/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15919394]

>start reading the Greeks
>suddenly get much better at doing mathematics
Why did none of you told me about it? Reading the Greeks should be obligatory in school

[Anonymous No.15919398]

>>15919394
>reading the Greeks should be obligatory in school
It used to be until we dumbed down education so that everyone can go to school and pass

[Anonymous No.15919401]

>>15919398
I see. I've already finished Plato's Five Dialogues + Republic and Laws, Heraclitus' Elements, Homer and Herodotus, what's next in store for me?

[Anonymous No.15919421]

>>15919394
How do I ''start with the greeks''?

[Anonymous No.15919439]

>>15919394
>start reading the Greeks
>suddenly get much better at doing mathematics
I'm sorry to break it to you, anon, but that's just a coincidence.

[Anonymous No.15919454]

larper

[Anonymous No.15919491]

>>15919394
Not telling people to read the Greeks makes them dumb and easy to control. Secular mathematics makes great factory workers.
Platonic math will religiously change you.

[Anonymous No.15919498]

>>15919491
Books that will teach me platonic math?

[Anonymous No.15919522]

>start reading the Greeks
>find out later Romans are better
Why didn't you tell me, /lit/?

[Anonymous No.15919537]

>>15919394
Weirdly enough, this happened to me too. I only read The Republic back in highschool but my math performance skyrocketed. I think it's because I became more confident in being able to understand difficult concepts and I could analyse the problems more calmly.

[Anonymous No.15919544]

>>15919498
Anything written by Plato/

[Anonymous No.15919575]

>>15919401
Where's plotinus?

[Anonymous No.15919583]

>>15919522
>>find out later Romans are better
Said no one (not even the Romans) ever.

[Anonymous No.15919650]

Math is for squares.

[Anonymous No.15919999]

>>15919583
Eh, Greeks beat Romans in literary achievements, but I haven't yet personally read anything from a Greek that I like more than Cicero.

[Anonymous No.15920013]

>>15919394
faggot high schoolers can barely understand Gatsby and Steinbeck, what the hell makes you think they'd understand any of Le Greeks?

[Anonymous No.15920018]

>>15919522
>collapse of their empire led by a faggot with daddy issues and his emo friends
At least the Aeneid was cool

[Anonymous No.15920568]

>>15919522
>Romans are better
Romans were a group of disgusting barbarians.

[Anonymous No.15921169]

>>15919401
Aristotle.

>>15919575
600 years ahead.

[Anonymous No.15921202]

>>15919401
>I've already finished Plato's Five Dialogues + Republic and Laws, Heraclitus' Elements, Homer and Herodotus
How does any of that with the exception of "Elements" improve your knowledge of mathematics?

[Anonymous No.15922364]

>>15920018
>anime poster
>trash and juvenile opinion
I'm starting to see a correlation here...

[Anonymous No.15922396]

>>15921202
>better at doing mathematics
May have no relation to
>knowledge of mathematics
He might have improved his ability to solve problems he could already solve

[Anonymous No.15923152]

>>15919401
Parmenides and Theaetetus

[Anonymous No.15923762]

>>15919394
What kind of mathematics? I can see how one would get better at text-problems, simply from reading more and engaging your mind in this style of thinking, and I could also see how one would become creater at geometry since it was one thing the greeks focused on. The kind of mindset they had was focused on real world application (If you can’t imagine it why bother?)

[Anonymous No.15924082]

Now read the Elements.

[Anonymous No.15924149]

>>15919401
Hesiod, and the rest of Plato, the Greek Tragedians(start with Sophocles, then work back to Aeschylus, and then forward to Euripides) and then Aristotle are bare necessity. There are plenty of other greek poets like Pindar(personal favourite) and Sappho.

[Anonymous No.15924171]

>>15920013
Can you tell if you're really smart, or just educated?

[Anonymous No.15924392]

>>15922396
Still, why would reading the greeks have that effect on him?

