/lit/ - Literature

>>1734614
Even for /lit/ you are quite fantastically pretentious.

>>1734599
I think they're referring to Animal Collective. In one of their songs, 'Am I really all the things that are outside of me?' is a lyric.

I think they might have been making a joke.

>>1734564
Forgive me for presuming that you had at least some powers of deduction. I'm calling you obtuse because you're being obtuse: instead of actually responding to my arguments you're just crowing on about how I'm not explaining things, even though I JUST DID explain things in my last message. Nevertheless.

The premise of Russian Formalism is that what differentiates literature from normal text is that literature deviates from normal conventions of informal communication and draws our attention to these differences; it 'makes strange' normal writing through the use of 'literary devices' like metaphors, allegory, symbolism, so on and so forth.

The reason why it didn't really work even then is that it fails to realise that these 'devices' are by no means exclusive to literature, and it tries to provide a way of objectively identifying something as literature when such a thing is impossible due to the term's inherent subjectivity. It is even more irrelevant today because of post-modernism and relativism. Would a Russian Formalist identify Waiting for Godot as literature? Probably not - but it is undeniably the case that is is literature.

Is that enough explanation, or am I still asserting things? :P

>>1734520
>Okay cool I already know what you said, now you could try explaining why either of these things invalidate the value of Russian Formalism. I'm waiting.
If you read what I said before that you know why I repeated myself. Stop being obtuse.

>I have always been discussing Russian Formalism under the assumption of it as an interconnected collection of theoretical stances and concepts. This doesn't affect anything.
In the same way, I pissed on it as an interconnected collection of theoretical stances and concepts. Do you see what I was getting at now?

>Cool, now explain how that is so.

You're being obtuse again.

Windows 98 is a very old operating system. It might have worked OK in its day, but Windows 7 is undeniably better in every single aspect bar one: it requires a more powerful computer to run.

Russian Formalism is quite a cool-sounding concept when you read Eagleton talk about it in 'Literary Theory' but, as you will probably discover when you finish that first chapter, it is flawed when you try to apply it to the real world. The idea that literature is a way of 'estranging' language is fun and everything but it quickly becomes apparent that in today's world of relativism and post-modernism trying to enforce these strict definitions and boundaries on style and 'devices' just falls apart. It is a theory that might have worked OK at the time it was introduced but is now woefully inadequate.

>post-colonialism
>psychoanalysis
>nihilism
>Jazz
>anarchism
>transhumanism
>queer theory
>feminism

Oh god. Die in a fire.

>>1734495
It is about as simple as I can make it in the bit you quoted: Russian Formalism is hopelessly archaic and logocentric and should be dismissed out of hand. If you're going to play the 'there is no one thing defined as Russian Formalism, lol' card then I would ask why until I pissed on it you referred to it as 'Russian Formalism' and not 'X's version of Russian Formalism'.

The point remains. Saying you like Russian Formalism these days is like saying that you prefer Windows 98 to Windows 7.

>>1734492
You're shit at this.

>>1734470
What the fuck? Do you people realise that in modern literary theory Russian Formalism is dismissed as the hopelessly archaic and logocentric nonsense that it is? Literature does not have a single 'particular purpose'.

>>1734432
D&E, I have been watching you over since I started looking at /lit/. At first I was impressed - you have just the right ideas about fantasy and sci-fi. You also seemed to have some sort of an appreciation of literary criticism.

However, what has become evident to me is that you don't find it interesting in its own right, you just like the feeling of superiority you get from posting in threads like this. You probably got out 'Seven Types of Ambiguity' from the library just to have something intimidating-looking to read in public places, you pretentious fucker.

To answer your question, Russian Formalism is utter shit because the idea of the 'estranging' literary effects that differentiate literature from normal speech sounds kind of fun on paper but just doesn't hold up in the real world.

I find New Criticism quite sexy but to explain why would be pretentious so I won't.

1. Jean-Paul Sartre (100%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
2. Nietzsche (84%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
3. David Hume (83%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
4. Thomas Hobbes (82%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
5. Stoics (72%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
6. Spinoza (66%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
7. Kant (53%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
8. Nel Noddings (46%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
9. Epicureans (45%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
10. Jeremy Bentham (41%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
11. Prescriptivism (39%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
12. Cynics (38%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
13. Aquinas (34%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
14. John Stuart Mill (31%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
15. Ayn Rand (25%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
16. Aristotle (24%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
17. St. Augustine (18%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
18. Plato (17%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link
19. Ockham (16%) Books, bargains, etc. Information link

Bitches.

>>1695455
And some more.

That's right. Some motherfucking de Chirico.

>>1689872
"Paris Review people read mostly contemporary literature. They're busy looking at current authors and emerging trends. They'll only look at dead authors if something has been recently discovered or newly translated"

Utter bullshit. You don't know anything. Anyone who wants to review literature would have to be well-read, and that includes 'dead authors', unless you're really suggesting that these people only ever read and have read contemporary literature, which is an absurd assertion.

Poetry corner, /lit/. No, not your dire compositions, but actual poetry by real poets.

Here's something to get the ball rolling.

How Snow Falls, by Craig Raine

Like the unshaven prickle
of a sharpened razor,

this new coldness in the air,
the pang

of something intangible.
Filling our eyes,

the sinusitis of perfume
without the perfume.

And then love's vertigo,
love's exactitude,

this snow, this transfiguration
we never quite get over.

>>1687663
Something to tide you over.

>>1687658
It's bullshit, but it's still fun just to look at other people's handwriting.

I really like my handwriting. Even though it's often illegible, at least it isn't ugly.

The Fall of Constantinople by Steven Runciman.

It's a little sensationalistic and often biased, but the Byzantine Empire was absurdly excellent and the Ottoman capture of the city was horrible. I find it extremely interesting because of the awkward position the Byzantines were in - they weren't western, but they weren't Muslim, so they oscillated between the two sides. It's a joy to read something written by a man so obviously fascinated and in love with his subject.

>>1687515
They will be gods among men?

>>1687583
Somewhat successful - 6/10.

>>1685689
You're an obvious troll.

>>1685643
Is there an equivalent to Beckett, Eliot, or Ovid alive today? No, there isn't. We have a bunch of what for lack of a better phrase I might refer to as 'third-tier' writers, and Mitchell's probably the best of them.

There aren't really any good living writers. I suppose my favourite is David Mitchell but I can't say I have any feelings other than ones of vague approval for him and his work.