Underrated Genius ?

[Alexander III]

There have been a couple of poll threads recently and they have created great and enthralling discussions, I would like to kindle a new one. This poll shall concern whom do you think is the most underrated writer ? ( This poll shall solely concern European and USA writers, as all of us here have a sound knowledge in this area, and most of us lack as sound a knowledge in regard to other nations literature; therefore since a sound knowledge is required for this poll I limit it to only European and USA writers.)

The time period from which nominations can be made is from Homer's time until World War II. No writers who have published after WWII shall be included as that are to close to our times, for the poll to work.

In this thread I would like to hear your various nominations for most underrated writer.

For the sake of clarity I shall specify underrated writer. I mean a writer who is deemed to have been of great merit, yet our conception of his while in the intangible canon, is not as high as we believe he or she should deserve.

For instance if someone nominates Dante, Shakespeare or Homer for most underrated writer, they didn't understand what I mean by underrated. However if someone were to nominate Apuleius and use reason to back up said claim, that would be a valid nomination.

You may nominate as many as you wish for the poll, the writers who appear to have the general consensus of nomination shall later then be included in the poll, the poll shall consist of roughly 15 nominees.


For the love of Blue don't nominate in this manner :

I think Ugo Foscolo is the most underrated writer, because he is really good but not that popular.


So let the nominations and opinions begin ! Oh and you may also take the stance that all writers, have a place of greatness equal to their perceived greatness...if that is your opinion.

[OrphanPip]

Sure, I'll play.

I think Frances Burney is a hugely underrated writer. As a great admirer of Jane Austen, I can't help but find Burney highly appealing as well. She was a contemporary of Samuel Richardson, and after Richardson, was likely the greatest influence on Austen's work (Actually, she's not much of a contemporary but she is closer to Richardson stylistically than she is to Austen despite her being closer in age to Austen). As a result, I think she is a seminal figure in the development of the English novel, who has mostly been ignored for being a writer concerned with women's lives and experiences, despite being critically praised during her lifetime.

I actually think she was a more talented writer than Richardson, she is much too under appreciated. She's nowhere near the level of Shakespeare or Dante though.

[B. Laumness]

Paul Gadenne - Les Hauts-Quartiers
Hubert Selby - The Demon
Ernesto Sabato - his three novels
Tristan Egolf - Lord of the Barnyard
Romain Gary aka Emile Ajar

[LitNetIsGreat]

I’ll just mention Eliza Parsons, not as a genius, (so you don't need to add her to the poll) but as a writer who was once hugely popular in the gothic genre and it would seem influential to Jane Austen, but little known today. Here is an interesting selection from Austen’s Northanger Abbey:

“I will read you their names directly: Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.”

And here is the introduction to the Mysterious Warning, written by Dr K Morton (who was once a fantastic tutor of mine, I hope she doesn’t mind my copying out this paragraph):

When Isabella Thorpe, in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, informs her friend Catherine Morland that she really must read “horrid” novels, seven of whose titles she lists, she gives no authors’ names, and indeed for decades afterwards, scholars assumed Austen had invented them, until one by one they were rediscovered. Their writers are largely forgotten, so it is intriguing for modern readers to learn that two of the novels were written by the same hand, suggesting a popularity long gone. Eliza Parsons is represented in the list by her 1793 text, Castle of Wolfenback, and by this one, The Mysterious Warning, first published in 1796.

It would appear that at one time Parsons was hugely popular and is thought to have penned around 19 novels. The suggestion is that while she works within the standard gothic framework, there is the argument and case for her (and others similar to her) as using the gothic framework as a way to express the philosophy’s, hopes and fears of women at the end of the 18th century. Although not everyone’s cup of tea perhaps, there is the strong suggestion that she is every bit as good, if not a better writer, than Ann Radcliffe, though little heard of.

