marigold
Reptile Researcher
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Post by marigold on Jul 3, 2022 6:01:42 GMT -5
Welcome to the inauguration of the Hyacinth Society. This is intended to be a digital club for the appreciation of literature. We, if you choose to join me, will be focusing primarily on what is sometimes called fin de siecle literature. In literary criticism this usually refers to the late 19th century works from different though closely related streams such as ‘decadence’, and ‘aestheticism’. We will read this as well as related things such as the gothic or romantic works that sometimes inspired them.
The public face of this type of literature is Oscar Wilde as he is massively popular and beloved. But the works we will be reading and discussing together will often be more obscure, even to people who consider themselves fans of this type of literature.
A wide knowledge of these types of works is by no means required but it will be welcome. If you like flaneurs, lurking personages in graveyards, absinthe, foppish windbags or other grim stock images, or if you just want to imbibe some immaculate prose, verse and drama and get more reading experience, you will probably enjoy this loose association of readers I hope to gather. It should be noted that not everything we read will be so grotesque (which we use here as a neutral descriptor after Poe). Much of it will be, but we will also occasionally be reading mannered and lovely poetical works from the time.
As the leader of the society the works will be chosen by me. This will not pose a problem as over time we will cover virtually everything in the field and I have a wide and deep knowledge of the works. But if anyone does have a recommendation that seems pressing they are free to bring it up for consideration at any time of course.
Something to note: the reading requirement for this club will be considered fairly austere by some as I will be designating a work to be read and discussed each week. But of course, you can be a member without participating every single week. Just try not to miss too many. And also: many of the works we will be reading are really short and can be immediately acquired by free download online. So a decent reader should not have too much of a problem participating weekly. And we expect decent readers here.
Every Sunday at 7 pm PST I will start a new thread in this section of the message board for the discussion of the book we collectively read throughout the preceding days of that week. So one week from today, gather in this section again if you have read the allotted work.
To know what that work is: email Diggorydeathshead@outlook.com with a mention of 1) Your favorite poet 2) Your favorite novelist and 3) Anything else you’d like to add. I will respond with the name of the book and a simple and free way to download it.
In response to this thread feel free to introduce yourself to the Society in any way you see fit. As for me, you can call me Diggory Deathshead. Or Hell-Ghost if it pleases you. I look forward to officially convening with you in one week.
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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Jul 3, 2022 12:48:35 GMT -5
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Post by R. on Jul 3, 2022 13:22:19 GMT -5
I’m a bit nervous to use my email address, so could you instead put the book in this thread?
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
Likes: 4
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Post by marigold on Jul 3, 2022 15:27:07 GMT -5
I’m a bit nervous to use my email address, so could you instead put the book in this thread? Certainly. I asked for email because I was going to send a personalized introduction based on the answers you provided to my requested info. And plus in the future I may need it to send digital versions of the book if it is not available in other places. But if my fellow members wish to forgo this then I am obliged to press forward without it. I will PM you the name of the book and where to download it. I do not want to include it here because I want to save the discussion of it for one week from now.
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
Likes: 4
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Post by marigold on Jul 3, 2022 15:39:18 GMT -5
If I may ask, how legal is this way to download the book? Most of the material we will be covering is in the public domain. And I wouldn’t ask my society members to do anything I wouldn’t do.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Jul 3, 2022 19:42:03 GMT -5
hey! at least its less sus than Vistas of Future Democracy — no shade meant marigold
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Post by Reba on Jul 3, 2022 22:00:22 GMT -5
not as sus, but just as cringe. i don't think highly of the Decadent school at all, personally. i think of it as a shallow, overcompensating, dilettantish last gasp of 19th century art, devoid of the sincere spirit of the Romantics and the formal/scholarly rigor of the early Victorians (especially Browning and Swinburne) while skimming off the thinnest layer of those generations' fashions and eccentricities. i understand that the name "Decadent" is itself a reappropriation of this exact criticism, but i think the criticism stands. i find much more depth of humanity and earnestness of vocation in the early 20th century, whether in the expression of extreme disaffection with modernity (the existentialism of Kafka and Beckett) or in the colorful espousal of the outrageous, the irreverent, and the revolutionary (Pound in verse, Joyce in prose) and i should say that i'm only criticizing the english-language writers. D'Annunzio's stunning virtuosity at least neutralizes his satanic ego. and the French always excelled at prose, even through Huysmans and Mirbeau, though i find the poets after Baudelaire (if you want to group symbolism in) to be just as disappointing as Swinburne's progeny. as for any other nations, i haven't read them
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
Likes: 4
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Post by marigold on Jul 4, 2022 2:09:57 GMT -5
I expected this exact type of response from you after lurking around here and seeing you were a Poundian. His epigones find more energy in taking up his (and his associates’) polemical stances than anything else about him. All of what you said is just generic received opinions littered throughout early 20th century criticism by boring, shambolic thugs. Your proselytizing may impress some but I’ve seen it constantly in print and from modern parrots of it in literary avant garde circles.
