Which COUNTRY has produced the greatest literature?

Yes, that's the extraordinary thing about the literature of England- the timespan. England's culture over the last 600 years is pretty much unbroken. Being an island it wasn't subjected to invasions or colonisations, which meant its literature was able to sort of snowball, with each new writer linked into and drawing upon a common past. Plus it has remained free of any profound revolutionary change (communism or fascism). It is a unique culture in many ways- an island somewhat detached from the European continent, with its own church (which in itself has a rich literary tradition- think of the King James Bible and book of common prayer) and now, because of a common language, access to the best of American culture. Then of course there is Shakespeare, who is both a universal genius and yet also a very English poet, deeply rooted in the English countryside, seasons and history.

And yet, at the same time, Britain's insularity also prevented them from becoming leading figures in the realm of music or the visual arts... until much later. I'll say there is the exception of the early British tradition of choral music (Tallis, the Eton Songbook, Purcell, Taverner, Dowland, etc...) and the British developed the some of the greatest orchestras and musical ensembles as well as museums... but until the late 19th into the 20th century they are not really serious "players" in the realm of creating original music, painting, or sculpture.

The insular nature of Britain... and their love of nature... often reminds me of the Japanese... who like the British have had an impact upon culture that far outstrips their size and population.

There is a difference, which is Tolstoy longevity and his supper status. In the end of XIX century he was Russia Literature and he was like a guru for other writers mixed with his social status, but yes, he had a "prophetic" sense on his work, perhaps he is the most like a biblical patriarch like Moses while Blake was a rejected prophet.

Yes. Blake's impact doesn't happen until later... but then he's a rather iconoclastic prophet. Tolstoy's a rather conservative Puritanical prophet. Blake's like a true Old Testament visionary... an iconoclast challenging the traditional and conservative views in many ways.

Yet, it is a bith of myth that english literature was that isolated. Arturian Myths? French influence. Latin had a huge influence even after Milton. Classic Roman all over the translations. King James is from old bible and was just happening when many vulgar versions would happen. Dante. Petrarch and Bocaccio huge influence. 1001 nights. Dom Quixote. Rousseau huge influence. Wordsworth and Coleridge had to travel by France and Germany to bring romanticism. Modern english writers under Dostoievisky and Chekhov influence. And there goes.

They do not seem to be so apart of the rest of the world.

English is more than 60% rooted in classical Roman Latin. The Normands destroyed the language in order to reconstruct it later. Regardless of argument as to whether it was intentional or not, that's how it happened.

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Originally Posted by WICKES

Yes, that's the extraordinary thing about the literature of England- the timespan. England's culture over the last 600 years is pretty much unbroken. Being an island it wasn't subjected to invasions or colonisations, which meant its literature was able to sort of snowball, with each new writer linked into and drawing upon a common past. Plus it has remained free of any profound revolutionary change (communism or fascism). It is a unique culture in many ways- an island somewhat detached from the European continent, with its own church (which in itself has a rich literary tradition- think of the King James Bible and book of common prayer) and now, because of a common language, access to the best of American culture. Then of course there is Shakespeare, who is both a universal genius and yet also a very English poet, deeply rooted in the English countryside, seasons and history.

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What a non-historical load of wish-wash.

England's literature was no isolated. England is not Japan post Mongol invasion.

And obviously not geographically accurate since England ain't an island - unfortunately.

I've been reading "Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shalespeare", by Stephen Greenblatt. It's a literary biography, speculating about how the events of the time may have influenced Shakespeare's plays. Greenblatt writes at length about the lack of motivation for the main characters in Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. In the story of Leir (on which King Lear is based), the king poses the question of which of his daughters loves him the best in an attempt to get Cordelia to agree to a marriage arranged by Leir. IN the Hamlet story (I forget what it's called) the murder of Hamlet's father by his uncle is public knowledge, and young Hamlet is still a boy. Hamlet has to feign madness until he grows up, at which time he can seek his revenge. In the Othello story (it's an Italian short story), Iago secretly lusts after Desdemona.

