>ESLs can never, EVER truly appreciate, FULLY savor the works of the greatest author of all time
>>24753257You need to know Italian if you want to savor the works of the greatest author of all time. He didn't write in English.
>>24753257It depends where they are from, as many of them are a whole lot luckier than us as native English speakers. The Russians for example, possess an incredible literary tradition that rivals almost anywhere on earth, I would give my left bollock to be fluent in Russian without the thousands of hours of learning, practice, and immersion that would be required for me to read Russian and comprehend all that I read of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dosto, etc. Then there's the Greeks, and the ease at which they can learn to read ancient/Homeric Greek. Then the Italians, both the literature in their vernacular language, and the ease at which they can learn Latin. The French also have a great literary tradition.
the greatest authors of all time wrote in spanish and italian, lil bro.
>>24753257There‘s a pretty compelling account in this Berlioz companion piece I‘m reading about learning English specifically to read him and growing beside his works which seems to compensate for not quite getting it all at first. >>24753288Petrarch is only the second greatest (maybe third behind Homer.)
>>24754848Dante is #1
>>24754651I am semi fluent in Russian (grew up around russians so I can understand them and can speak some). After learning English and comparing the two I can with certainty say that russian language is crude, there is really no hidden depth (that many fantasize about) to famous russian literature, Russian is just plain ugly and has no flow compared to English.
How do you make value judgements about a language? Aren't all languages same and have their own high tier art pieces? Artist matters not the language, right?
>>24754854False
>>24755188It's true. No poem comes close to the Comedy and poetry is the purest literature.
>>24753288>>24754838William Faulkner was American?
>>24753257Yeah they can't get into George R.R. Martin.
>>24753257They can try, oh how they can try.
>>24753257EFLs can't savor Shakespeare either. No one actually knows what he's saying most of the time.
>>24753257im okay with this
>>24754884>t. Ukrainian
>>24753257>>ESLs can never, EVER truly appreciate, FULLY savor the works of the greatest author of all timeThe Very Hungry Caterpillar isn't the same in translation.
>>24754854>a tedious litany of obscure historical figures who would have been entirely forgotten were it not for their passing mentions in the work (no, this is not primarily "based Dante winning over his enemies for eternity", its primary characteristic is that it is boring)>a simp gets lectured by the object of his desire at a critical dramatic moment, he has put her up on a pedestal so hard that she's like a higher angel... and she lectures him (no, this is not a dramatically interesting introspection into the author's own flaws, what it is, is pathetic).>gets reprimanded more than once for showing pity/normal human sympathy with suffering since to do so is to think contrary to the will of god, the supreme tyrantIts entertaining and an interesting high concept executed well, but it isn't the high art that it's made out to be. Much like Homer, it is appreciated largely for no other reason than that it is old.
>>24756229>Much like Homer, it is appreciated largely for no other reason than that it is old.Retard
>>24753257Are there any translations better than the original?
>>24753257Tobe completely honest, neither can most native English speakers.
>>24756525I don't think so, not generally aknowledged. I guess we could make a separate section for translations that have extensive notes on the criteria, alternative meanings and references, like secondary reading attached to the work that expands beyong what you'd be expected to know.Here are some excepts from Nabokov comically shitting all over translatorshttps://newrepublic.com/article/113310/vladimir-nabokov-art-translation
>>24756525Henry James in French is better.
Sadly true. As an ESL I will never fully understand Call of the Crocodile.
>>24756525Baudelaire's translation of Poe.
>>24756229Learn to read bro
>>24753288TRVTH NVKE
>>24756229I'm just going to post what they Anon posted the last time you tried this bait:>Another Dante thread by someone who didn't read the poem and doesn't even know what the contents of the latter 2/3rds of the poem are.At least get basic facts straight. Dante meets more friends and then rivals. Some "rivals" are from rival factions but not contemporaries with Dante and don't have anything to do with him personally (e.g., Farinata, while the other person Dante encounters with the heretics is a friend of a close friend of Dante's). Dante meets his big literary hero, etc. He also meets political enemies among the saved all the time. The whole point of the Inferno is that Dante the Pilgrim is deeply flawed and that the view of God and the cosmos we get it that of the damned.By the time we leave the Shadow of the Earth in the Paradise of the Sun (Wisdom) rivals in life are seated next to one another in perfect harmony and Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas describe their respective orders' founders (Saints Francis and Dominic) with perfect courtesy and piety.Dante just mentions Aristotle. The people who flatter him by letting him stand with them are the poets. But to treat Limbo like a fan service tour actually totally misses the point. The damnation of the virtuous Pagans (and Muslims) is a huge part of Dante's overall point he is making with Virgil (natural wisdom and the Pagan traditions) and his ability to lead Dante to the Earthly Paradise (utopia, but human utopia) but no further. It is a place where the Good is recognized and striven for but never reached, and so a place of "untormented grief." Virgil vanishing from the summit of Mt. Purgatorio is a commentary on Virgil's philosophy itself, because Virgil (with Aeneas going up through the Ivory Gate in Book 6, killing Turnus in thymotic rage at the end of the poem) thinks man can, at best, enter an endless cycle of Inferno and Purgatory. He lacks hope. That's why he and the others are damned. It isn't arbitrary. It seems arbitrary early on because the view of God you get in the Inferno is the view of the damned. But there are saved Pagans later. Dante pointedly puts on of Virgil's pious characters in Paradise to contrast with the poet himself.Also, Dante lived in a time of continual war. Would you expect a book written in Syria today to not focus on war? He was under threat of being burnt alive when he wrote the Commedia and never got to see his kids again after he was put under execution orders unfairly midway through his life and lived in an at time grueling exile.
As a native German and Russian speaker I agree. I'm a little ashamed to admit this but English literature is superior and the works I grew up with pale in comparison. I tried rereading the Russian classics recently and it just doesn't click anymore, it feels like I'm wasting my time.
>>24757547Nice false flag.
>>24753257True. I pity all the latinx out there who can never read Stephen King in his original language
>>24757562Even the greatest Russian writer transcended when he chose to write in English. We all grow at a different pace but maybe you too will realize this sooner than you think.
>>24757589Dosto didn't write in English
>>24757589condescending cuck
>>24757666>666 get on dosto postchristcuck irony
>christcuck christcuck christcuck
I can.
>>24757842are you done playing with your dolls? you have fairy tales to study.
Get the fuck off of the board, animals. Everywhere is fucking india and africa now.
>>24753257Shakespeare is overrated, he's good but he's not that good. His work actually reminds me of TV soap dramas.I don't really respect playwrights who don't acknowledge the lack of melodrama in the world.
>>24757842sounds about right
according to studies
Heart of Darkness was written by an ESL.Conrad is the exception and not the rule, but that just means there is hope...
