So Melville was gonna write Moby Dick as another adventure book like his earlier publications, however Nathaniel Hawthorne influenced him to decide to write with literary style. So he read a lot of Shakespeare and KJV Bible.
How the fuck does he just read a couple of literary works and then create something so masterful?
Because writing being a "skill" is a lie sold by fraudsters. All you need to be is intelligent and write in the spirit
Angel Diaz
Why would fraudsters exist in this regard?
Austin Lee
Creative writing degrees can cost a shit ton of money
David Collins
But not all writers do creative writing degrees and they cannot write like Melville.
Matthew Flores
it then becomes an academic pursuit with 4 year degrees and mfa programs it becomes a whole industry
Luke Johnson
Anglo literature is so shitty that 99% of it is just Bible regurgitation
Logan Garcia
Depth > Breadth
Most of the greatest writers obsessively studied a handful of geniuses and discarded the rest.
Hunter Wood
What is the better alternative?
Camden Anderson
There is literally no deeper well to draw from that isn't Egyptian
Samuel Mitchell
You're an idiot. Melville was already good at writing before Moby Dick, Hawthorne persuaded him to stylize it, which is a choice and not something that just happens to good writers
Dylan Campbell
If all it takes to transfer from writing pulp fiction to literary fiction is just "stylysing" then the point stands
Hudson Perry
Not if you're a good writer beforehand. Believe it or not, not every writer in the world dreams of being the next James Joyce, some prefer the storytelling side of literature. I know some genre fiction authors that can write circles around """"""""""literary"""""""""" authors. All the quote means is that Moby Dick probably would have been more like Stendhal before Melville added all the biblical intertextuality and cetology chapters
Ryder Evans
Are you pic related
Landon Torres
This is so stupid it hurts to read.
Connor Collins
>not every writer in the world dreams of being the next James Joyce
Yes but I wouldn't exactly consider them to be writers
Kayden Morgan
>before Melville added all the biblical intertextuality and cetology chapters
If thats all that seperates a text from being literary rather than standard genre fiction you're FAR too weak of a reader to be claiming any legitimate opinion here
Sebastian Taylor
its not totally wrong imo. a good geological survey will help you locate the best reserve to start drilling.
Oliver Howard
It's wrong on the basis of assuming Melville was only influenced by Shakespeare.
Reality is he was influenced by just as many writers as any other writer is.
Shakespeare and KJV might have been his main influences, but he had multitudes of others to draw from as well.
No, if you want to be a great writer all you have to do is study Shakespeare and the KJV. Study them for at least 10,000 hours each, then write something. It will be great. This is a known fact.
Hunter Wright
ok cool thanks
Chase Campbell
Maybe you will be in the
PANTHEON OF THE GREATS
one day.
Carson Rogers
This is my Shakespeare edition
Austin Robinson
Of course not, why is this even an issue.
Aiden Stewart
James Joyce is overrated.
Logan Ward
That is sufficient for writing a great YA novel!
Noah Powell
Trips for truth. If you actually read Moby-Dick you will find a fuckton of literary and philosophical references, along with lots of history. Plato crops up a lot, for example. Melville read extremely widely. Shakespeare and the Bible are only the most obvious influences because they directly influence the prose style of the book.
Elijah Garcia
You joking, but if you actually put 10,000 hours into studying those texts you would almost certainly be capable of producing something incredible,
Cooper Clark
I disagree, I think he's quite underrated, to think many people place him below Shakespeare
Juan James
Shakespeare is far above Joyce. Joyce knows that himself
Easton Moore
Joyce was wrong
Luis Sanchez
>How the fuck does he just read a couple of literary works and then create something so masterful? Years of experience beforehand. xD >Joyce knows that himself Confirmed for never reading Joyce.
Nathaniel Peterson
This.
Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus having only read Russell, Frege and some Schopenhauer
Joshua Stewart
hi sheep[le]
Anthony White
no shit faggot, nobody denied that
Jaxson Thompson
Tracatus is a reference to Spinoza are you retarded
Landon Wood
fucking retarded dipshit assfaggot retard
Charles Clark
Wittgenstein had read Heidegger, Kierkegaard, a lot of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky etc. So a lot more than you will ever read.
Christian James
While yes that is true, the only ones that matter are basically free
Benjamin Rivera
Wow, something I just learned: Melville stopped writing prose when he was 38. He spent the next thirty years writing only poetry, and only took up prose again near the end of his life, when he started Billy Budd. I didn't realize Melville's writing career was so starkly divided, and that he put prose behind him so early.
Christian Stewart
Herman Melville isn't Anglo, he's American.
Nathan Adams
Not until long after writing the Tractatus.
Anthony Murphy
...no.
John Perez
does it indicate why his late work is so rarely mentioned?
Dylan Reyes
He took up poetry because nobody appreciated his prose
Austin Williams
bump for Melville discussion
Bentley Martin
lol
Jason Moore
He also read spinoza
Nicholas Scott
>Refrences most important, most famous philosopher Look how well read this guy is!
Cooper Scott
You havent read him
Daniel Lopez
How do I write good prose? How do I learn to write good prose?
Joseph Myers
Every English Major puts 10k hours into Shakespeare, every aspiring clergyman puts 10k hours (actually way more than that) into the Bible.
You will become a scholar, but that does not cut it when it comes to creative writing.
Christopher Nguyen
It's basically what Bloom was talking about in the anxiety of influence
Christian Robinson
No, English majors do not spend over 2 years reading nothing but Shakespeare for 12 hours a day
Landon Jones
Copy the whole of Gibbon ten times over. By the end of it, you will at least be able to become a famous journalist or something.
Angel Bell
Same for clergymen. The majority doesn't know the Bible all the well.
Many do, however, so it's not surprising that an absolutely disproportionate number of great writers and scholars have been clergymen. This is specially true for English literature.