I mention this in support of Tolstoy's ability as a critic. His main complaint about "King Lear" was that there is no reasonable motive for the King's bizarre behavior. Obviously, for most of us (including Greenblatt), this doesn't ruin the play, as it apparently did for Tolstoy. My point, though, is that other Shakespeare scholars agree with Tolstoy's perspicacious complaint, if not with the notion that it makes the play lousy art. So it seems Tolstoy the critic was making perceptive and reasonable comments about the play, even if his overall evaluation is strange. Perhaps this lack of motive is a well known feature of three of Shakespeare's four famous tragedies (MacBeth's motives are clear), and perhaps it was well known even in 1896 (or whenever Tolstoy wrote his essay on King Lear). I'm insufficiently knowledgeable about Shakespeare criticism to know. It seems likely that for those who read the works from which Shakespeare gleaned his plays, the elimination of motive would be fairly clear.

So, Tolstoy was complaning about Shakespeare for something he didn't want to portray? Isn't, as you say, saying a Flaubert was not a good writer because he could not rhyme?

Plus, this critics of Tolstoy are not just for motivation of them, he go for greek playwritters. Tolstoy as a novelist fails to reckognize fate and accident, he controled the next chapter, etc. Again, he is telling: the art of novel is about controling fate, not allowing accidents, being rulled by the unseen god that is the novelist. It is his critic on Shakespeare of what he, tolstoy, would do or not... Not really insightful.

I just found it interesting that a modern scholar (and a huge fan of Shakespeare) agreed with Tolstoy's critique, although not with the extent to which, as Tolstoy wrote in his essay,

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"Dramatic art, according to the laws established by those very critics who extol Shakespeare, demands that the persons represented in the play should be, in consequence of actions proper to their characters, and owing to a natural course of events, placed in positions requiring them to struggle with the surrounding world to which they find themselves in opposition, and in this struggle should display their inherent qualities.

In "King Lear" the persons represented are indeed placed externally in opposition to the outward world, and they struggle with it. But their strife does not flow from the natural course of events nor from their own characters, but is quite arbitrarily established by the author, and therefore can not produce on the reader the illusion which represents the essential condition of art.

Lear has no necessity or motive for his abdication; also, having lived all his life with his daughters, has no reason to believe the words of the two elders and not the truthful statement of the youngest; yet upon this is built the whole tragedy of his position.

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Greenblatt (who is a Harvard professor) agrees that "their strife does not flow from the natural course of events...." So (I contend) Tolstoy made a reasonable, logical and perceptive critique, although many of us may disagree that the principles of dramatic art (the laws of which are established, acc. Tolstoy, by the very critics who extol Shakespeare) demand that they do. Tolstoy's observation is an interesting one, whether or not we agree about the demands of dramatic art, and interesting observations about works of art are the essence of good criticism -- far more important to the quality of a critique than "correct" judgments.

This is not even a critic, it is like saying "Romeo and Juliet are not addults". It is just mentioning a fact. Shakespeare didnt want to show natural ordem of events, then mentioning it is pure waste. Do not tell me anything about the play. Aka, since it is not in the place, it is not an observation about King Lear but about what Tolstoy thinks is good.

You must understand, if Tolstoy was such valluable critic, he would have influence in posterior criticism of shakespeare but pretty much, people shrug at this.

As Greenblatt (and Tolstoy) point out, Shakespeare altered the story to eliminate the motive for the protagonist's action in three of his greatest tragedies. Of course, if you didn't know the stories from which the plays derived (as I didn’t, before reading Tolstoy’s and Greenblatt’s essays), this alteration might not be remarkable. However, I continue to find it an interesting insight.

