/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22029847]

>To reference the Iliad is fine
>To reference Shakespeare is fine
>To reference the inferno is fine
>To reference the stranger is pushing it
>To reference GoT is cringe

There must be a cut off point for the age of a text where it becomes cringe to compare it in your writing. Right? No one would bat an eye if you compared yourself to Fortunato or Mercutio, or Hektor or etc etc but if you compare yourself to say: Oberyn or Aragorn or really even Dracula would be pushing it. So there has to be a point where it goes from being cool to being cringe. Where is it? Is it time or popularity that dictates?

[Anonymous No.22029866]

>>22029847
The only thing that matter is with how much confidence and earnestness you reference it with. If you cheaply and meekly reference The Stranger you're gonna look like a pseud but you can reference basically whatever you want if you have the conviction.

[Anonymous No.22029880]

>>22029847
Its more about it being arbitrary what is considered "lit". shakespeare was low brow when he wrote

[Anonymous No.22029888]

>>22029866
Yeah, I agree with this guy.

[Anonymous No.22030030]

>>22029880
>shakespeare was low brow when he wrote
He wasn't.

>>22029847
>>To reference the inferno is fine
>>To reference the stranger is pushing it
>>To reference GoT is cringe
This is an accurate description only from the /lit/ perspective where reading is posturing, where texts indeed gain prestige merely by aging (even though, if you look at /lit/ top 100s, the focus is still on 19-20th century writing, because despite supposedly regarding old classics highly, /lit/ still doesn't have the willpower and knowledge required to read them beyond the few meme picks). Sure, a lot of writers use references the same way themselves, trying to come off as well-read, etc. They're shit writers.
References (literary or non-literary), if used well, contribute to the text actively, they're not decoration, but actually tell you something new about what is said, and even tell you something new about what is referenced.
If you describe an evil scheming character and compare it to Lady Macbeth, that's a shitty surface-level reference. It just reinforces a well-known stereotype about the character, and it doesn't add anything special to the new character you're describing either. Such references eventually devolve into phrasemes with relatively little flavour, which you'll find even in dictionaries ("tilting against the windmills", "burning in the ninth circle of hell", etc.).
On the other hand - since you mention Camus, take his Sisyphus essay. That essay is all built around a reference, but it reworks and enriches what is referenced, it doesn't take the commonplace interpretation of Sisyphus for granted, but instead builds something new with the motif. In the end, Camus' Sisyphus has almost displaced the original Greek Sisyphus in the public cultural consciousness. That's how powerful and well-done the reference was.
A great modern writer absolutely would be able to reference either Shakespeare or Camus without it being cringe in the slightest.
Referencing Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings seems cringe because it really doesn't work. Other high fantasy novels, as much as they're indebted to LOTR, always have to act like they're fully mimetic, just showing you the fantasy world as if it's real and as if it's all that exists. So the narration can't include references to other texts, to our real world. The texts have to seclude you from the outside, they're a method of escapism. (This doesn't apply to "low fantasy", e.g. His Dark Materials is rich in references to the Bible, Milton, Homer, has obvious political commentary..)
It also doesn't work because most of the motifs from GOT and LOTR that might be referenced are boring in the first place. There isn't much new to say about Aragorn and Tyrion, they're relatively flat and stereotypical characters. You can list their basic character traits, but they're nothing special. Of course it feels dumb to create a stereotypical situation in your writing and then "explain it" with a reference an another stereotype.

[Anonymous No.22030048]

>>22030030
this guy gets what all of /wg/ can't

[Anonymous No.22030049]

>>22030030
>He wasn't
He literally was. His word choices were made to be as accessible to commoners, peasants, and poorly educated theatre cast as possible, and his plays were filled with plenty of sex jokes and low brow humour. It's impossibly outdated and posh in 2023, sure, but it's not even in the same hemisphere as high literature when it was penned.

[Anonymous No.22030371]

>>22030049
>but it's not even in the same hemisphere as high literature when it was penned.
What exactly was this high literature of the time that Shakespeare wasn't even close to?

[Anonymous No.22030469]

>>22030371
Nta, but all the bad Petrarch and Ovid imitations the aristocrats were writing at the time, plus those boring masques. Shakespeare barely has any Latin or Greek, he uses prose, has plebeian characters, on stage violence, etc etc. Not what respectable university educated men were doing

[Anonymous No.22030536]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.22030585]

>>22030030
Dunno, can't help but feel like if I referenced A court of thorns and roses no matter how good the reference it would still be cringe. Exposure has to play a bit of a role in it at least.

[Anonymous No.22030791]

>>22029847
remember that line from R.C. Walldung about Mozart saving him from a mood bizarre? I cringed so hard I will never ever revover from it. that was the worst kind I can think of. that said, you may reference anything you want as long as you pull it off in whatever you're trying to write.

[Anonymous No.22030842]

Read The Origin of German Tragic Drama and The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin.
The trick is what the work said and what you have to say about the work. GRRM and Tolkien had nothing new to say and what they copied said it better.

[Anonymous No.22031141]

>>22030030
do ppl write like that on a single stroke? or are such posts go through editorial phases before posting?
very pleasurable to read.
only on rare occasions can i write such well thought well written ideas without further editing

[Anonymous No.22031240]

>>22029847
Roughly fifty years

It's like how jazz went from the music of the poor unwashed masses who just wanted to have fun to the ivory towers of the snooty academic types. I hope that I see the same transformation happen to Metal and Hip-hop within my lifetime as that would be hilarious

[Anonymous No.22031318]

>>22031240
Won't happen. The key thing with jazz is the unwashed plebs stopped listening to it and moved on, leaving it free for the snooties to listen and feel superior.
Metal and hip hop are still popular, so you can't pretend you are a sophisticated cat with refined tastes the plebs cannot appreciate. Plus you might meet them at a concert and have to socialise with them. No danger of meeting ghetto nigs at Montreux

[Anonymous No.22031496]

Great works aren't made by age, they're just sifted by it. Nobody considers Paul de Kock to be considered literary master works just because they were written over a century ago. They were low brow then and now just forgotten, despite intense popularity. Ancient Rome had trashy dramas. Most of them are lost.

[Anonymous No.22031752]

>>22029847
>To reference your own unpublished works is based

[Anonymous No.22031759]

>>22030469
>plebeian characters
His MCs are all royalty/aristocratic.

[Anonymous No.22032192]

just write and let your subconscious mind and audience do the referencing

[Anonymous No.22032827]

>>22031759
Merchant Of Venice stars 2 bankrupted dudes. Othello is a military captain.