[Anonymous No.15924501]

High school geometry doesn't count, anon

[Anonymous No.15924618]

>>15919401
Sophocles and Aeschylus tragedies. Sophocles is like Kubrick and Aeschylus is like Tarkovsky. Both are great, but Aeschylus/Tarkovsky is harder to analyze.

Then read Euripides. It's a common mistske to name his plays as tragedies. They aren't tragedies, and he wrote some shit plays like The Fenice Women and Heracles. Euripides' plays are clasiffied on three types: Melodramas (Medea, Hecuba, The Troyan Women), Didactic Plays (Cyclops, Children of Heracles) and Tragicomedies (Reso).

Melodramas are Hollywood type, a rollecoaster of emotions.
Didactic Plays are dialectic discusions about a complex social problem, like Princess Mononoke or a good documentary (Our Planet, Zeitgeist Addendum).
Tragicomedies are histories about spiritual growth (or the negative to spiritual growth), like Better Call Saul or animes like Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann or Hunter x Hunter.

[Anonymous No.15924641]

>>15919522
Ovidio is based, but Roman theater is garbage. Seneca's plays are shit, bad soap operas of the greek myths; Terence's plays are worse than shit, like a bad Mexican sitcom produced in Venezuela. What I like about romans is their history, it's interesting and sometimes hilarius, like that time they killed themselves adding lead to their water system.

[Anonymous No.15925383]

>>15919394
>start reading the greeks
>cock gets 2 inches longer

[Anonymous No.15925418]

>>15925383

[Anonymous No.15927021]

I had completely opposite experience, I started reading the greeks I got completely shit at math, need calculator for single digit equations.
Greek literature should be outlawed and burned for destroying minds like this.

[Anonymous No.15927031]

>>15919394
Before reading philosophy I used to be absolutely terrible at maths. I'm still not very amazing, but I mostly get A's and B's in math exams.

[Anonymous No.15927054]

>>15919394
I started Iliad and Odyssey in 5th grade. What shit third world country are you in?

[Anonymous No.15927618]

>>15924618
Your comment is fucking based with those analogies you have no idea. I love you

[Anonymous No.15927623]

>>15924618
>the negative to spiritual growth
Care to elaborate what do you mean by this ?

[Anonymous No.15927713]

>>15920568
ayo hol up

[Anonymous No.15927831]

>>15920018
wasn't the aeneid just some greekaboo inventing spaghettiland

[Anonymous No.15927869]

>>15927831
>wasn't the aeneid just some greekaboo
yes
>inventing spaghettiland
not sure what you meant by this

[Anonymous No.15928100]

>>15927623
According to Luisa Josefina Hernández (mexican writer, translator and theoric) and his discoverings about the seven dramatic genres (theory based on Aristotle's Poetics, Rodolfo Usigli's theories about Chekhov plays, H. D. F. Kitto's Greek Tragedy, Eric Bentley's The Life of Drama, Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Bertolt Brecht theories about his "epic theatre"), there are two kinds of Tragicomedies: Positive Path Tragicomedy and Negative Path Tragicomedy.

In general, a Tragicomedy is that kind of histories described and analyzed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, that's to say, histories which the "Hero's Journey" is the main focus. Let's say that this "Hero's Journey" is what I refered above about spiritual growth... the knowlodge of ourselves and our place in the world. That's a Positive Path Tragicomedy, a story about a serious journey with a positive outcome (Homer's Oddysey, The Bible, Ramayana, Thousand and One Nights, Divine Comedy, The Breakfast Club, Little Miss Sunshine, Billy Elliot, Only Yesterday, Kiki's Delivery Service, Midnight in Paris, Wathership Down, Hunter x Hunter, Kill la Kill, Steins;Gate, Evangelion, Daria, Steven Universe).