I have no idea if Greenblatt's interest in this issue was influenced by Tolstoy. I imagine a renowned Shakespeare scholar would have read Tolstoy's essay. However, you say Tolstoy "would have inflence in posterior criticism (if he was a valuable critic)." I'd suggest that to the extent that Greenblatt (in his highly acclaimed book) discussed the issue at some length, Tolstoy probably DID and DOES have "influence". I certainly didn't notice Greenblatt "shrugging".

Iago and Hamlet have motivations. Lear's lack of apparent motivation was already mentioned by Dr.Johnson who justify the "improbability of Lear's conduct" by which was accepted by the public at the time. And yet, it is irrelevant to see anything in the play. Really, Tolstoy seems just to repeat Voltaire, which caused at his time a uproar because he is muc more relevant for SHakespeare story than Tolstoy (not hard, Tolstoy is not relevant).

Anyone mentioned India yet? They clearly will win with a little bit of anachronistically stretching what "India" as a country means.

Definitely FRANCE !

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Originally Posted by Dante

Definitely FRANCE !

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I don't think it's possible to say 'definitely' any country.

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Originally Posted by Dante

Definitely FRANCE !

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Why France?

I am so shocked that no one named the persian literature here!! Iran or the same persia, has the greatest literature in the whole world. It is not even compatible with european literature. Go and have some research about it.

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Originally Posted by Brendan Madley

Have your say as to which nation has produced the greatest literature throughout time, whether it be Rome and Greece with the old classics or Britain with Shakespeare and the Victorian writers.

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England's Shakespeare is generally considered by professors to be the best. However, in recent years, it has been said that American authors continue to beat out British authors, which is not entirely true. James Joyce was considered the best novelist of the 20th century with Ulysses. You have to give England credit for inventing the language.

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Originally Posted by Whosis

England's Shakespeare is generally considered by professors to be the best. However, in recent years, it has been said that American authors continue to beat out British authors, which is not entirely true. James Joyce was considered the best novelist of the 20th century with Ulysses. You have to give England credit for inventing the language.

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Joyce was Irish.

I'm British, but I can't think of any modern British author who can match Roth or Bellow. Martin Amis places Bellow above all other modern authors, but I can't think of a top American author or critic who praises a British author so highly. I have to go back to the likes of Conrad, Hardy and Kipling before I can think of anyone matching these American greats. Maybe it's a loss of Empire thing, we just haven't the energy or ambition any more!

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I'm British, but I can't think of any modern British author who can match Roth or Bellow.

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What about Ian McEwan?

Russia, by far! Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tergenev, Chehkov! Need I say more? This, however, is just aesthetic preference, not an objective submission of any kind of logical line of thinking.

Russia, by far! Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tergenev, Chehkov! Need I say more?

Yes. You would need lots more. Britain can field Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Blake, Joyce, Dickens, Keats, Spenser, Wordsworth, Sterne, etc... France has Hugo, Baudelaire, Rousseau, Montaigne, Rimbaud, Proust, Ronsard, Moliere, Racine, Voltaire, Genet, etc...

Russia has been a major player in literature for all of 200 years... at most. France and Britain for far longer.

The reality is that most of us can only speak of the literature we are familiar with... and largely that which we can read in its native tongue. The same is true of the above claim for Persia which suggests little more than nationalistic jingoism. Persia, undoubtedly has a rich literary heritage: Omar Khayyam, Ferdowsi, Daqiqi, Attar, Rumi, Hafiz, Sana'i, Sadi, Nizami, and the Thousand and One Nights. But little is translated beyond these major works... and little past the "classical" eras. One might make similar claims for India and China most certainly, but also Japan. The idea that Persian literature surpasses the whole of Europe... or Asia... is simply ridiculous... and ignorant. I wouldn't even make such a claim for the Austro-Germans with regard to classical music... and they surely have a far larger claim to such a hegemony than any single national/linguistic group with regards to art or literature.

United Kingdom is what I was looking for as far as a nationality for James Joyce. Huh. Maybe that means he's an Irish author and not an English author. So strange.