Though some of the names and movements blithely bandied about as performative abstractions by you are helpful because it allows me to clarify the original post more. To specify that we will be reading greats like Swinburne and Browning in addition to the lesser lights of the decadents, aesthetes and symbolists many of who are period pieces now, but still thoroughly enjoyable and almost entirely neglected. And hey, we may even read from some of the so-called “men of 1914” sometime. After all, one of the Hyacinth’s Society’s many origins is in Eliot’s “Hyacinth Girl”. And Pound’s earliest work that shows influence from stuff like the pre-raphaelites isn’t intolerable. Even a work like his “Lustra” which was after he was fairly well established can still dazzle with the occasional line like “We who shook off our dew with the rabbits”. I’ve always preferred Yeats to either of them though, as did Hart Crane who was weaned on fin de siecle literature and whose first published poem was an encomium to Wilde.
It’s fine that you got to strike your pose but you are blocked from here. Though I will point you, “Bear”, to a song that seems to me appropriate even if from a band I don’t care much for: Cemetry Gates by the Smiths.
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Post by Reba on Jul 4, 2022 9:22:31 GMT -5
by calling me a “shambolic thug” you’ve highlighted why you’re just as cringeworthy as that other prat who tried to put on airs on a childrens forum. as for your own intents, they seem quaint enough, but you won’t find much of an audience here.
To clear a few things up: I read literature, not literary criticism, so no, nothing I said is a received opinion, though I acknowledged in the first post that it wasn’t an original opinion. none of the movements I named were “abstractions bandied about”, I named specific authors in every instance, except the romantics because anyone could guess who I meant. and I am certainly not a “Poundian” though I did have a lot of fun semi-imitating his/cummings’ prose style here when I was a teenager. at the moment I wage a bitter, silent, delusional war in my brain against all Vers libre, and I find the ‘modernist’ avant-garde an admirable lot of work only if it’s taken as the cul-de-sac of all art.
It’s good to know you’re not actually limited to the fin de siècle, but in that case, why not just read the greatest English literature of all (and much more neglected by the youths than the highly accessible previous two centuries) — the Elizabethan and Jacobean ?
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Jul 4, 2022 10:11:28 GMT -5
I mean, I'd be up for looking at some short works of that period, together, if this were a more lax thread than one with an unnecessary email sign up. More than that, marigold, you would have done well posting around the forum for a while before starting a book club, so we could get to know you better. Because now my first impression of you is of someone very highfalutin, which can be amusing or quickly become annoying.
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
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Post by marigold on Jul 4, 2022 16:25:22 GMT -5
by calling me a “shambolic thug” you’ve highlighted why you’re just as cringeworthy as that other prat who tried to put on airs on a childrens forum. as for your own intents, they seem quaint enough, but you won’t find much of an audience here. To clear a few things up: I read literature, not literary criticism, so no, nothing I said is a received opinion, though I acknowledged in the first post that it wasn’t an original opinion. none of the movements I named were “abstractions bandied about”, I named specific authors in every instance, except the romantics because anyone could guess who I meant. and I am certainly not a “Poundian” though I did have a lot of fun semi-imitating his/cummings’ prose style here when I was a teenager. at the moment I wage a bitter, silent, delusional war in my brain against all Vers libre, and I find the ‘modernist’ avant-garde an admirable lot of work only if it’s taken as the cul-de-sac of all art. It’s good to know you’re not actually limited to the fin de siècle, but in that case, why not just read the greatest English literature of all (and much more neglected by the youths than the highly accessible previous two centuries) — the Elizabethan and Jacobean ? Just for the record, I did not mean you are a shambolic thug, merely naively influenced by them which is clear from the writing if you go back. I won’t find much of an audience here on a Lemony Snicket forum? I won’t find much of an audience anywhere to the extent that not many people read unfashionable literature but I should think people devoted to mock-gothic books where the leads are named after Baudelaire would be a fitting place. Literary criticism is literature. The fact that you would make a distinction is that of the poseur autodidact. You should drop that for your own good. What about stuff like Pound’s “Guide to Kulchur” or Hulme’s “Romanticism and Classicism”, Northrop Frye’s “Fearful Symmetry” which taught generations how to finally understand Blake? While those don’t stoke the passions as much as the height of imaginative work, they are no less “literature” and you undoubtedly read stuff of a similar sort. My accusation was not that you were plagiarizing any specific work of criticism but that you were a boring representation of a common hermeneutic in your post. The movements mentioned were referred to as “abstractions bandied about” because that is how you treated them. Even though I have no doubt you are vaguely aware what you meant. Mentioning names and saying they are good or bad is not a dismissal. When Pound would make aphoristic rejections of Milton which people like to throw around out of context, he was engaging in a tacit philosophical and philological argument. He was against his overly Latinate form of language which was against his preference for the developments in English prosody that incorporated French and Italian forms and language. He was not just going “Milton was a fraud, just read Chaucer instead”. The Elizabethans and Jacobeans are wonderful but not neglected by the youth. I can understand that if you are cloistered online then you would think that. But many of the young people who devote themselves to serious literature fetishize them. I see it in the online book circles I move in all the time. And anyway, as long as English is around, they will not die. No one actually needs to be directed to them. And anyway, I have my own idiosyncratic purposes which nonetheless can benefit others bu exposing them to fun books they might otherwise not find. And you keep insisting I’m cringe, and now putting airs. Why? For taking serious things seriously and engaging substantially with them? Because I’m on a children’s literature forum I should make blithe criticisms like people are “cringe” instead of substantially engaging with literature (which is one of the primary points of the Snicket books)? I actually think you could have potential if you would drop the shtick and try to engage properly with things instead of just gesturing to a boring pose.