[Alexander III]

Wow this is great, Neely and Pip, I have not heard of the writers you mentioned, but I just realized that this thread will be very usefull to find some lesser known writers to read. Good start

Paul Gadenne - Les Hauts-Quartiers
Hubert Selby - The Demon
Ernesto Sabato - his three novels
Tristan Egolf - Lord of the Barnyard
Romain Gary aka Emile Ajar

It would be useful if your read the opening post before you answered.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I also agree with Ophan Pip on Burney.

[kelby_lake]

Obviously opinions on writers change, as writers go in and out of fashion, but I think Algernon Swinburne has been underrated. Many people dismiss poetry as being 'effeminate' but Swinburne's poetry is full of passion. He wasn't exactly subtle.
His poetry interests me not purely because of the topic matters and the passionate way it's written because it sounds different from all the anthologised poetry I've read of that time. He's not the sort of poet you would anthologise but I don't think that this makes him irrelevant or inferior.

[Wilde woman]

My Renaissance drama class has introduced me to John Marston, an Jacobean satirist, whom I think is underrated. His most famous play, The Malcontent, is noted basically for its similarity to Hamlet, but there's more to him than just a passing semblance to Shakespeare. Like many of his contemporaries, Marston wrote revenge tragedies based on Seneca's plays, but he was at his best when playing with the genre of the tragicomedy. The tone of his plays swing wildly from heroic nobility to black humor, which is one of the reasons his work is criticized, but I think it portrays his vision of an era which was politically unstable. His strengths are definitely not in developing complex characters; in fact his characters are more generic, but - in his defense - character development wasn't his point. Instead, he used the well-established character types, combined them with the tragicomic genre, to very pointedly poke fun at the corrupt courts of his time.

Apparently, T.S. Eliot thought highly of Marston and even considered him a "genius" of his era.

[Mr.lucifer]

Pär Lagerkvist, a swedish writer who wrote the barabbas and the dwarf. He won the nobel prise for literature in 1951. I highly recommend barabbas for its potrayal of the man who was pardoned instead of christ.

[B. Laumness]

It would be useful if your read the opening post before you answered.

Sorry, I’ve stupidly skipped a paragraph. Other names:
Agrippa d’Aubigné, as great as Milton
Racine, as great as Shakespeare – he seems praised only in France
Alfred de Vigny, excellent poet
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam – who reads him today?
Drieu la Rochelle, for his masterpiece Le Feu Follet

[stlukesguild]

Agrippa d’Aubigné, as great as Milton

Ummmm.... I doubt he's that good. I haven't even read any French writers making such a claim.

Racine, as great as Shakespeare – he seems praised only in France

Not even close. Perhaps if you combined him with Cornielle, Moliere, and Montaigne you might get a serious challenge to Shakespeare

Alfred de Vigny, excellent poet
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam – who reads him today?

Yes. And throw in Nerval, José María de Heredia, and even Paul Valéry.

Of course it would seem that many writers may simply be underrated outside of their native culture and language. I rarely hear anyone speak of Novalis, Heine, or Holderlin outside of those of a German background, while Gongora, Bequier, Miguel Hernandez, and even Calderon seem largely ignored outside of the Spanish-speaking world. Tasso and Ariosto are both giants of Italian literature who had a major impact upon subsequent literature not only in Italy, but also in France and England... yet many here seemed to barely know of them except as a name in another recent thread.

Of the top of my head I would say that Luís de Camões may be the most underrated European writer when you consider his achievements with the epic Os Lusíadas as well as his wealth of shorter lyrical poetry which is unfortunately largely inaccessible to most because he wrote in what is essentially a minor language... a language known to few outside of Portugal and Brazil.

