This thread is dedicated to the secret, transgressive, and transcendent side of ancient greece.Eleusinian mysteries, orphic hymns, mystery cults, initiation, the afterlife, nocturnal divinities, ecstatic gods, eros, thanatos, sleep, dreams, fate, underworlds, afterworlds, ritual fumigations and so on.>Where to start?Here: H O M E R I C H Y M N S>Hymn to Demeter>Persephone’s abductionFoundational poetic source for the establishment of the Eleusinian Mysteries. > Hymn to DionysusO R P H I C H Y M N S87-hymn ritual collection from Dionysiac/Orphic religious milieu. Liturgical and incantatory rather than philosophical.Which is good. Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25575890Classical Greek poetry was usually written in dactylic hexameter, try searching for translations which stay within this hexameter. If they don’t, you might as well read a prose translation.
>>25576100Pic related as well as the one about whipping Homer and throwing all his works in the trash heap, implies his view of Logos was vastly different from any of the organized Greek cults of the time.
>>25577351Plato (and Socrates too probably) was basically arguing for the removal of Homer as well. I’m glad that they never succeeded, though.
>>25577898Well, Homer was removed as someone you look to for religious advice and was basically left as a fun writer of fiction while Christianity (a Platonic influenced religion) is number one world wide so in the end Plato won in a way. Plato lives on via Christ while pagans are seen as “Larpers” - I detest using that juvenile term. Unless you’re living in Thailand or bunfuck Buryatia, no one takes Paganism seriously
>>25577917“paganism” just means religions which aren’t abrahamic. There are loads of religions/countries where the christians weren’t able to destroy the religions of the people they were oppressing, like: Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion, Shintoism, etc.Also, Platonism is “pagan” and was outlawed by the christians for being “pagan”. christians just took nitpicked elements from Platonism to make their religion look better, because nobody was taking it seriously in the beginning.
I came away from his memoir having learned nothing at all. All I saw was a man who correctly identified all the real threats to liberalism but, like every liberal now, totally failing to identify any solutions or ways to navigate the chaotic world we're entering. Just solemn acknowledgements that there is indeed impending chaos but liberalism is still the best despite it, for some reason. Very sad to see a wise elder realize that his sanctuary is falling apart and struggle to save it.
>>25570722>I would not be certain of that, look at how Hungary has reversed its slide to authoritarianism. But it didn't. Politically Peter Magyar is also courting the same right wing demographic, the dude is a genuine right winger (this is good). The reason people were sick of Orban isn't because of libtard grandstanding and gay rights or whatever, it's the fact that he was a corrupt fat faggot who was doing everything to stay in power to siphon off more money by pandering to inbred rural hicks, kind of like the orange nigger.
>>25570755>see jews were mean to me so now you have to let us muslims rape and eat children otherwise it's racist hang yourself, ahmed
>>25578621>>25578680>>25578404>check time in israel>early morning/start of business dayHello JIDF. Reminder Hadrian and Iran did nothing wrong.
>>25578690I denounce the Talmud and spit on Moshe Rabbeinu, if that's what you were going to ask me to do next. I'm not a jew but you are still a crying brown sandnigger seething that you can't bomb people with impunity.
>>25570354Gramp was high on his kool-aid after witnessing the collapse of USSR and didn't realize his fellow liberals were turning america into USSR 2.0.
Holy shit, is this true? Was Machiavelli really a magical numbers guy?
>>25576908>his writings make a strong case for atheismLet's not forget that many nominal "Christians" throughout history were really atheist or agnostic. The Catholic tyranny had to be appeased.
>>25577001That is a fair point. Machiavelli didn't just criticize papal doctrine he went all the way down the line. He also criticized Christian morality in a sense that is already excluding church influence. He also maintained how important it was to appear religious and even offered genuine citations on it. Even if you don't consider Machiavelli to be atheist since he never overtly claimed to be one it's also difficult to consider him as anything else given how far removed he was from not just the prevailing religions of the time but really religion in general.
>>25574914>jews
>>25575423>>25576881Here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0yg5u9LHQ
>>25576900>The boldest conspiracy theorists can claim is that Ataturk was a crypto-Jew or something lmao.Frankfurt School were Sabbateans.
Any tips on writing female characters?
>>25577673>>25577977I unironically like this as it introduces Cassandra in a way that makes her seem positively bird-like.
>>25578851Yeah it actually is a banger. Makes me want to write a Georges Perec-like stylistic exercise novel which follows Cassandra in her day-to-day life but the entire time it's just her breasts being described in a billion different ways
>>25577673Their motivation for literally everything is feeling important.
>>25577699wrong site for this.