I am was not familiar with persian ( I am Bulgarian) but after I read the translation of Khayyam, I started to learn! Then I feel like I am born again. I gave my life to literature reading from east to west.. First, I agree with you about the translation... There is no enough translation for Persian classic books.. Actually there is NO translation for some of them ( Saeb Tabrizi, Parvin etesami and etc.. ). The only translated works are those you mentioned but compared to European, because I am quite familiar, Persian literature is far better and richer. Also you find totally different styles which makes it so interesting. For me, it is so exciting to read a beautiful story based poem which comes back to 100 to 700 to thousands years ago and it is filled with cultural thoughts and beautiful picturing of that era... each book was a gift of life for me and I am so sorry that I did not start reading Persian literature sooner. There is another problem about it and that is their government that wants to remove anything which is not islamic and only keeps the works that came after Islam to persia. So their government does not try hard to get other nations become more familiar with the rich literature, I think there are more events and tributes about rumi and hafiz outside Iran in comparison to inside or if it is not like that, others do not hear about it and this is so sad. One thing that was so sad is that no one even mentioned Persian in this topic! The literature which is the best in many people's thought! Even if you don't agree with that, at least one person had to mentioned that! this means the members should educate themselves more about one of the greatest literature in the world.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Russia, by far! Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tergenev, Chehkov! Need I say more?

Yes. You would need lots more. Britain can field Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Blake, Joyce, Dickens, Keats, Spenser, Wordsworth, Sterne, etc... France has Hugo, Baudelaire, Rousseau, Montaigne, Rimbaud, Proust, Ronsard, Moliere, Racine, Voltaire, Genet, etc...

Russia has been a major player in literature for all of 200 years... at most. France and Britain for far longer.

The reality is that most of us can only speak of the literature we are familiar with... and largely that which we can read in its native tongue. The same is true of the above claim for Persia which suggests little more than nationalistic jingoism. Persia, undoubtedly has a rich literary heritage: Omar Khayyam, Ferdowsi, Daqiqi, Attar, Rumi, Hafiz, Sana'i, Sadi, Nizami, and the Thousand and One Nights. But little is translated beyond these major works... and little past the "classical" eras. One might make similar claims for India and China most certainly, but also Japan. The idea that Persian literature surpasses the whole of Europe... or Asia... is simply ridiculous... and ignorant. I wouldn't even make such a claim for the Austro-Germans with regard to classical music... and they surely have a far larger claim to such a hegemony than any single national/linguistic group with regards to art or literature.

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You would be surprised to discover that there are more than a few members here who have championed Persian and Arabic literature here over the years. Quite some time back we had a member who was fluent in Farsi... and I believe Arabic as well to a certain extent. When asked to give our choices for the 50 or 100 greatest books or writers, a number of members (myself included) have placed Firdowsi and the Shahnameh, the Thousand and One Nights and several others writers and books quite high on our list. Personally, as a visual artist, I am quite fond of Persian/Turkish/Arabic/Byzantine/Mughal/Arab-Andalusian arts and culture (which all weave in and out of each other). I have made any number of posts recognizing the achievements of these cultures here. Having said that, I have no illusions that any single national/linguistic body of literature can be deemed to surpass that of all others... except in one's own personal opinion... and the more one reads... the more likely one will discover the incredible richness and wealth of literary achievements across all eras and cultures.

It's hard to think of a country that beats England overall. Russia and France would probably beat England on the novel alone, but when you add in poetry, essays and drama I'd nominate England. James Joyce (no friend of the English) once said that the 3 greatest figures in literature were, for him, Shakespeare, Shelley and Wordsworth.

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, The King James Bible, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Dickens...the list is endless. When you also consider how small England is, its cultural/ literary inheritance is extraordinary. Rather than being arrogant and boastful about this, the English seem oddly indifferent, even embarassed. When I look at my own bookshelves they are dominated by English writers: Huxley, Waugh, Wodehouse, Lawrence, Dickens...