[dfloyd]

Bram Stoker - Dracula
Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac
Anthony Hope - The Prisoner of Zenda
George Du Maurier - Peter Ibbetson
Theodore Dreisier - An American Tragedy
Owen Wister - The Virginian
Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Tarzan Novels
E. Philips Openheim - The Great Impersonation
Henrik Sinciewicz (sp?) - Quo Vadis?
H. Ryder Haggard - King Solomon's Mines
Lew Wallace - Ben Hur
Anatole France - Penquin Island
Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon
Baroness Orczy - The Scarlet Pimpernel
James Boyd - Drums
Frank Norris -The Octopus
Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Petronius Arbiter - the Satyricon
Theophile Gautier - Mademoiselle de Maupin

This list could go on and on. I have read all of these, but probably none are taught by academia, unfortunately.

[mortalterror]

Agrippa d’Aubigné, as great as Milton

Ummmm.... I doubt he's that good. I haven't even read any French writers making such a claim.

Although I cannot find them now, I believe that Sainte-Beuve and Baudelaire had some nice things to say about him. His lack of press may owe something to his being a Protestant during the wars of religion, and a campaign of suppression perpetrated by the victors in that affair. I cannot read French with enough facility to properly judge, and Agrippa d'Aubigné doesn't appear to even be translated once in our language. However, a status equal to that of Milton is quite the claim. I am willing to grant that Tasso and maybe Camoes are his equals. Tasso I enjoyed more and Camoes quite a bit less. If what B. Laumness says is true, then Agrippa d'Aubigné breathes some rarefied air indeed.

Racine, as great as Shakespeare – he seems praised only in France

Not even close. Perhaps if you combined him with Cornielle, Moliere, and Montaigne you might get a serious challenge to Shakespeare.

Equal or nearly equal to Shakespeare seems like a perfectly reasonable assessment of Racine's talents. I'm not sure if you are overestimating Shakespeare or underestimating some major French writers. Honestly, I don't find Moliere funny, but he looms just as large in the tradition as Cervantes or Rabelais. And then to throw in Montaigne as well! You must be crazy. Did you feel you had to up the ante, after Laumness' claim?

For my part, I'd like to see Pushkin and Lermontov lauded more around here, along with Buchner, Calderon, and Lope de Vega.

[B. Laumness]

Agrippa d’Aubigné, as great as Milton

Ummmm.... I doubt he's that good. I haven't even read any French writers making such a claim.

Not a surprise. Actually, this is a statement said by teachers I had at the university and for whom I had respect. In the 19th century, French writers and critics “discovered” Agrippa d’Aubigné, forgotten of the literary history. Sainte-Beuve “revealed” his poetry in his review of the literature of the 16th century in 1828. Victor Hugo said he was close to him, a kind of cousin. In a first edition of Les Fleurs du Mal in 1855, the epigraph is these verses of Agrippa d'Aubigné (afterwards Baudelaire wrote an epigraph in honor of Gautier):

"On dit qu'il faut couler les exécrables choses
Dans le puits de l'oubli et au sépulchre encloses,
Et que par les écrits le mal ressuscité
Infectera les moeurs de la postérité.
Mais le vice n'a point pour mère la science
Et la vertu n'est pas fille de l'ignorance."

His masterpiece Les Tragiques, a long epic poem written in alexandrines, is a very difficult, very challenging work for a modern reader, because of the language (middle French), hard to understand and appreciate in comparison with the prose of the 19th century; because of all the historical, biblical, mythical references (the author was very erudite) so that if you don’t have a very solid knowledge you are lost; because of the subject itself (the war between Catholics and Huguenots) and of the position of the poet (he is even considered as a fanatic of the Protestant cause) .

However, his verses are beautiful and powerful, his apocalyptic visions awesome and his purpose is spectacular. But Les Tragiques was published a first time in 1616, when the war was over, when his contemporaries would not hear such a terrific voice. During two centuries, he was unknown, till some French Romantics recognized his genius. Right now, I have in hands two French textbooks, used in high school and in college, and they say Les Tragiques may be compared with the Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost.

