In Your Opinion, Who Is the English Language's Greatest Writer?

[astrum]

Who do you think is the English language's greatest writer?


Would you go with such well-known, classical writers as Shakespeare or Milton? Or would you say someone less well-known?

What are some of your favorite works from this author?

[cafolini]

Shakepeare and Milton have been put to sleep for keeps. Dickens is not the only one best, but he has eclipsed those other two.

[mona amon]

That's easy - Shakespeare!

[Foe]

From the standpoint of being a contributor to the literary canon, and providing much to be copied and reworked in subsequent great literature, William Shakespeare can never be put to sleep. His works continue to inspire great literature to this day. And he wasn't even an author, in the strictest sense; he was a playwright. Still, the novels, plays, movies, and songs his work has inspired is almost endless; one could say he created a fountain from which literature continues to spout. If that's not great, I don't know what is.

[cacian]

From the standpoint of being a contributor to the literary canon, and providing much to be copied and reworked in subsequent great literature, William Shakespeare can never be put to sleep. His works continue to inspire great literature to this day. And he wasn't even an author, in the strictest sense; he was a playwright. Still, the novels, plays, movies, and songs his work has inspired is almost endless; one could say he created a fountain from which literature continues to spout. If that's not great, I don't know what is.

Daniel Defoe I reckon. He is sharp with an acoustical humour I find enchanting.
He delivers with tact and his adventurous mind runs wild with words. His work is superbly executed.

[jayat]

Shakespeare, due to his several lines of reading interpretations, apart from the mere beauty in the use of words and how they sound when reciting. I'd rather prefer Hemingway to Dickens. The latter is quite conventional to me, the former isn't due to the style which definied his writings and the resemblance of truth in them too. Now I'm reading his great "forty-nine short stories" and Farewell to arms is my next choose.

[Desolation]

If I was trying to be objective, then Shakespeare, of course.

But, objectivity is boring. So, James Joyce.

[cafolini]

Shakespeare is as obsolete as you can have them. Not even WolfLarsen with his idiotic insults can wake him up.

[Lokasenna]

Focusing very much on your word 'language', can I vouch for Geoffrey Chaucer?

[Foe]

Focusing very much on your word 'language', can I vouch for Geoffrey Chaucer?

Well, yes, I would agree if I could read him. The guy wrote in a really strong accent. But Wikipedia calls him the "Father of English Literature," and you can't argue with Wiki, can you?

[cafolini]

Well...Chaucer is hard to pin down. Records as scarce. But there is evidence that he was anglosaxon; no viking, no dane. At least he coined the word "arse" as useful as japanese "asso" for Hirohito, a difficult synonym in cacian's dictionary. LOL

[stlukesguild]

Shakespeare. There is no other.

[Foe]

Shakespeare. There is no other.I admire your confidence and agree with your choice. What are you drinking? I'll buy.

[Adolescent09]

I personally enjoy William Makepeace Thackeray... I haven't read enough Shakespeare to decide if he is the greatest. I've only read Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Hamlet. Every admirer of Shakespeare I've met has told me that in order to judge Shakespeare, you have to read all of his works.

[kiki1982]

Well, yes, I would agree if I could read him. The guy wrote in a really strong accent. But Wikipedia calls him the "Father of English Literature," and you can't argue with Wiki, can you?

What's so difficult about Chaucer? If you know a bit of French, it reads like nothing. Particularly funny. Very English in that respect, self-mockery.

The greatest is always a difficult tag, because single writers have so many merits.

Personally, I enjoy anything that is well-written, but then well-written is not necessarily good in terms of 'novel'. It can be faced with bad characterisation or a bad story, one-dimensionality so it falls pretty much flat on its face after a while You could say Chaucer is a bit one-dimensional, but then again in his age that was the thing. There was not really any such thing as 'psychology', you didn't write for your characters or what they thought.
The idea that innovators like the modernists were great writers per se has a certain argument, but then, if you do not enjoy their experiments, are they great writers?

On that note try the Great Prose or not?- quiz. See whether you can tell the difference between Dickens (often termed the greatest, I still don't know why) and Bulwer-Lytton, according to many the worst ever. I got 42%. Now, it may be that had they contrasted Lytton with a much better author than Dickens, say some brilliant passages by Hardy, Scott, Wilde or whatever, that you would have got 100%. But interestingly, the passages I considered as most annoying were those by Dickens. Unless you know a bit about Dickens's style (his use of punctuation, how he make observations, whether he uses third person or first person, how he uses adectives and which ones, etc.), you couldn't tell the difference really. So much for 'every sentence can be admired'. The average score, even in the control group of university graduates from renowned universities, was only about 50%.

http://reverent.org/bulwer-dickens.html

It was quite funny.

[Babyguile]

I haven't read any Milton yet, but Shakespeare is the carbon of our bodies.

[Adolescent09]

I haven't read any Milton yet, but Shakespeare is the carbon of our bodies.

I demand thee read of the blank verse, epic poem that is of a lost Paradise!

Thee shalt forget that the regaining of said Paradise was ever written.

Lol, jk. Paradise Regained is decent, but Paradise Lost is far superior in my honest opinion.

[Lykren]

If I was trying to be objective, then Shakespeare, of course.

But, objectivity is boring. So, James Joyce.

Haha. For me, choosing Joyce as the greatest writer in the English language IS being objective. Well, as objective as such a choice can be, which isn't very. Still, Joyce's use of language, development of character, and inclusion of tremendously important philosophical questions far outpaces Shakespeare's use of the same, by my judgment, good as ol' Will may be. No matter what stluke says :D

[hannah_arendt]

Shakespeare and Tolkien of course:)

[PeterL]

Jonathan Swift was, by far, a better writer than Shakespeare. But that may be irrelevant, because the term"greatest" has not been defined for the purpose of this question. If one means the writer who was most cskillful in the use of the English language, then there is no doubt that Swift was the one. If one dfines greatest as the one who has had his works reprinted the most, then Shakespeare is on top.

