/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12127377]

We keep hearing that the Classics are "contested", but is that really true? Can't different forms of classical receptions co-exist? Is the danger that the dominant perspectives might be displaced or otherwise deprived of their prestige?

[Anonymous No.12127423]

[Anonymous No.12127428]

>>12127377
It's just butthurt white people their own ancestors created western civilization.

As a brown spic I don't give a fuck.

It would be also nice if recognition of non european acomplishments were also recognized.

how many people know that coffee comes from black people by example.

[Anonymous No.12127438]

>>12127428
I forgot to mention that the western cannon is there because of quality and historical importance.

It would be very weird if suddenly some lit professors not teach shakespeare because of politics.

[Anonymous No.12127442]

>>12127428
>how many people know that coffee comes from black people by example.

Can we even know where coffee ultimately comes from? Most of this stuff is shrouded by the mists of time.

[Anonymous No.12127452]

>>12127442
nah, arabs took coffee from ethiopians.
is well know history.

coffee comes from the horn of africa.

[Anonymous No.12127453]

>>12127377
the idea of an unchanging list of 'classics' is very out of vogue in literature, sure. individual works have had varied canonicity over time and cultures.

it's true that most of the academy views the invested prestige of 'classics' as undeservedly high (that is, privileged), but they're not saying that classics aren't worth reading. they're saying that there are other things worth reading and that educators and scholars can base their work on books outside the traditional list

[Anonymous No.12127465]

>>12127453
It's more like the inclussion of non western pieces of literature to the universal cannon, not just western cannon.

Shit like genji monogatari, the koran, the chinese novel about the monkey god and so on.

not a big deal like pol want to believe.

[Anonymous No.12127470]

>>12127438
>It would be very weird if suddenly some lit professors not teach shakespeare because of politics.

>>12127453
>they're saying that there are other things worth reading


You guys misunderstand. These academics are mad that people online are putting their own spin on the classics. This isn't about replacing the classics with something else.

[Anonymous No.12127477]

I posted the wrong image, but you get the idea.

[Anonymous No.12127487]

>>12127470
>>12127477
this shit is only endemic to america, why non americans should give a fuck?

[Anonymous No.12127490]

>>12127487
>this shit is only endemic to america, why non americans should give a fuck?

It'd be foolish to imagine that the ideas enshrine in Yale or Oxford remain within their walls.

[Anonymous No.12127501]

>>12127490
alt right as a concept only exist in the land of the burger and pol.

[Anonymous No.12127516]

>>12127501

There's a global reach to all of this stuff, but enough of this.

My original question had to do with fringe receptions. In what sense might these be in 'competition' with the dominant reception?

[Anonymous No.12127537]

>>12127516
see
>>12127465
I gave my honest point of view here.

[Anonymous No.12127637]

There are multiple approaches to the Classics, by which is meant the surviving literature of Greece & Rome.
1. As a sacred literature bestowing wisdom. This is essentially how Dante regarded them, for instance- as little inferior to Holy Scripture. (This is a very obsolete approach but it's historically influential. It works better with some writers and less so with others.)
2. As the essence of high culture and aristocratic character on the part of the reader. This differs from the first in that it's not *agreement* with the classics that's important here, but the knowledge of them. Note that this is necessarily defining the reader as a member of a specific national aristocracy.
3. As something to be studied as a vehicle for some scholarly research- History proper, or Indo-European linguistics.
4. As artistic inspiration, as Dante or Milton and countless others used them.
5. As something to be dissected for their own sake, *not* incorporating the previous (i.e. drawing no moral learning, aristocratic claims, artisic inspiration, or material knowledge from them). Dissection & criticism for the sake of dissection & criticism.
(Or you could just read them and judge them for what they are, but if you're just doing that, you're not really addressing the Classics as a field of study, merely individual books.)
These approaches, obviously, are never pure, they're always intermixed, but one or two will predominate while the others diminish.
(cont'd)

[Anonymous No.12127672]

>>12127465
There's absolutely nothing wrong with things like Genji being considered classics (they are) but let's not operate under the delusion that they're nearly as relevant to the average anglo as something like Shakespeare would be. Your average undergrad pleb in the USA would get absolutely nothing out of Genji.

