Which CENTURY produced the best literature (IYO)

[Nightshade]

Sort of a response to the country thread...gosh I hope we dont already have this but come on people favourite century/ age for literature and if this isn the same as that which you consider to be the best why and explain!:D

My all time favourite and the one I consider the best is the Long eighteenth century(1660-1830) ( yes I know Ive been harping on about it for a while but I find it trulley fasinating)
You had the development and emrging of the modern western novel you have all sorts of great things in there and well yeah my favourite era, well actually I like books into the 1860s but after that I think things went down hill, literary point wise.
well except for scifi which was at its best at the turn of the 20th enturey, and what we are seeing now and have had since the late 1960s(?) is really good too.

[Schokokeks]

Sort of a response to the country thread...
...and this here makes a lot more sense than the above, if you ask me :nod:.


My all time favourite and the one I consider the best is the Long eighteenth century(1660-1830)
Good pick !

My overall favourite is Renaissance literature, however. Not only because of great Willy :D, but I also consider it the most interesting epoch from the point of view of the history of ideas. The Arts were moving away from being ecclesiastic, humans and the human mind were made the center of interest. Individualism formed, as well as a penchant to myths, occultism and the supernatural (e.g. the witches & ghosts in Willy's works). I think that during that epoch some of the most fascinating new ideas on culture and education were put forward (eg. by Thomas More, Erasmus, Michel de Montaigne,...)
And last but not least, thanks to Renaissance scholars, almost all of the greatest writings from the Ancient World (my second favourite epoch :D) were recovered and cherished until today :nod:.

[Nightshade]

epoch?? :blush: :confused:

[Virgil]

Good thread Nightshade. At least this doesn't belittle other people's literature like that other one. I happen to like the literature of many eras. I'm not sure which is my favorite. I did specialize in modern while in school.

[Schokokeks]

epoch?? :blush: :confused:
Yes, an epoch *checks possible misspelling* ...
I quote from the Oxford English Dictionary:

Epoch: A period of time. (Cf. similar use of era, term). Also: epoch-making (adjective), orig. said chiefly of scientific discoveries or treatises; now extended to designate any remarkable or sensational event, publication, etc.

[EAP]

Twentieth Century (1901-2000) No other century comes close.

[Idril]

19th Century by far, although I am slowly dragging myself into the 20th.

[Nightshade]

Twentieth Century (1901-2000) No other century comes close.

Really how come? of course the mass publishing and increase in literacy of that epoch ( haha I used it!!) but greatness??
Idril, the 19th as in from 1801-1900?? :nod: that overlaps with me a little:D so yupp good choice!

[srpbritlit]

Definitely 19th century, because of the Victorian era (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, to mention but a few!!), but I also love a lot of modern literature (20th century) and of course Renaissance and earlier history, because of Geoffrey Chaucer, not to mention the venerable William Shakespeare!

[bazarov]

19th century definitely.

[PeterL]

After long consideration, I have to claim that the 20th century has added more total quality to the world's literature than any other period. The 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries all produced great literature but not as much excellent literature as the 20th century.

[kandaurov]

Fantastic idea for a thread - I don't buy the 'this country is better/produced more than this' idea one bit.

It got me thinking. At first I was slightly torn between nineteenth and twentieth century, but I've made up my mind, it's nineteenth all the way.

[cuppajoe_9]

I would say the early twentieth, but that's more a statement of my favorite rather than actually the best.

[kandaurov]

Your favourite is your best, and that's all that matters, since it's impossible to determine what Best is!

[Stieg]

20th Century, why? The sheer volume of quality literature combined with the sheer circulatory creativeness places that atop the others by my estimates.

[cuppajoe_9]

Your favourite is your best, and that's all that matters, since it's impossible to determine what Best is!

Not at all. My favorite is that which I, personally, enjoy most, where the best is that which is written with the most skill and creativity. I know Shakespeare is probably the best English playwrite, but I would rather read Pinter. If I had to make a list of my favorite literature and a list of that literature which is, in my opinion, the best, the two lists would look very different.

[JBI]

19th. The 20th has way too much of a slushpile to sift through to get the good lit.

[hyperborean]

19th century. go existentialism!

[Nightshade]

Definitely 19th century, because of the Victorian era (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, to mention but a few!!), but I also love a lot of modern literature (20th century) and of course Renaissance and earlier history, because of Geoffrey Chaucer, not to mention the venerable William Shakespeare!

