actually be completely correct however; it may have great logic to support it, but the student never learns about that or the context which it came from or was designed for.

The end product, I like to visualize, is like to compare the photographs of spiders webs when the spider is under the influence of various drugs; the most threadbare scraggly falling-apart cobweb is the brain without a grasp of structure and full vocab and logic. It can't stand in a gentle breeze much less snag a fat fly.

[Anonymous No.22569438]

>>22569364
>>The end product, I like to visualize, is like to compare the photographs of spiders webs when the spider is under the influence of various drugs; the most threadbare scraggly falling-apart cobweb is the brain without a grasp of structure and full vocab and logic. It can't stand in a gentle breeze much less snag a fat fly.
Also, it almost goes without saying that conspiracy theories and reductionalism are what exists in the absence of accurate reason. To say that if a person can't understand the law they'll be brutalized anyway to force them into line. Consider this as to the total society and how easy it would have been to foresee this.

[Anonymous No.22569446]

>the most threadbare scraggly falling-apart cobweb
ketamine spider, closest next spider is DMT spider and weed spider.

best spider was coffee and cocaine.

[Anonymous No.22569451]

Cocaine spider is my wifu

[Anonymous No.22569489]

>>22569451
If I had a cocaine spider I'd call it Sigmund.

[Anonymous No.22569518]

>>22566347
I'm at the point where I'm ready to pitch to a publisher that my novel should be audiobook only, and that if a print version were to exist it would only work against the success of the project by giving people the chance to be irrationally offended by complex sentences which sound perfectly natural when read aloud. I think this is a chance to break away from the disastrous cult of "JUST GET TO THE POINT" which has done irreparable damage to the body of wisdom that new writers necessarily look to.

[Anonymous No.22569531]

>>22566347
Purple prose isn't necessarily beautiful

[Anonymous No.22569584]

>>22569518
this is a good idea

I'm also annoyed that videogame books; interactive fiction, has been so underused.

[Anonymous No.22569785]

>>22567596
Same

[Anonymous No.22569847]

Me too. Hawthorne is my favorite.
>It has been an apothegm these five thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns. For my part (speaking from hard experience, acquired while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the free gifts of Providence. Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed, — be it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless weed, — should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest.

>My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze with the certainty that somebody must profit by it and that there would be a little more honey in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that honey.

>Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate.

[Anonymous No.22570124]

>>22569847
>1st para
He's quite correct. I imagine a modern or contemporary-to-hawthorne illiterate being bewildered and distressed and totally unable to understand what's being said.

That's actually more funny than depressing, when I think of it.

[Anonymous No.22570130]

>>22570124
perfect gif for this