I'm thinking of spending the next 8 months studying exclusively Shakespeare, Milton and Joyce, extremely in depth...

I'm thinking of spending the next 8 months studying exclusively Shakespeare, Milton and Joyce, extremely in depth. I will be rereading them (because I've read their complete works already) over and over, reading secondary sources about them, and also reading some of their crucial influences. Is this autistic? stupid? overly romantic? Will it be worth it? I'm trying to improve my poetic sensibilities and to improve my prose, and decided that it might be good to focus hard on the best of the best of the English language, but let me know your thoughts. Is quality and thoroughness or quantity of reading more beneficial in improving one's writing?

Just do it.

Just do it, you wimp.

Go for it.
I've thought of doing it but I haven't had the courage.

Milton is fucking shit, there's nothing worth studying there. Only look at him to learn from his mistakes.

Start on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Donne for English poetry.

Then, learn Ancient Greek, Latin, and French, and read the major literature of their respective cultures. Homer and Sappho for Greek, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace for Latin, and Villon to La Pleiade to Rimbaud for French.

o-okay..

>Milton is fucking shit, there's nothing worth studying there.
I beg to differ, but to each his own.

>Start on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Donne for English poetry.
I was considering swapping Milton for Chaucer, but I wasn't sure if a study of Chaucer's work would be as beneficial to improving my modern English style.

>learn Ancient Greek, Latin, and French
I have been studying Latin and German for literary purposes, but I am slightly skeptical in the effectiveness of pursuing this full time with the hopes of improving my writing. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like reading the greatest English writers would carry over into writing in English more than reading the greatest writers of another language. I hope to eventually read them in their original language, regardless, but as for the next 8 months, when I plan to focus on improving my own writing, I am not too sure if this will be the greatest choice.

Hobbes went too deep into Latin and it shows in Leviathan.

I think Latin and Greek is useful for the loanwords - being able to recognize and make them up on the fly is a great advantage, but you can go too far with the Latinates (think Edgar Allan Poe) and clog up your prose or verse with too-long words, or you can go too far with the Greek and clog up the same with too many obscure words that seem tantalizingly familiar. None of these are good for your reader.

Milton shit?

Get a load of this edgelord. You're not TS Eliot M8.

Donne got his best metaphors from Milton.

ah yes, john "the time traveler" donne

The fact that you're posting this tells me you won't do it. Which is a good thing. The brain is not made to theorize or discern method from observation. Practice beats study every time. Do you really think someone who has studied for 8 months and written for 1 is going to be better at writing than a guy who studied for 1 and wrote for 8? You're kidding yourself. Knock off your horseshit and start writing already. Don't be afraid of being a hack. Of course you're a fucking hack. No, you will never be Joyce. No, you are not making literature great again. You won't ever publish that super inspired and refreshing debut novel.

OP here. Maybe I forgot to mention, I write and have been writing every day. I also read, and just wanted suggestions on my reading plan. Also, why are you so mean, my main man? :/ I hate to use the word, but cut the projection, if you please.

What editions are you going to use?

Milton isn't nearly on the same level as Shakespeare. He's not essential at all to English literature, and his influence was generally negative. English writers had been trying to escape from the oppressive shadow of Milton for years, there's no reason to study him excessively. His writing is always a bit too rhetorical and it's almost embarrassing to see Milton try to use Latin grammar in English.

There are other worthy writers, and you randomly choosing such disparate writers, because they are obviously canon reeks of passionless posturing

read broadly AND in depth, essays won't fix your sensibilities (maybe Augustine or someone like that could but that's obviously different)
this is closer to being right, but being a polyglot is hard work

Studying T.S. Eliot would be better than any other the three you mentioned though (not to say they are better or worse writers)

Studying a few writers in depth is a good idea, but don't study those three just because they are big names. Literally thousands of writers over hundreds of years have already positioned themselves under these writers' shadows. Do you really want to put yourself there too?

By all means read Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, and much more. Read broadly. Read everything closely and carefully, and when something strikes you, when a writer hits you hard in the gut, when they slip under your skin, when you can't get their words out of your head, go and stay there for a while. Dedicate yourself to those writers. If it happens to be Shakespeare, so be it. But don't just assume these writers will speak to you in the same way they have spoken to others. Find your own inspiration.

>My sweet little whorish Nora I did as you told me, you dirty little girl, and pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when I fucked you for so long backwards. It was the dirtiest fucking I ever gave you, darling. My prick was stuck in you for hours, fucking in and out under your upturned rump. I felt your fat sweaty buttocks under my belly and saw your flushed face and mad eyes. At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.

this is actually really good writing desu

Day two: masterbating after 5hrs of shit posting


Goodluck

8 months is like 5 minutes. Dedicate your life to that shit or don't fucking bother.

Narrow it down. Ulysses and Hamlet. Fuck Milton.

>tfw even Joyce's fart letters are better written than any of your attempts at meaningful prose

>He's not essential at all to English literature

>8 months
>enough to study Shakespeare, Milton and Joyce in extreme depth

kek