but wiki goes harsh: "Intended as a national epic for the United States it was popular with the reading public for a few years, and was compared with Homer, Virgil and Milton, but it has since been for the most part dismissed as an overblown and tedious failure."

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242570)

"Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song

The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;

This thine to shape my course, to light my way,

To nerve my country with patriot lay,

To teach all men where all their interest lies,

How rulers may be just and nations wise:

Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,

Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee."

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242764)

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01381/obama_bow_1381505c.jpg

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242803)

Found Paradise Lost dreadful.

Anybody read the Indian epics, like Ramayana or Mahabharata? Worth diving into?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242495)

never read the indian epics

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242499)

For actual poetry, probably Paradise Lost because it is written in English and I can appreciate it in something close to the original language.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242498)

http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/classics/courses/1998fall/cl202/resource/meter/metintro.html

Don't pay any attention to the technical vocabulary. Just look at the diagrams. Essentially, each line can have six rhythmic units, and each unit can be two long syllables (-- -- ) or a long syllable followed by two short ones (-- x x). There's freedom to combine the former with the latter in a line, inducing a hypnotic effect on the listener.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VGMqzL0xRk&t=0m55s

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242681)

Almost anyone can do it in a few months of study.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35242949)

I was initially inspired by the guy in the article, who used to poast on a language forum:

Anyone here know more than 20 languages?

He shared his techniques on the forum, and gradually, other people began doing some wild experiments and sharing the results. They would start something really crazy, or expand on other people's methods.

So I began my own journey, and it took me a while to experiment and nail down a process that works for me. But everyone has to find a method that works for him, to accommodate his level of motivation, time, interests, etc etc.

Here are a couple of things that I think are universally important:

-Sound should be the primary component in learning any language, even dead ones. I now refuse to learn any language without sound recordings. If one doesn't exist, I'll record it myself.

-Take smaller bites. Focus on learning about ten to twenty sentences a day, listening to them and repeating them throughout the day.

- But not too small. It's much more helpful to learn vocabulary in the context of a sentence than trying to memorize a list.

- Repetition is key. Frequent repetition establishes the fundamentals.

- Don't worry too much about grammar at first. The sentences you internalize will give you a great footing to formalize your grammar study later. That way, learning grammar becomes fun and not a chore.

There are some techniques I've learned from other people, and even invented along the way, but the above are the basic gist of my approach.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3871315&forum_id=2#35243123)