>>25577673I just end up writing novels exclusively containing men, though this leaves women lurking around the edges in strange ways. I wonder if I am a closet (even to myself) homosexual.
Just ordered this because it's a "horror", how does Horror work with books? am I actually going to feel scared?
>>25576936I understand why it was censored at a certain point in time, but why would publisher still put out the censored version now?
>>25576948The Oxford/Penguin editions aren't censored.
>>25576528It depends on how well immersed you are into reading, but I'd compare it to tension more than fear.
>>25576528If you're an NPC you won't be scared/creeped out/spooked. You get what you put into it.
>>25576528Its very IQ dependant
How do you pick between translations when there's no clear winner? I keep dropping books after comparing early sections because I don't want to commit to the wrong decision. Right now I'm trying to read Dream of the Red Chamber.>inb4 just learn Mandarin
You know for a fact that these performative dipshits are just going to tell you to learn an entire foreign language and read it in the original language.
You already know the answer. When you read a Translation is like drinking fresh nigger cum as it drips out of a whores pussy, you'll never get the real deal. If you're content with doing this (drinking second-hand cum) all your life well, you do you. If you're serious about it you'll start learning Chinese this week. In about three years of daily work you'll be able to work your way through classic literature, in five you'll be enlightened.
>>25578796Seek help.
Read Borges' review on 1001 nights' various English translations. Then read Benjamin's essay on translation and pure language. In your case, you won't get all the subtle wordplay and references. In fact, nobody can without annotation, not even native Chinese. But you might get something else most Chinese can't, because they are too distracted by the wordplay and references. Try Borges' review on DoRC too, he actually read it.
>>25578781>>25578796>drinking fresh nigger cum as it drips out of a whores pussy, you'll never get the real dealAs opposed to reading it in the original, which is like drinking nigger cum straight from the tap
What are the best books about or cover the concept of, pseudointellectualism?
Was pretty kekworthy when this beaner dropped mckeena grace as his waifu because she turned out to be a whore.
KEK, he is such a fucking faggot.
>>25578835Seriously? LMAO
>>25578835Why? All attractive women are whores.
He's literally me
>>25578436Oh yea? Are you writing to us from beyond the grave or are you very young?
ITT: Writers who used to be popular but are rarely read anymore.
bvmp
>>25570105Far better than I thought he'd be
>>25572912I've read Beware of Pity and The Post Office Girl, recently. nyrb has published ca. 5 of his novels
Cicero more like Sissyro.
>[David] Cannadine concluded in G.M. Trevelyan: A Life in History (1992):>During the first half of the twentieth century Trevelyan was the most famous, the most honored, the most influential and the most widely read historian of his generation. He was a scion of the greatest historical dynasty that (Britain) has ever produced. He knew and corresponded with many of the greatest figures of his time... For fifty years, Trevelyan acted as a public moralist, public teacher and public benefactor, wielding unchallenged cultural authority among the governing and the educated classes of his day.>Once called "probably the most widely read historian in the world; perhaps in the history of the world", Trevelyan saw how two world wars shook the belief in progress. Historiography had changed and the belief in progress declined. Roy Jenkins argued:>Trevelyan's reputation as a historian barely survived his death in 1962. He is now amongst the great unread, widely regarded by the professionals of a later generation as a pontificating old windbag, as short on cutting edge as on reliable facts.
Gave picrel a try because I saw ssf(a)g recommend it, and I was looking for an in-depth, lengthy series. It's abysmal dogshit. The prose and dialogue are so ponderous and unnatural and faggy that it's ruining the whole experience. I don't care about Faggersail or Fagazan or Faggorella because they all talk like stilted redditors. Every character speaks with the same cadence and autistic pacing as every other character. Every paragraph is packed with redundant, flow-breaking adjectives and bizarre similes. I'm about a third of the way through. Be real with me, Malazanons. Does it get better, or should I quit while I'm ahead?
>>25575954>This is good because it doesn't read like a typical SFF "look at my grand world I designed" autism. You follow a grunt, you get a grunt's view of the world.I don’t know if you realize this, but a novel is something more than just lore or a character’s setting. It’s about an idea we can grasp. Yet Erikson creates cardboard characters who are constantly rushing, often without us knowing why, while an almost empty world revolves around them. It’s incredibly naive.>But the entirety of the series is about this? I think Erikson knows what he's talking about.No, and you don't know either, seeing as you believe a conversation with an empress could look like a chat with a discount store manager.>ok retardErikson wrote a book for fools who like having keys dangled in front of their noses. You are proof of that.
