The Art of Literature by Arthur Schopenhauer | Full Audiobook

The complete Art of Literature by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 to 1860), his sharp and unsparing essays on reading, writing, and thinking for yourself. Unabridged. HISTORICAL CONTEXT Arthur Schopenhauer was the great pessimist of the nineteenth century, the philosopher who taught Nietzsche, Tolstoy, and Freud how to look at human nature without flinching. The Art of Literature is drawn from his late masterwork, the Parerga and Paralipomena, the collection of essays that finally made him famous. Here he turns his cold eye on the world of books and authors, on the trade of writing and the act of reading, with the same honesty he brought to everything else. WHY IT STILL READS TODAY Schopenhauer divides all writers into those who write because they have something to say and those who write for the sake of writing, and spends the book defending the first against the second. He attacks bad style, fashionable reputation, and the habit of reading instead of thinking, the more you read, he warns, the less of what you read remains your own. His essay On Thinking for Oneself is among the most bracing things ever written about the difference between learning and understanding. For anyone who reads, writes, or wants to think clearly, it lands like cold water. EDITION USED T. Bailey Saunders' translation, in the public domain. Saunders produced the standard English versions of Schopenhauer's essays in the 1890s, prose that keeps the bite and clarity of the German. VIDEO STRUCTURE This recording covers the complete selection, unabridged, read essay by essay: On Authorship, On Style, On the Study of Latin, On Men of Learning, On Thinking for Oneself, On Criticism, On Reputation, and On Genius. The translator's preface and notes have been left out so the audiobook opens and closes on Schopenhauer himself. Chapter timestamps below. 00:00 On Authorship 25:24 On Style 1:18:00 On the Study of Latin 1:29:49 On Men of Learning 1:47:37 On Thinking for Oneself 2:42:26 On Criticism 3:18:27 On Reputation 4:08:50 On Genius Subscribe to Ancient Lantern for more public-domain audiobook editions of classical philosophy, ancient strategy, and timeless wisdom. #schopenhauer #artofliterature #philosophy #audiobook #writing #reading #stoicism --- Ancient Lantern @ancientlanternbooks Timeless wisdom, read aloud.