However, there are histories about people who reject growth, adult people whom live like childs or whom live only to material and social success. These kind of lives gives us Negative Path Tragicomedies, histories about a comical journey of evasion with a disastrous outcome (Ibsen's Peer Gynt, O'Neill's Marco Pollo's Millions, García Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Scarface, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Kieslowski's White, Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, The Godfather).

If you'd like to delve in this subject, I recommend you, obviously, to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but, also, I think is very ilustrative to read Bakuman by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba... that manga tell us the story about two boys trying to write a Melodrama to stand out in a world of Tragicomedies (the Shonen Jump).

One more thing: Tragicomedies come from heart and our personal spiritual growth. You can't fake spiritual growth. You can't make a Tragicomedy using the "steps" that Campbell show us in his book. It's well known the story of how Star Wars was made that way... well, Star Wars is not a Tragicomedy, is a Melodrama that looks, in the surface, like a Tragicomedy. To write a Tragicomedy, we need to experience it in real life. Then, when we finally write it, and if it's sincere, we'll see that our story matches with all the elements that Campbell discovered and wrote in his book. Tragicomedies tell us the same old story about human condition.

[Anonymous No.15928102]

>>15919394
Delete this NOW

[Anonymous No.15928111]

>>15919394
>>15919491
>>15925383
Is reading the Greeks the /lit/ equivalent of nofap?

[Anonymous No.15928158]

>>15928111
Yes.

[Anonymous No.15928363]

bump

[Anonymous No.15928646]

>>15919394
Can you give more details? Did reading the Greeks help your learn more advanced materials or just help you with the basics

[Anonymous No.15928770]

>>15927054
no this is the problem with society, its a grand conspiracy, they teach people things that are way above them for their age level, the fuck you mean youre reading greek classics in the fifth grade, i remember lord of the flies in grade 7, and as a grade 7 student i had no profound views because i simply didnt care for literature at that age, Im really not convinced a 5th grader has a mature enough mind to understand the context and background of such texts, you would have to have incredibly strict parents, or naturally find these things interesting from a young age given a proper environment that in our consumerist orientated society IMO is improbable for most. I find it quite unlikely youre the child genius reading Greek classics and finding some profound insight from such texts

[Anonymous No.15929009]

>>15928770
You're half right and half wrong. Of course a fifth grader won't understand all the deepness behind Iliad and Odyssey, and it's kind of easy to bore and frustrate these children by making an obligation to read these classics.
However, with the correct and sincere guide, fifth graders can enjoy Iliad and Odyssey at the level fifth graders can enjoy 'em. Watch an animated short called "Aquilles"... it's kind of gay, but it's a good example of how you can tell a complex history like Iliad without shameful simplification.

Also, Odyssey is, in my opinion, easier to understand for children than Iliad... Iliad is more for teenagers.

[Anonymous No.15929021]

>>15929009
Achilles by Barry Purves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rxW2kM9wOo&t=225s

[Anonymous No.15929107]

>>15928770
I read the """"Odyssey"""" at sixth grade. But it was not the actual text, it was one of those versions for teens where they use modern language and remove details to make it shorter. I don't remember much but it was still pretty long, and I remember liking it.

[Anonymous No.15929484]

>>15928111
yes except it actually improves your life and is acceptable to talk about

[Anonymous No.15930531]

>>15928100
Fantastic

Thank you for The Hero With a Thousand Faces I'll read it.

I am an anime fan myself, but didn't have interest in Bakuman, and TAS review kinda "spiled" it for me in the sens that she showed how it contains tropes that turn me off such as the highschool romance. sommething which i happen to avoid since it's not my cup of tea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd64XB8nYco

breaking Bad and The Godfather II are favorittes of mine. the lessons i took from them are to be active and stand for yourself or even the close ones will betray yoou and end up ungreateful no matter what. Am i missing something?? it boggled me how it is negative spiritual paths. is any story that uses an anti hero is like that ?

I'm also interested in your opinions about Berserk, Dark and Twin Peaks The Return.