[Anonymous No.12127717]

>>12127637
(cont'd)
Now, we have to look at the Classics as a field in our current society. What does it *do*?
You must understand that the "Classics" department at a university is separate from the "History" department and the "Archæology" department. The justification & interest & methods of these departments are fairly straightforward. But Classics scholars are *not* engaged in historical or archæological research, nor do they teach history or archæology. As such, 3 is omitted.
(At my uni, actually the Classics department is split between "philological" Classics (what I mean by the term in the rest of this rant) and Classical Archæology, which also kind of rests under the Archæology department. The point I'm making is that this division does exist; the curricula, professorships, and research foci of the two paths are separate.)
The ethical & religious systems (and I say systems, since there are many in disagreement, another reason why 1 is difficult to maintain) of the ancients are alien & repugnant to the moderns. This was already the case to some degree under Christianity (look at all the idol worship and sexual degeneracy!), and under Liberalism (or whatever else you want to call the dominant, "blue-pill" ideology) this is absolutely the case. Obvious 1 is off limits as well. Occasionally a Classicist will try to use something in the texts to make a moral point. But this is the exception rather than the rule, and often the point is far from, and even contradictory to, what the text's author intended.
I've never known of any of my Classics professors write even an epigram in Latin or Greek. 4 is out.
Now, 2 was previously, until the mid-20th century, the predominant reason for studying the classics- it provided entry into the intellectual elite of "Western Civilization" (indeed, if we don't define "Western Civilization" as Christendom, the only definition that makes sense is "civilization under an intellectual elite who reads the Latin &/or Greek authors in the original"); this was eventually obviated by Capitalism. However, the memory of this dead institution still lingers in Classics. On the one hand, they see this as a former glory- a time when they were respected!-, on the other, an abuse of "their" field for the sake of White Male Supremacy.

Now, what exactly *do* Classics departments do? First, they teach Ancient Greek and Latin (in this age of translations, this is far more useful to mediæval than ancient historians). They carry out this service not only for their own department, but also for the History, Archæology, Religious Studies &c. departments. Beyond that, you find the department's peculiar mode of being. They teach classes which read in Greek & Latin (without giving the students a very strong grasp on the language), and the students write essays dissecting poems. That's it. On the higher levels, they write articles dissecting poems. That's it.
(cont'd)

[Anonymous No.12127788]

>>12127717
(cont'd)
(Obviously the "that's it" were hyperbolic, but you get the idea.)

I'll return to the Classicists in a moment, but for a while we need to have a look at their enemy- the "alt-right".
Now, this is a loose term that, taken broadly, embraces countless opposed ideologies. But the Classicists, like the Liberal elite at large, have no interest in giving much scrutiny to their enemies. For them, the alt-right is, essentially, /pol/ (if they even know what that is) and Richard Spencer, and all the Nietzscheans and TradCaths and Linkolists and Evolans &c. &c. &c. aren't even noticeable.
The actual nature of engagement with the Classics on the "alt-right" is pretty varied. For the most part, it approaches 1 & 2, with varying degrees of depth depending on the intellectual depth. But it's telling that there's very little engagement with Classical scholarship, rather than merely the texts themselves. Megillus on twitter is, indeed, the only exception I can readily remember. It's interesting that in spite of the obviously ideological importance of the issue, I've never seen anyone in the alt-right give a take for or against the "subversive Æneid" theory.

But really, all that matters here is that the dumb masses of the alt-right, who are offensive to the establishment, occasionally use memes featuring centurions or avatars with Greek statues. That's all the Classicists care about, that's all the need to turn this conflict to serve their purpose.
(cont'd)

[Anonymous No.12127818]

>>12127788
(con'td)
The point of the sorts of lectures & articles that OP posts is to provide a justification for the existence of Classics departments. One not rooted in the texts under study themselves, but in the existence of an enemy of the establishment which only the Classics departments can counter. It's also both dissociates the departments from the alt-right enemy, and advertises them to the liberal youth. As such, a minor resurrection of 2, with the ideological alignment fixed, is supposed to be enacted.
That's really all there is to it. This has nothing to with Greek & Latin literature, or even the alt-right's "perspectives", it's just about the degeneracy of the modern university under Capitalism. Or something.
I don't know why I spent four posts saying this like I was making some grand argument.

[Anonymous No.12127831]

Anyone who thinks the classics are still respected and followed in contemporary literature have not read much written in the last 20 years.

[Anonymous No.12127832]

>>12127377
no, nobody reads any of that shit except for a tiny coterie of stupid nerds... it's not even at the scale at which you can introduce this SJW bullshit.