Austen wasnt victorian I dont think if fact Im almost postive she was in the Nepoleaonic? regency period...isnt one of her books dedicated to the Prince Regent?
But I was thinking about all this now with the comments on the 20th C books being mostly useless and having to wade through them is that because the further away we are from the time they were written the more refined the list of ones we read gets?

[GothMan]

The late 18th and the early 19th century. ;)

[Morrisonhotel]

The long nineteenth-century (late 18th up to about 1914). Why? Keats, Burns, Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray, James, Gissing, Hardy, Maupassant, Rimbaud, Austen, the Bronte sisters, Zola, Stevenson, Twain, Hugo, the early modernists, Hesse, Flaubert, Hopkins, Tennyson, Browning (both husband and wife), Wilde, Dickinson, Baudelaire, George Moore, Poe, Gaskell, Mallarme, Meredith, Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy, Doestoevsky, Balzac, Stendhal, Verne, Becquer, Chekov, Chateaubriand, Dumas, Gogol, Goethe, Emerson, Whitman, Hawthorne, Laforgue, Melville, Pushkin, Sand, and about a million more. Is that explicit enough a reason?

[THX-1138]

20th Century, why? The sheer volume of quality literature combined with the sheer circulatory creativeness places that atop the others by my estimates.

I second that.

[Brendan Madley]

Most definately 1801-1900. No other century comes close in both influencing literature and giving us such masterpieces. For a start the Regency and Victorian writers, with the Russians, French, Americans, Germans and all other nations output during that time is so overwhelming. The period was, sadly, the last true time of greatness; today I feel literature has become to self-centered and doesn't mean anything. Just my thoughts but seemingly well concured with.

[Culturist]

Most definately 1801-1900. No other century comes close in both influencing literature and giving us such masterpieces. For a start the Regency and Victorian writers, with the Russians, French, Americans, Germans and all other nations output during that time is so overwhelming. The period was, sadly, the last true time of greatness; today I feel literature has become to self-centered and doesn't mean anything. Just my thoughts but seemingly well concured with.

I second your opinion as I do Morrisonhotel´s and would like to add Adam Mickiewicz to his or her list of great 19th-century writers.:p

[Nossa]

For me, it depends on the literaty genre we're talking about. In poetry for example, I'd say the 17th century, anything that has to do with the metaphysical school. For drama, I'd go for the Renainssance and the 19th century. Novel would be the 18 and 19 century as well. I like many modern writings, just not my favorite era...not by far.

[EAP]

Really how come? of course the mass publishing and increase in literacy of that epoch ( haha I used it!!) but greatness??


Simply because most of my favourite books are from that era.

[barbara0207]

Maybe the 20th century had no Shakespeare, but it certainly had great writers. Just have a look athe the list of Nobel Prize winners. Lots of great names there. And then there are some who are still waiting for that prize.

[bazarov]

Maybe the 20th century had no Shakespeare, but it certainly had great writers. Just have a look athe the list of Nobel Prize winners. Lots of great names there. And then there are some who are still waiting for that prize.

But there was no Nobel Prize before 1905. If it were, than every year they would have 3 winners...

[Panflute]

For me, it's definitely the 19th century. Dickens, Poe, Multatuli, Balzac, Baudelaire, and some works of Goethe.

Though the 20th century also had a great deal of fantastic authors, I really must go with the 19th, here.

[Durgamol]

For me, it's definitely the 19th century. Dickens, Poe, Multatuli, Balzac, Baudelaire, and some works of Goethe.

Though the 20th century also had a great deal of fantastic authors, I really must go with the 19th, here.

I agree - 19th century has the depth that 20th is sometimes missing...

[kenikki]

Twentieth Century (1901-2000) No other century comes close.

I second that.

[blackowl]

are you talking about when the 'MISRABELLES' wrote

[Aunty-lion]

But I was thinking about all this now with the comments on the 20th C books being mostly useless and having to wade through them is that because the further away we are from the time they were written the more refined the list of ones we read gets?

I agree. I think that there is a heap of great 20th century literature. It's just that there is so much bad stuff around too. In the future, we probably will have forgotten about all the terrible stuff and the 20th century will be remembered for all its greatest works.