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
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Post by marigold on Jul 4, 2022 16:29:43 GMT -5
I mean, I'd be up for looking at some short works of that period, together, if this were a more lax thread than one with an unnecessary email sign up. More than that, marigold, you would have done well posting around the forum for a while before starting a book club, so we could get to know you better. Because now my first impression of you is of someone very highfalutin, which can be amusing or quickly become annoying. Again, why is being highfalutin bad? Everyone should be uniformly frothy? I can’t be myself and engage in literature in a strong way in my own proposed book club? If you want it you can forgo the email as already mentioned in this thread but it will not be less lax, at least not for the foreseeable future.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jul 4, 2022 18:20:48 GMT -5
I have few friends, so I only know two people who might be interested in something like this (and one of them is being insulted in this thread).
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Jul 4, 2022 19:54:37 GMT -5
Your general extreme condescension ("you could have potential"??) has perhaps blinded you to the point of my comment being that it takes some time of engagement with any community before you'll find success with an open invitation to something that will take a certain amount of commitment from those who join. If you knew the forum a bit better, you would know f.ex. about Dante, and you'd know we don't expect our members to be "uniformly frothy". Instead it seems you're flailing to make your proposal in the least attractive, even though I do think your idea is in itself a good one. I merely said being highfalutin "CAN become annoying", but doesn't have to be if the right tone is set... I don't think I feel like sticking around to find out. But best of luck to you; I do hope you'll get this book club off the ground. Any stimulus to encourage new activity is welcome here.
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marigold
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 22
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Post by marigold on Jul 4, 2022 20:43:00 GMT -5
Your general extreme condescension ("you could have potential"??) has perhaps blinded you to the point of my comment being that it takes some time of engagement with any community before you'll find success with an open invitation to something that will take a certain amount of commitment from those who join. If you knew the forum a bit better, you would know f.ex. about Dante, and you'd know we don't expect our members to be "uniformly frothy". Instead it seems you're flailing to make your proposal in the least attractive, even though I do think your idea is in itself a good one. I merely said being highfalutin "CAN become annoying", but doesn't have to be if the right tone is set... I don't think I feel like sticking around to find out. But best of luck to you; I do hope you'll get this book club off the ground. Any stimulus to encourage new activity is welcome here. You’re absolutely right that I “condescended” to Bear, but in the full sense of the word rather than in the vulgar meaning which is what he did. By that I mean that I was “descending to his level” in order to try and give a fuller understanding of the things he was only talking about in order to blithely insult and dismiss this endeavor. I’m fine with disagreements but bring some substance. That was the only point of my side of the interactions with him. So condescension all around: his vulgar and ignorant, mine meant to expand. You mistake my explaining myself to my interlocutors on here as trying to make my proposal more attractive. I don’t care if it is not attractive. A couple of people have expressed interest and were welcomed in, but even if no one joins me I’ll still gather here and talk to myself. I have an awareness to some degree of the community. I spent a couple of hours one night reading old posts from the Dante fellow. He didn’t strike me as particularly substantial personally, not that I mean that as a dismissal. I may not have seen his best efforts or what you all value in him may just be lost on me. Your rhetoric in the post is trying to pit me against the whole board here. “We don’t expect our members to be uniformly frothy” you say, when really that charge was against you and Bear for struggling to come up with anything other then 1) I’m “cringe” for uhh…using big words and talking at length on serious literature and 2) Coming off as mean to you. “But doesn’t have to be if the tone is set”. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings and stopped you from engaging with me which you were totally going to do otherwise, I’m sure. But the tone was set by Bear’s ignorant and amateurish reply. I’m simply correcting the tone.
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