British vs American lit.

[BlackCat]

I've always want to know what everyone think about these two schools of literature (though I must say it seem most of you guys are Brit fans:banana:).

P.S, please forgive me if someone already asked this, I can't find this anywhere so I took it upon myself to ask this question.

Merry Christmas btw :santasmil

[cyberbob]

I like both. And I don't think they're really two seperate schools.

There's more in common with writers of different countries but the same era than the other way around, I think.

I think if I could only choose one, and not be able to read the other ever again, I'd have to choose American, cuz I'm American. :)

[PeterL]

I don't think that there is a clear difference. Most British writers use British spellings and idioms, but the substance of the writing is not necessarily different from the substance of American writing. Are there specific characteristics of the writing that you are thinking of?

[dfloyd]

without reading the best of both. The Victorians, interspersed with reading Hawthorne, Melville, Cooper, and Irving, make for a more intellectual and interesting person. To relegate either school to the obscurity of non-reading is to leave a cultural abyss.

[john7]

Thanks for sharing. And Merry Christmas! http://images.thebestexercisebikes.net/images/smile.gif

[B. Laumness]

Similar thread here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22885&highlight=british+american).

[BlackCat]

I know American literary tradition borrows heavily from our British brethrens, but reading the two gives off such different experiences. American literature has this redolent of simplicity in her, making her so plain, so crude, to straightforward (and that maybe why I love her). British literature is more witty, plucky, and certainly has this English charm to it, which is also very unique and beautiful.

nevertheless, I am an American fan :yesnod::yesnod:

[stlukesguild]

Just as Latin literature built upon its Greek precursors, American literature builds greatly upon its British fore bearers out of sheer necessity. Considering the brief existence of the United States as an independent nation one must indeed marvel at the strength of the literary achievements: Washington Irving, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Bierce, Dickinson, Henry James, Melville, Mark Twain, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Steven Crane, e.e. cummings, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eugene O'Niel, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, etc...

I'm not certain I'd characterize American literature as "plain", "crude", and "straightforward"... especially considering the likes of Pound, Eliot, Faulkner, James, Melville, Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthleme, etc... but certainly there are elements that are unique to American literature as opposed to British that have to do with the American experience and the American psyche that is quite removed from that of the British experience.