>>25577063Erikson is a poor writer - as you yourself admitted. Why waste time dissecting a weak, rambling text when Wikipedia - which possesses greater literary merit than Erikson—can spare me the effort? If I am going to put in extra effort, I would rather devote it to real literature.As for the allegedly made-up things - I didn't make anything up. You simply forgot, because by then Erikson had bombarded you with other nonsense.
>>25577992>>25578006>reddit spacing
>>25572231 it wasn’t good enough to survive the author’s thinly disguised reddit-tier fat fetish.
>>25578185That is not an argument.Besides, Malazan is a very Reddit series, much like mainstream fantasy as a whole.
My brothers what else should define humans but our ability to interact with what exists among us?We should base ourselves on the real that exists and nothing more. What would be better than eliminating the existence of super-structural elements of all human society and base ourselves on base instincts of preservation and interests?
>>25574303>this shit againGod this board is so fucking stupid
>>25575173>>25575144>>25574303>>25574301>>25574276I was drunk when I wrote this.I don't actually believe that we should be like animals.
>>25575500amogus?
>>25575173But it thinks it's really clever, which is sometimes amusing.I come here to point and laugh at retards.
>>25576917It isn't about being clever, it's wrestling with an idea. A paradoxes of our existence. Being clever isn't necessarily even conducive to success in such contemplation.
>Is a black man from France really a Frenchman?>Is AI art really art?>Is a trans woman a woman?>Is lab-grown meat really meat?So many situations like this pop up in the 21st century that it feels like the main Zeitgeist now is this desintegration of heretofore familiar categories like "Frenchman" or "art", as if they're becoming obsolete.What are philosophical implications of this? It feels like we're actually entering a truly postmodern society for the first time, as opposed to the decades when Lyotard or Foucault were active.
>>25571672I assume that if you’re asking philosophy questions…on /lit/…you’re not allergic to readingin <https://www.readthesequences.com/A-Humans-Guide-To-Words-Sequence> :https://www.readthesequences.com/Disguised-Querieshttps://www.readthesequences.com/The-Cluster-Structure-Of-Thingspacehttps://www.readthesequences.com/Typicality-And-Asymmetrical-Similaritygenerally I think “how central of an example is this thing in thingspace?”not “is X a Y?”I tie myself up in knots way less than other people do because I think like thisyou should think like this too
>>25571672>>Is a black man from France really a Frenchman?Yes, if he lives in France.>>Is AI art really art?Yes, just usually very lazy and low quality art.>>Is a trans woman a woman?Yes.>>Is lab-grown meat really meat?Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25571672>Is a black man from France really a Frenchman?Yes>Is AI art really art?Yes>Is a trans woman a woman?No>Is lab-grown meat really meat?Yes
>>25571675suspicious post
>>25572696No, but it's a complicated situation with a lot of semantic issues. First of all, it's a problem that because of the name the USA eventually chose for itself it's impossible to linguistically distinguish between an American (as in a person of the Americas) and and an American (as in a national of the United States of America)An African can never be French, but they will be retroactively considered part of the nation that replaces France, if it gets to that
I don't understand why people say he's Christian. Tolstoy didn't believe in Jesus Christ, the Messiah sent by God to bring salvation to humanity. He believed in Jesus Christ, the moral teacher who taught ethics to the 1st century jews. He didn't believe in the miracles, in the resurrection, in Heaven and Hell. Can you really call someone Christian if that person strips Christ of all His divinity? To me he seems more agnostic than Christian.
>>25568041>of true Western philosophy.Such as?
>>25577352The Greeks and the Romans.
>>25577931>The Greeks and the Romans>moral achievementskek
>>25577931>moral achievementsSuch as...?
>>25577972Right, because no subsequent governmental system has ever adopted Greek or Roman principles. Do you ever feel embarrassed getting dunked on?
You have to think about what it represents. The story being eternally unfinished is a part of the artwork. You have your two major conflicts of climate change in the North and Slaver's Bay in the (Middle) East. The message is extremely simple. Daenerys represents the laughable inability of liberal sentiment of dealing with an extremely straighforward conflict in a foreign land. Martin personally getting stuck on that knot and getting bottlenecked there for eternity symbolizes that that specific simple problem can never and will never be resolved by a baby boomer.Meanwhile, the looming threat of climate change that has been hyped up to absurd proportions just never arrives.
Is there an equivalent to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in other languages than English, or are they a singular anomaly in the world of literature?Gilbert and Sullivan’s works have the characteristics of not just being comic or funny operas replete with wit, but also being family friendly considering Victorian morals. I think that Mozarts’s Singspiele are too dark and that Offenbach’s opéras boufons are too lewd. Granted, I have only seen one of each: The Magic Flute and Orpheus in the Underworld respectively.