[cafolini]

Dickens was reprinted all over the world far more than Shakespeare. But the Catholic church reprinted Shakespeare and now they have recycled a lot for toilet paper. ROFLMAO

[astrum]

I demand thee read of the blank verse, epic poem that is of a lost Paradise!

Thee shalt forget that the regaining of said Paradise was ever written.

Lol, jk. Paradise Regained is decent, but Paradise Lost is far superior in my honest opinion.


Maybe I'm just peculiar, but I like "Paradise Regained" a lot more than "Paradise Lost." It's more straightforward, and its themes are more clearly stated.

It's also an easier read, though that doesn't matter as much to me.

[stlukesguild]

Jonathan Swift was, by far, a better writer than Shakespeare.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTyNrrv10mQ

[prendrelemick]

My Aunty Val wrote a very good letter.

[Adolescent09]

I respect your opinion. Themes being clear is one thing, but "straightforwardness" is something, to which my favorite authors rarely subscribe :). Again that is just me.

[Adolescent09]

Moderator/Admin please delete post. (Forgot to quote, correctly)

[Adolescent09]

Jonathan Swift was, by far, a better writer than Shakespeare. But that may be irrelevant, because the term"greatest" has not been defined for the purpose of this question. If one means the writer who was most cskillful in the use of the English language, then there is no doubt that Swift was the one. If one dfines greatest as the one who has had his works reprinted the most, then Shakespeare is on top.

I read the kiddy adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, copies of which are printed rampantly these days. My local library including my local B&N bookstore does not even carry the unabridged copy, so I have yet to read it.

[jayat]

I personally enjoy William Makepeace Thackeray... I haven't read enough Shakespeare to decide if he is the greatest. I've only read Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Hamlet. Every admirer of Shakespeare I've met has told me that in order to judge Shakespeare, you have to read all of his works.

...Or read it several times. I don't know if you read every work you mention just once or more times, but you can consider yourself a very good reader if with just a reading you have caught all the meanings in any Shakespeare writing. I just read five of his works and just two of them twice. Every time I got amazed by a new discovery both text (The Tempest and Hamlet in my case) offered to me.

[jayat]

Dickens was reprinted all over the world far more than Shakespeare. But the Catholic church reprinted Shakespeare and now they have recycled a lot for toilet paper. ROFLMAO

Shakespeare omitted consciously the Catholic world and all its icons in his works in favour of fairies, gnomes and spirits (from heathen myths?). I can’t figure out why they didn’t excommunicate him in his time. I'm not sure if they could have burn him according to "this kind of Paganism". I think Inquisition died in Humanist times, his time, by 1600.

[JBI]

Shakespeare omitted consciously the Catholic world and all its icons in his works in favour of fairies, gnomes and spirits (from heathen myths?). I can’t figure out why they didn’t excommunicate him in his time. I'm not sure if they could have burn him according to "this kind of Paganism". I think Inquisition died in Humanist times, his time, by 1600.

Being a catholic at the time was dangerous, and somewhat illegal. Of course he was not going to put catholic iconography in his work, especially with an intensely protestant court and queen behind him.

[OrphanPip]

It was against the law to discuss matters of religion on the Elizabethan stage. Also, Shakespeare was a Protestant, though his father was Catholic. Even with that in mind, elements of Catholicism appear prominently in a lot of his plays set either before the reformation or in Catholic countries. One of the major plot points of measure for measure is the duke's disguise as friar.

[Babyguile]

What did Joyce's prose teach the world? What truths and revelations did Joyce uncover? What does one learn from Joyce after reading his books? I don't have any tangible answer to any of those questions. I don't think it was Joyce's paramount interest to communicate with his readers, and that's the problem I have with him.

[cafolini]

Joyce's aim, which he announced and then fulfilled as much as possible, was to challenge the nightmare of hyistory, stay awake and expose the facts.
"History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to wake up." Joyce, 1922.

[Lykren]

What did Joyce's prose teach the world? What truths and revelations did Joyce uncover? What does one learn from Joyce after reading his books? I don't have any tangible answer to any of those questions. I don't think it was Joyce's paramount interest to communicate with his readers, and that's the problem I have with him.

My personal take on this is that Joyce was not trying to communicate anything to his readers, which is fine with me because I don't believe that art is a medium designed for communicating ideas, but rather for sharing emotions, which I see as a very different thing. Chekhov once said that art is supposed to raise questions, not give answers, and that's sort of what I'm getting at here. I think questions are more interesting than their answers, anyway. Does that make sense?

[jayat]

Being a catholic at the time was dangerous, and somewhat illegal. Of course he was not going to put catholic iconography in his work, especially with an intensely protestant court and queen behind him.

Thank you for the clarification...Yes, I forgot England (perhaps not yet UK, you will tell me) accepted one of the results of the schism which the Christian world suffered at the end of meddle ages if I am not wrong...Anyway, he explicitly expelled Christian, now maybe I make myself understood, iconography conducting his writings through heathen forms and motives. In other words, did he include “Protestant, Calvinist iconography”, if there is some, I don’t know frankly, in his dramaturgy? Or rather else Ariels and Hamlet ghosts and magicians like Prospero rubbed all sorts of “Judeo-Christian” icons whatsoever?

P.S. One of the most stupid things one can do is to build an argumentation based on a wrong data. Of course, I’m referring to me who assumed some sort of Catholic order in Shakespeare times. The fact that I live in a “always Catholic territory” from after Roman times is not an excuse.