Lit Net Top Author?

1. Shakespeare
2. Dickens
3. Dostoevsky
4. Poe
5. Steinbeck

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Nevertheless... I questioned your pick of Leopardi knowing your current and recent fascination with him because it would seem one might easily argue that he is but one of any number of Romantic/Post-Romantic lyric poets any one of which (including Shelley, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Holderlin, Heine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Whitman, Dickinson, Tennyson, Rilke, Garcia-Lorca, etc...) may be marvelous (at times), and any one of which might arguably be put forth as a favorite... but on par with Shakespeare or Homer? Doubtful. I could probably argue that Blake is something larger than a mere lyric poet... but your point is fair. I should most probably have gone with Goethe... but I didn't think of him, for some reason, at the time.

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I'll be very disappointed if Goethe does not make the list. He's better than Leopardi. I don't think there's much doubt about that. But he's a little like Virgil or Milton: easy to appreciate and difficult to actually enjoy. So far, it looks like Nietzsche, a philosopher, is going to garner more votes than any of the former trio. Considering how much JBI claims to love Eugene Onegin I'm surprised he didn't float Pushkin for inclusion in the pantheon of great poets who are underrepresented.

Dostoevsky
Proust
Shakespeare
Tolstoy
Joyce

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

I'll be very disappointed if Goethe does not make the list. He's better than Leopardi. I don't think there's much doubt about that. But he's a little like Virgil or Milton: easy to appreciate and difficult to actually enjoy. So far, it looks like Nietzsche, a philosopher, is going to garner more votes than any of the former trio. Considering how much JBI claims to love Eugene Onegin I'm surprised he didn't float Pushkin for inclusion in the pantheon of great poets who are underrepresented.

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I was torn between Pushkin and Jane Austen in truth, I had him in my original list, but I doubted again he would get another vote, being what these boards are - people here seem to be able to appreciate derivative work that builds off of Pushkin, but not Pushkin himself for some reason. In truth, I felt my list needed a little more prose in it, so I put Austen over Pushkin, and Eliot over Pushkin was perhaps a mistake, but I've been reading Eliot non-stop for the past two months, reading the Quartets about once a day, and I couldn't shake him out of my head.

If the list was ten people, I probably would have added Pushkin, would definately have added Baudelaire, Zola, maybe Flaubert, maybe Virginia Woolf, maybe Faulkner, but really 5 and even 10 is very hard to negotiate. Goethe though, I find doesn't really give me what he gives others - perhaps it's the translations, but I suspect it is my modern and postmodern perspective cutting in at his classical fascination.

Angela Carter
Paul Auster
Haruki Murakami
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Halldor Laxness

and 2 of those are still alive!

oh, Fifth, Halldor Laxness is incomparable, he is also one of my top five.

1. Dostoevsky
2. Shakespeare
3. Beckett
4. Tolstoy
5. Proust

Now Dostoevsky's most formidable rivals come together in my list: Tolstoy and Shakespeare. Let's see where it leads to.

Great thread! And Goethe makes my list. I'll put him first, although really these aren't ranked in order of preference. I'd be changing the order every few days.

1. Goethe
2. Dostoevsky
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Tagore
5. John Dickson Carr

Hardy seems to be making these lists quite a lot, I have a lot of time for Hardy especially with the likes of Jude and Tess, but for me his earlier works didn’t come close to this level of intensity, he's not consistant enough. I would personally choose Austen over Hardy for British prose due to her tight consistently across all of her works including Northanger Abbey. There would be several others to make the list before Hardy in British prose too I would put in Woolf, Emily Bronte, on the strength of one novel alone, perhaps Lawrence and maybe even my old friend Wilde. There maybe a case for Hardy in the top 25, maybe, but not in the top 5 surely?

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

In no order...

1- F Scott Fitzgerald
2- Tennessee Williams
2- Charles Dickens
3- Franz Kafka
4- Ambrose Bierce
5- Jane Austen

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Originally Posted by Thespian1975

No cheating now ;)

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kelby_lake; that's six authors, you have Dickens and Williams both on 2nd place :D

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

You know, it is just for fun, you needn't take everything so deathly seriously. If you are so against lists you needn't partake, but no need to be a humbug on everyone else for having a little fun.

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Exactly!

