Most intellectual writers

Most of the authors mentioned were not especially intellectual; they stayed within the repetitive mold. It is my opinion that Jonathan Swift, G.C. Edmondosn, Umberto Eco, and maybe James Joyce were the most intellectual ones that I can think of.

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W a r n i n g

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

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W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your comments.

Off-topic/inflammatory posts have been and will be removed without further notice.

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I thank you.

Nabokov? Unless we're going to go for things like Sartre and Camus.

Plato. Someone, I forget who said that most European philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato. I think Iris Murdoch should be on the list.

I think Murdoch is a fine mention as far as my understanding of the question is concerned.

You're thinking of Alfred Whitehead.

Apparently Jeeves from the P.G. Wodehouse books enjoyed reading Spinoza.

Aldous Huxley was a dazzling polymath who knew his science as thoroughly as his literature (unusual for great writers). He got a first from Oxford in Literature and yet could have been a scientist (like his brother and grandfather, both very distinguished biologists- his grandfather was Darwin's chief defender and friend).

C S Lewis could read Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon by his mid 20s and was even able to read works written in Provencal!!

Ian McEwan can be quite impressive as well.

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Originally Posted by WICKES

Aldous Huxley was a dazzling polymath who knew his science as thoroughly as his literature (unusual for great writers). He got a first from Oxford in Literature and yet could have been a scientist (like his brother and grandfather, both very distinguished biologists- his grandfather was Darwin's chief defender and friend).

C S Lewis could read Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon by his mid 20s and was even able to read works written in Provencal!!

Ian McEwan can be quite impressive as well.

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Despite C. S. Lewis, I would add Tolkien too.

Any animal has an intellect.

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Originally Posted by hannah_arendt

Despite C. S. Lewis, I would add Tolkien too.

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Why on earth would you want to do that?

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Originally Posted by Phocion

Why on earth would you want to do that?

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Tolkien was an intellectual.

Most of the early twentieth-century modernists were intellectuals with the exception of Faulkner, Kafka, and Proust, and yeah, maybe Henry Miller, as well, although I don't know if that last one can be cleanly pigeon-holed within the category of literary modernism. I don't think Nabokov was an intellectual. He was more of an aesthete, although the two can perhaps overlap at times.

I'm not sure how you can name the likes of Proust or Faulkner as not intellectual. Certainly they're not the epitome, but I could think of several others (Kerouac, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.) before I'd list them.

Plato