As for Dark i found the third season to be underwhelming with an escapist conclusion sadly despite the nice build up from season one

[Anonymous No.15930563]

>>15919999
checked

[Anonymous No.15930610]

>>15919401

Do you mean Euclid? Because Heraclitus has nothing extant except for fragments

[Anonymous No.15930808]

>>15930531
Certainly there's no need to experience Bakuman if you read The Hero with a Thousand Faces. However, Bakuman's anime is very bad compared to the manga and, even if it's true that there are some highschool troopes, the literary analysis behind manga (and fiction in general) is great... specially when you want to understand where's the real value behind fiction. But, as I said, Campbell does that too, and better.

There are a lot of valuable lessons behind Walter, Vito and Michael's procedures, not everything they did was, in my opinion, a mistake... but the extreme of his respective lifestyles is what we should not imitate. The phrase "the end justifies the means" always has atrocious results (tragic results) in real life. The message behind The Godfather, just like Arthur Miller's All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, is that you can't hold money without being a criminal. Vito and Michael chosed money in exchange of his soul; Walter chosed honor in exchange of his life. In the end, these character are pathetic because they chosed spiritual destruction to be the kings on earth... but that's really worth it?

(cont...)

[Anonymous No.15931028]

>>15930808
Yes Continue please

[Anonymous No.15931083]

>>15929009
I've read the Iliad (in prose, though) somewhere between the age of 7 and 9 and loved it

[Anonymous No.15931252]

>>15930808
There are seven dramatic genres: Tragedy, Comedy, Piece, Melodrama, Didactic Genre, Tragicomedy and Farse. To know the genre behind a dramatic structure (plays, some novels, some short stories, movies, animations, comics and even some videogames) we should pay attention to the final sensation after the whole experience. Each genre has a precise and distinct sensation from each other.

Tragedy - Catharsis, Terror, Deep Pain.
Comedy - Relief or Extreme Angryness.
Piece - Desolation, Deep Sadness.
Melodrama - Primal emotions, that's to say, simple but intense emotions (Sadness, Joy, Angryness, Fear, Indignation, etc..), all in the form of a rollecoaster.
Didactic Material - Intelectual Estimulation or Extreme Indignation.
Tragicomedies - Plenitude, Gratitude, Spiritual Wealth.
Farse - Dizziness, Itch, Uncontrollable Laughing.

Every dramatic material is a combination (scene after scene), of all these kind of sensations; just like a meal, you can add 2 portions of Comedy, 3 of Didactic Material, 1 of Melodrama... and this combination will give you a final and unique flavor, that's to say, an unique sensation. That final sensation (the combination of all the scenes in an specific order) is what helps us to determine the dramatic genre of the material.

All this explanation to tell you I can't say what is the dramatic genre of Berserk because I stopped reading it after volume 16. However, for what I've seen in the Golden Age saga, I'd say that most of the cotidiane elements in Berserk (Casca-Guts-Griffith triangle, Griffith rise and fall, Guts' friendships) belongs to Tragicomedy; Guts' life after his childhood rape is a Sublimation Tragedy (a Tragedy that ends well, to say it simple, but it's a little more complex); the whole war strategy stuff, Melodrama; Griffith's decision to have sex with princess Charlotte, Tragedy; and the whole eclipse stuff, because of all the paranormal elements, Melodrama. But I'd need to read a lot more chapters from the manga to elucidate its dramatic genre.

(cont.)

[Anonymous No.15931433]

>>15931252
About Dark... I hate it with a passion... Let's tall about Melodrama.