An extract, if you know French:

Je veux peindre la France une mère affligée,
Qui est, entre ses bras, de deux enfants chargée.
Le plus fort, orgueilleux, empoigne les deux bouts
Des tétins nourriciers ; puis, à force de coups
D'ongles, de poings, de pieds, il brise le partage
Dont la nature donnait à son besson l'usage ;
Ce voleur acharné, cet Esaü malheureux,
Fait dégât du doux lait qui doit nourrir les deux,
Si que, pour arracher à son frère la vie,
Il méprise la sienne et n'en a plus d'envie.
Mais son Jacob, pressé d'avoir jeûné meshui,
Ayant dompté longtemps en son cœur son ennui,
À la fin se défend, et sa juste colère
Rend à l'autre un combat dont le champ est la mère.
Ni les soupirs ardents, les pitoyables cris,
Ni les pleurs réchauffés ne calment leurs esprits ;
Mais leur rage les guide et leur poison les trouble,
Si bien que leur courroux par leur coups se redouble.
Leur conflit se rallume et fait si furieux
Que d'un gauche malheur ils se crèvent les yeux.
Cette femme éplorée, en sa douleur plus forte,
Succombe à la douleur, mi-vivante, mi-morte ;
Elle voit les mutins, tout déchirés, sanglants,
Qui, ainsi que du coeur, des mains se vont cherchants.
Quand, pressant à son sein d'une amour maternelle
Celui qui a le droit et la juste querelle,
Elle veut le sauver, l'autre qui n'est pas las
Viole en poursuivant l'asile de ses bras.
Adonc se perd le lait, le suc de sa poitrine ;
Puis, aux derniers abois de sa propre ruine,
Elle dit : "Vous avez, félons, ensanglanté
Le sein qui vous nourrit et qui vous a porté ;
Or, vivez de venin, sanglante géniture,
Je n'ai plus que du sang pour votre nourriture !"

Racine, as great as Shakespeare – he seems praised only in France

Not even close. Perhaps if you combined him with Cornielle, Moliere, and Montaigne you might get a serious challenge to Shakespeare

About Racine, I’ve already said that those who are well-read and who speak French as English don’t hesitate to compare Shakespeare with Racine. Read Errata by George Steiner for example – I think he speaks elsewhere about these two playwrights, but I don’t remember in which book. And do you know, on a desert island, George Steiner would take only the Divine Comedy and Bérénice. Note I admire Shakespeare, I have a profound admiration for his genius.

As you say it, there are many great writers who are unknown or underrated outside of their national language.

[Alexander III]

I shall add some nominatiosna and opiniosn myself.

First of st.lukeguild, I think you are making a large error of judgment, in either regard to Shakespeare or racine, as Mortal and Laumness have pointed out. I have only read 2 of Racine's plays, while having read about 8 of Shakespeare's. However I do believe that Racine is inferior to Shakespeare, but it is a slight inferiority. If we were to sum Racine and Molliere together, they would be vastly worth more than Shakespeare by himself.

Also as Mortal said, I would definitely nominate Tasso. After Dante, the greatest epic in Italian literature goes to him, though Ariosto is definitely in competition for that too. The thing about Tasso is, that due to a less than stable and sane life, after his death he was very much discredited. I would risk to say that Gerusaleme Liberatta, is superior to paradise lost, due to two main things. Firstly Tasso explores the human condition with far more preciseness and scope of breath than Milton ever could, and while Milton's has the more beautiful verse, Tasso's verse always seems to be perfectly adapted for the specific contexts within his epic, his verse has beauty, but it is more of a contained beauty, it is not one which forces itself upon the reader, it subtly hides and waits for the reader to discover it. Thus I find Milton's verse to be vulgar in some aspects while Tasso's seems elegant, not vulgar.

Another nomination I would like to make is Richardson. While in academia in england he is very well known, outside of academia, 19th century english writers dominate compared to 18th century, with the exception of Swift and Pope. I honestly believe that Richardson deserves to be considered and equal to swift and pope, and superior to defoe. He has a elegant beautiful prose, his style is the most accomplished and beautiful of 18th century england.