/lit/ - Literature

>the greatest English poet was a Catholic
Protbros...

>>23249830
Pope's Odyssey, at least, is incredible. I haven't read his Iliad.
>He answer’d with his deed: his bloody hand
>Snatch’d two, unhappy! of my martial band;
>And dash’d like dogs against the stony floor:
>The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.
>Torn limb from limb, he spreads his horrid feast,
>And fierce devours it like a mountain beast:
>He sucks the marrow, and the blood he drains,
>Nor entrails, flesh, nor solid bone remains.
>We see the death from which we cannot move,
>And humbled groan beneath the hand of Jove.
>His ample maw with human carnage fill’d,
>A milky deluge next the giant swill’d;
>Then stretch’d in length o’er half the cavern’d rock,
>Lay senseless, and supine, amidst the flock.
>To seize the time, and with a sudden wound
>To fix the slumbering monster to the ground,
>My soul impels me! and in act I stand
>To draw the sword; but wisdom held my hand.

>Then forth the vengeful instrument I bring;
>With beating hearts my fellows form a ring.
>Urged me some present god, they swift let fall
>The pointed torment on his visual ball.
>Myself above them from a rising ground
>Guide the sharp stake, and twirl it round and round.
>As when a shipwright stands his workmen o’er,
>Who ply the wimble, some huge beam to bore;
>Urged on all hands, it nimbly spins about,
>The grain deep-piercing till it scoops it out:
>In his broad eye he whirls the fiery wood;
>From the pierced pupil spouts the boiling blood;
>Singed are his brows; the scorching lids grow black;
>The jelly bubbles, and the fibres crack.
>And as when armourers temper in the ford
>The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword,
>The red-hot metal hisses in the lake,
>Thus in his eye-ball hiss’d the plunging stake.
>He sends a dreadful groan, the rocks around
>Through all their inmost winding caves resound.
>Scared we recoiled. Forth with frantic hand,
>He tore and dash’d on earth and gory brand;
>Then calls the Cyclops, all that round him dwell,
>With voice like thunder, and a direful yell.
>From all their dens the one-eyed race repair,
>From rifted rocks, and mountains bleak in air.
>All haste assembled, at his well-known roar,
>Inquire the cause, and crowd the cavern door.

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber’d, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl’d to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!

Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power
Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,
And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead;
The king of men his reverent priest defied,
And for the king’s offence the people died.

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the victor’s chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands:
By these he begs; and lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown.
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings, of Atreus’ royal race

>>22877555
Alexander Pope's by far.

What are your thoughts on this sort of thing, /lit/? It was the dominant mode of poetry before Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the rest of the English Romantics came along. Poetry that tells a story or conveys a complex idea in verse. Obviously all the epics would fall under this label, but also something like Pope's Dunciad or his Essay On Criticism.

Do you like this sort of thing? What are your favorite examples of it? Do you think it could potentially make a comeback?

>the novel is dying
>prose is degrading in general

Poetrybros it's our time. Maybe the epic will make a comeback as a genre.

haha I love this little guy

I have noticed that the vast majority of poetry written in English has a base verse with an even number of syllables. The base verse of iambic pentameter has ten syllables. Fourteener, as its name suggests, has a base of fourteen syllables. The Alexandrine has twelve syllables.

What I'm wondering is, is there any tradition in English of a base line with an odd number of syllables? Poetic meters that have nine-syllable lines, for example, or 11 or 13 syllables? There doesn't seem to be, but I may just be looking in the wrong places.

>>20924244
>>20925234
Based. Poetry rhymes.

If you're translating a poem primarily for aesthetic enjoyment, and it feels more natural to use iambic pentameter, use iambic pentameter. If you want the original meter and rhyme, or if you want a literal translation, you'll need to accept mediocre poetry.

Is there any good neo classical literature? Any that stacks up with Haydn and Mozart?

How does Guenon's quantity/quality relate to Deleuze's actual/virtual?

>he forgets the guy with it literally in his name

>Catholic
>Last name is "Pope"

Do they actually expect us to believe this like we're idiots?

I just learnt that this motherfucker was only 4'6" tall.

One couplet each, of feet no more than five;
I only lay this law: for beauty strive.

HONOR and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
“What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?”
I ’ll tell you, friend; a wise man and a fool.
You ’ll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Stuck o’er with titles, and hung round with strings,
That thou mayst be by kings, or whores of kings;
Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece;
But by your fathers’ worth if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young,
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
* * * * *
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.

It's a well known fact that Alexander Pope was 4'6, but what they don't tell you is that he was not considered seriously short at that time. He was as relatively short as a 5'6 man is today.

>If a book may be ripped, torn or burned, it was never worth the effort of opening.

The Alexander Pope fandom is dying! Post your favorite Alexander Pope couplets and fun facts in this thread.

Will sleeping more make me a better writer?
>Pope was known to sleep sixteen hours of the day, and from twelve till six in the morning he did nothing but recitation and exercise. His study was to consist of two parts; first of prayer and contemplation, for which he had no books of his own; second of discourse, for which he had some; in which he taught himself the nature of discourse; with what extent he might extend himself, he was never disturbed by either of these. The former, he said, was like water, and had a quantity of water within itself; the latter being like sand, the quantity which, when it is agitated, becomes a river.
From Johnson, the Life of Pope

>>16440215
Can't believe this guy was the first to lead the Catholic Church. And he did such a good job, that all subsequent leaders took his last name as their first.

>>16194241
You should've read the Pope translation:

>And then, O Greater Ajax, spear in hand,
>You slew Whogivesafuck of turnipp'd land:
>Those turnips I did once with pleasure eat
>Were not enough to spare him his defeat.

not pope, so nope