Melodramas are plot-focused histories about what would we like life to be, about our deepest desires of what life should be. Melodramas are a scape from crude reality, and they are necessary, because we can't be deep all the time... if someone is deep all the time, that person will probably commit suicide soon. Melodramas give us some relief and fun through silly stories that make us laugh and cry. Melodramas are the most variable histories around (aesthetically speaking, that's to say, at a superficial level) because every human being has its own version of a perfect life, that's to say, some people would react to some stuff (Hamilton, Frozen, The Sound of Music, Central Park), some to other kind of stuff (The Dark Knight, Taken, John Wick, Mission Impossible) and so on (Joker, The Shining, Monster). Believe it or not, some people deepest wish is life being as putrefact as we seen it in Joker. I'm not saying that suffering like that doesn't exist, but the lie relies on the fact that misery is not the only thing you may see if you're alive. To only seeing the misery is cheating... but that's why Joker is a Melodrama, it's a weird fantasy of some. That's why Melodramas give us relief and fun ONLY if we play along the material. That's to say, like masturbation, if you don't believe it, it won't happen. That's why a lot of people hate Melodramas... because it's just not their kind of Melodramas.

Now, what's the other side of the coin? Melodramas are extremely dangerous if we LITERALLY believe them. If we take as a rule what we see on Melodramas, we're walking to our destruction (tragedy), because life doesn't work like Melodramas. That's why there are so many people dying in wars, working 10 hours a day, getting married... because they believed a lie that was not supposed to be taken seriously.

(cont.)

[Anonymous No.15931549]

>>15931433
So... Dark is, or at least I can almost asure you that is, a Melodrama. This is just an assumption because I finished season 2 and I decided to not watch it anymore.

Dark, as every Melodrama, is focused in the plot. If you try to scratch some theme or some deep character, you won't find any of that. The only thing Dark has to entertaint us are its plot revelations... and that's fine, as I explained in the last post. However, what I hate about Dark is that the plot is extremely complicated (not complex, complexity is related to deepness) to the point is impossible to follow it... and if you can't follow the plot, you don't have material to react, to cry, to laugh, to feel excitement about every revelation or detail (ah! That's a very good thing about Dark, the production values, the historical detail, the whole aesthetic, the vestuaries, etc... but the CGI are shit). I don't like Dark because, to understand at its fullest what's happening, you have to pause the episode, or you have to watch episodes twice... or you have to waste a lot of time thinkig in the anecdotic elements of Dark... and that's not worth my time. I could watch Kieslowski's Dekalog or read the whole Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart saga instead than watching Dark's 3 seasons.

In my opinion, trying to understand Dark is like trying to analyze an extreme baroque sculpture (like pic. related)... it is possible... but why would you want to do that, thou?

Finally, I haven't seen Twin Peaks, but I promess that I will. Thank you for read until this point, curious anon.

[Anonymous No.15931845]

>>15930531
>Is any story that uses anti-heroes like that [negative path tragicomedies].

Not exactly. First of all, we have to define what means to be an anti-hero. I'd say an anti-hero is an amoral character, that's to say, a character who goes against some social standards like obligated politness or use of money... a rebel.

If this rebel attacks himself to the point of destruction, it's a tragedy no matter how "cool" the character seem to us (see Rorschach from Watchmen).

If this rebel go against society alongside his own spirit, we're talking about a Negative Path type Tragicomedy no matter how "good" his intentionts seem to us (see Adrian Veidt from Watchmen).

If this rebel reject social comodoties, but has enough money to eat, a roof to sleep and a life consagred to do what he was born to, we're talking about a healty and brave anti-hero, probably a Sublimation Tragedy or a Positive Path type Tragicomedy.

Dramatic genre depend of the combination of all the elements behind dramatic structure, not an individual element.

Now, I'm not saying being a rebel be a bad thing. Being a rebel is tragic if you die for your ideals... and is benefic for you if this rebel ideas set you free from your immaginary limitations, like social constructs, that prevent you from being yourself.

[Anonymous No.15931873]

>>15919394
I learned about Greek mythology in middle school but that was it. Later discovered based classicism.
>>15919401
Aristotle's De Anima

[Anonymous No.15932859]

>>15919394
it's almost as if actually using your brain for once made it work better, crazy how that works