I think Martin Amis once said that the two nations/ cultures to have produced the greatest body of poetry were Persia and England- odd when you consider how different the two places are (one a cool, damp island, the other a large desert country). Sadly, England seems to have totally lost confidence. I guess because it has been replaced as the dominant English-speaking culture by the USA.

For me, and this is purely my own personal opinion, it has to be Ancient Greece. Sorry to be boring, and I could be wrong technically, but I do think that's true.

Britain, France, the United States, Russia

I'm pretty much in agreement with Ajveigalla

1. America: Melville, Faulkner, James, Emerson, Poe, Twain, Whitman, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hughes, Pound, Eliot, Stevens, Stein, Bishop, Williams, R. Lowell, Baldwin, Roth, DeLillo, Pynchon, McCarthy, Morrison, Rich, Dick, Auster, Gibson, Plath, A. Lowell

2. Britain: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Marvell, Donne, Milton, Carlyle, Blake, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Eliot, Austen, Dickens, Swinburne, Waugh, Greene, Rushdie, Mitchell, Auden

3. France: Montaigne, Moliere, Racine, Rousseau, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme', Proust, Camus, Maupassant, Sand, Baudelaire, Bergson, Valery, Genet, Bataille, Barthes, Derrida, Cixous, Robbe-Grillet

4. Russia: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Bulgakov, Lermontov, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky

Thanks Pike

I would personally add Tolkien to Britain and Hugo to France.

Pike, do you personally think Hugo is a literary master and one of the greatest of all time?

No, he wasn't a master stylist, a particularly gifted structuralist, or a deeply profound thinker. What he was was--like Stephen King--was an extremely gifted cultural commentator with a keen grasp of his zeitgeist. It's why he's no longer held in the same regard as he was and has been surpassed by superior novelists like Flaubert, Balzac, and Proust.

^OK, cool. I appreciate Hugo as a great writer, but thanks for sharing your thoughts, Pike

No problem, Avenaglia. I'm sure I'll be asking you for your thoughts soon.

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Originally Posted by ajvenigalla

I would personally add Tolkien to Britain and Hugo to France.

Pike, do you personally think Hugo is a literary master and one of the greatest of all time?

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Hugo was a great poet, considered in higher reggard than giants like Baudelaire or Rimbaud. His status insidee francee still huge. The idea to consider him otherwise must be similar to Tolstoy attacking Shakespeare.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Hugo was a great poet, considered in higher reggard than giants like Baudelaire or Rimbaud. His status insidee francee still huge. The idea to consider him otherwise must be similar to Tolstoy attacking Shakespeare.

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I read your post, JCamilo, since I knew you'd make a questionable response to mine. Thank you for not disappointing. Hugo is not considered a greater poet than Baudelaire or Rimbaud by most current French scholars or by most French scholars of the last 60 years. If you want to back up your silly claim and prove otherwise, knock yourself out. And at least try to get the syllogistic logic of your erroneous analogies correct, nobody like Tolstoy said those poets were superior to Hugo...;)

Thanks Pike. I may not always be prompt in my own participation in this board, but I will try to give my thoughts and add my own contributions to this wonderful forum (which is becoming one of my own favorites)

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Originally Posted by Pike Bishop

I read your post, JCamilo, since I knew you'd make a questionable response to mine. Thank you for not disappointing. Hugo is not considered a greater poet than Baudelaire or Rimbaud by most current French scholars or by most French scholars of the last 60 years. If you want to back up your silly claim and prove otherwise, knock yourself out. And at least try to get the syllogistic logic of your erroneous analogies correct, nobody like Tolstoy said those poets were superior to Hugo...;)

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you read my post because you are like a 5 years old who claims to not be talking with his mommy because she give him a few slaps on his butt but does not stop answering her. The threads are filled with you answering when you see it quoted me or leaving one lines about those you ignore. Grow up, kid.