[Anonymous No.12127841]

>>12127452
yeah but ethiopeans learned of it from watching goats you anthropocentric bigot. coffee culture belongs to the goats. everyone else is just appropriating

[Anonymous No.12127843]

>>12127465
>the inclussion of non western pieces of literature to the universal cannon, not just western cannon.
Whose "universal canon"?
>Shit like genji monogatari, the koran, the chinese novel about the monkey god
See, of these three only the Qur'an was actually read by Europeans before last century, as the first translation is in the 12th century. Not surprising that Bloom lists the Qur'an and 1001 Nights, whereas Arthur Waley translated Genji Monogatari and an ABRIDGED version of Journey to the West just in last century.

The point of the Western canon is the history of literature written in the European languages, it's not a collection of influential works to random cultures taken from random cultures around the world, they have to have had an influence here, where "here" means the literatures of European languages.

Non-Westerners have their own canons: the Chinese have their own Dantes and Shakespeares, and their own lists of classics and important books written in Chinese. Journey to the West holds an important place as one of the 四大名著, and not being featured in the Western canon does not diminish any literary, historical or cultural value said masterpiece has. But as far as cultural impact goes in the West, Journey to the West's greatest influence is being the ancestor of wuxia literature and shounen manga. and appearing in a list next to Shakespeare, by itself, is not going change this.

There is no justification for Westerners to invent "universal" canons in order to appropriate other cultures' classics like that, it's hard enough to compile an agreeable list of the stuff that makes this polyglot monument of paper and ink that is our literature, why bother picking up arbitrary cultures and arbitrary works of theirs if not to make the matter even more complicated and everyone more frustrated still?

If you belong to an ethnic group that just began using a writing system, write your own epic poem by compiling oral tales from your elders. You don't need an "universal" canon: you need a literature. Start your own canon, set the first stone of your own paper monument - will it be larger than ours? Will the poem make it into our own like the Old Testament? Only time can tell.

[Anonymous No.12127854]

>>12127843
retard, is already being taught as universal cannon.

teaching company already has a course on universal history of literature.

[Anonymous No.12127864]

>>12127854
We shall file the news in the "Americans being retarded again" folder.

[Anonymous No.12128627]

>>12127818
>The point of the sorts of lectures & articles that OP posts is to provide a justification for the existence of Classics departments. One not rooted in the texts under study themselves, but in the existence of an enemy of the establishment which only the Classics departments can counter.

Great point

[Anonymous No.12128937]

>>12127428
>It would be also nice if recognition of non european acomplishments were also recognized.

lmao

[Anonymous No.12128982]

>>12127453
>the idea of an unchanging list of 'classics' is very out of vogue in literature, sure. individual works have had varied canonicity over time and cultures.
No shit. In Hellenistic and later Antiquity, Menander was ranked among the there best poets, along side Homer and Euripides. But Byzantine monks preferred Aristophanes's fart jokes, so he's gone. If in 1100 in France you had wanted to "start with the Greeks" you would have had a fragment of Plato's Timaeus, Porphyry's Isagoge and "Aristotle's" De Causis and that's it. In the Italian Renaissance, Hermes Trismegistos was part of the Canon. In Shakespeare's time, classical tragedy meant Seneca.

[Anonymous No.12129145]

>>12127672
this.
>let's no operate under the delusion that they're nearly as relevant as something like Shakespeare
fucking this.

[Anonymous No.12129248]

>>12127831
Oh? What (pop) culturally relevant literature published in the past 20 years is worth reading that's not YA, fantasy wish fulfillment, or heavy handed idpol propaganda?

[Anonymous No.12129270]

>>12127428
>non european acomplishments

[Anonymous No.12129275]

>>12127477
>>12127470
>>12127377
these are all subhumans

[Anonymous No.12129446]

>>12127477
how do you "appropriate" something that is exactly your perspective and worldview?
>conservatives and reactionaries identify with old world texts
imagine my shock

[Anonymous No.12129485]

>>12129446
Because academics want to control how people relate to history and art. Can't allow people to ahve authentic experiences with these texts and images, can we?

[Anonymous No.12129491]

>>12127477
>>12127477
“Alt-right” might be the most vivid modern example of fashionable nonsense passed between media and “academia”.

But I am still entertained that three and a half Hitler wankers on |pol| — two of whom are not perfectly honest — define the modern discourse for clueless public.

[Anonymous No.12129508]

>>12127516
Seen the same topic in my local media. Everybody is so interested in dems vs reps, and other vital problems of US suburbs. Coca-Cola, wunderbar.

It's quite simple from journalistic point of view: the triggers (Zuckerberg, Facebook, controversy, gender, nazis, darknet, etc.) are popular, and readers are coming.

You don't think reports on traditional topics are more sane, do you?