Syllgistic logic of your errouneous analogies is one of most pedantics ways to show pretencious knowledge and it is even more ridiculous to think you that managed to show your usual incapacity to read. The analogy is in consideration of ajvenigalla question, which i was answerig, not to you (otherwise I would just point your list of french great literary masters without Rabellais, Voltaire, Monstequieu, Corneille, Pascal, Villon, La Fontaine, Margueritte de navarre, Hugo, Artaud, Troyes, Gallant, Ronsard is telling more about your ignorance about french literature and bias than the ridiculous comparassion of Hugo to stephen king... seriously wtf): do you personally think Hugo is a literary master and one of the greatest of all time?

And :The idea to consider him otherwise must be similar to Tolstoy attacking Shakespeare.

Got it, Carlo Collodi fan?

America, France, Britain, and Russia certainly have an impressive number of major writers. But one could add any number of other national bodies of literature that are quite impressive in their own rite:

Italy- Dante, Cavalcanti, Tasso, Boccaccio, Goldini, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Leopardi, Foscolo, Saba, Pavese, Quasimodo, Montale, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, etc...

Greece- Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Thucydides, Hesiod, Sappho, Theocritus, Cavafy, Nikos Kazantzakis, George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis

German- Nibelungenlied, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Grimmelshausen, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis, Kleist, Eichendorf, Heinrich Heine, Georg Büchner, Eduard Mörike, Gottfried Keller, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Kafka, Georg Trakl, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Walter Benjamin, Frank Wedekind, Joseph Roth, Gunter Grass, Boll, Max Frisch, Durrenmatt, Paul Celan, etc...

Persian- Ferdowsi, Sa'di, Hafiz, Attar, Nizami, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, and One Thousand and One Nights

Of course the list of the major Persian... as well as Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, etc... writers that most of us are familiar with is grossly limited to the few works available in quality translation.

Break out the popcorn. Now where's JBI? ;)

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

1. you read my post because you are like a 5 years old who claims to not be talking with his mommy because she give him a few slaps on his butt but does not stop answering her. The threads are filled with you answering when you see it quoted me or leaving one lines about those you ignore. Grow up, kid.

2. Syllgistic logic of your errouneous analogies is one of most pedantics ways to show pretencious knowledge and it is even more ridiculous to think you that managed to show your usual incapacity to read. The analogy is in consideration of ajvenigalla question, which i was answerig, not to you (otherwise I would just point your list of french great literary masters without Rabellais, Voltaire, Monstequieu, Corneille, Pascal, Villon, La Fontaine, Margueritte de navarre, Hugo, Artaud, Troyes, Gallant, Ronsard is telling more about your ignorance about french literature and bias than the ridiculous comparassion of Hugo to stephen king... seriously wtf): do you personally think Hugo is a literary master and one of the greatest of all time?

3. And :The idea to consider him otherwise must be similar to Tolstoy attacking Shakespeare.

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1. I read your post because I knew you would make a ridiculous response to mine...you proved me more than correct. And only a child--and an odd child--could come up with that hiliariously twisted scenario you dreamed up. So, the only one who needs to grow up, kid, is you...and perhaps get some therapy about those spanking fantasies as well...;)

2. Syllogistic logic is what you continue to fail to use in any of your arguments, and you continue to do so here. You absolutely addressed my post, since I was the one who criticized Hugo, not Aveniglia. Your pretending otherwise just makes you look even more foolish. You even read your own posts poorly. And thank you for showing you can't provide evidence supporting your ridiculous assertions about Hugo. We'll just chalk that away as further proof you were wrong.

3. Thank you for repeating your illogical analogy; it just shows again you can't even construct a basic comparison...or much else for that matter.

Got it, kid?


P.s. Since you seem so concerned about education levels, what exactly is yours? I hope you're not ashamed to share it with us.