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Originally Posted by andave_ya

1. J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Can I come up with my other three later?

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Yes, of course.

1. Goethe
2. Hugo
3. Tolkien
4. Moliere
5. Shakespeare

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Originally Posted by Riesa

oh, Fifth, Halldor Laxness is incomparable, he is also one of my top five.

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There is something about his work isn't there? I've only read one, The Atom Station and will read more, but I already am sure that he's one of my favourites.

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Originally Posted by Thespian1975

I meant you chose 6 authors.

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Whoops :blush: I'll go back and change it!

EDIT:
In no order...

1- F Scott Fitzgerald
2- Tennessee Williams
3- Charles Dickens
4- Franz Kafka
5- Vladimir Nabokov (sorry Austen!)

Without thinking about it too much, my favourite authors in alphabetical order-

1. Austen

2. Bronte (Charlotte)

3. Dickens

4. Tolstoy (Though I've read only two of his works)

5. Shakespeare

Okay, here's my top 5:

Selimović
Krleža
Kafka
Pushkin
Dostoevsky

If I had one more space available, it'd probably go to Danilo Kiš.

In no Order
1. Dickens.
2. Franz Kafka .
3. Albert Camus.
4. Joseph Conrad. (talent vastly under appreciated)
5. Dostoevsky.

JRR Tolkien
Virginia Woolf
Sylvia Plath
Ernest Hemingway
Anne Sexton

but a few of my favorites...

My list:

Dostoevsky
Hesse
Wilde
Dickens
Shakespeare

Dang, its hard to chose!

Let's see...

1. Nabokov
2. Fowles
3. Marquez
4. Caragiale (to add some of my own culture's flavour)
5. Sienkiewicz (for good memories)

Dostoevsky
Pushkin
Shakespeare
Nabokov
Hugo

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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Indeed! :D

There is a serious lack of Modern writers in here!

William Butler Yeats
John Millington Synge
Elizabeth Gaskell
Eoin Colfer (because i think he is a great kids writer!!!)
Douglas Adams

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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Having grown up in the Ayn Rand ( :sick: ) era, I never thought I would live to see the day ( :thumbs_up )


While I do love these list threads , this one has gotten a bit vague and sloppy, as the OP didn't really make it clear. Half are posting their current "flavor of the day" favorite authors, and some are posting who in there humble (or not so humble ;) ) opinions are the top five authors....

Ohwell, I'll play too..

Who I think? feel? TODAY are the 5 BEST Authors, not necessarily my FAVORITE :D :

Above Category: Shakespeare
2. Dostoevsky
3. Beckett
4. Kafka
5. Elliot

You see, Dante is not in there, as I have not read him YET, Cervantes is not in there I have'nt read Don Quixote in 30 yrs (and have little memory of it)
and he probably should be....


TOMORROW:
1 Shakespeare
2. Dostoevsky
3. Beckett
4. ?
5. ?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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Well then we're making progress, it seems, since those two are incomparable.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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I don't know how pervasive the Ayn Rand love used to be, but I'm a freshman in college and it seems everyone I know has two unfortunate copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead sitting in their dorm room bookshelves (who knows how many have actually read it--often times the book is only within a few feet of an Obama poster), while only a few read Dostoevsky. Still, if what you say is the case, Dostoevskian fanboyism is undeniably an improvement over the Ayn Rand cult.

#1 (Bazarov won't need me to fill this one in.)

#2 Aesop

#3 Jonathan Swift

#4 Ben Elton

#5 Tom Sharpe

No order.

Hemingway
Steinbeck
Orwell
Fitzgerald
Dostoyevsky

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

It seems as if Dostoevsky has become the Ayn Rand of the current era... the cult figure for teens and twenty-somethings.:D

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I agree with that, luke...I often wonder though if they're actually reading them given the length factor. What Rand had going for her is the number of small books that summarize her big ones. :D

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

#1 (Bazarov won't need me to fill this one in.)

#2 Aesop

#3 Jonathan Swift

#4 Ben Elton

#5 Tom Sharpe

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Ben Elton? Tom Sharpe? You are joking, yes? Ben Elton above Shakespeare?

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Originally Posted by Neely

Ben Elton? Tom Sharpe? You are joking, yes? Ben Elton above Shakespeare?

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No, I am certainly not joking.

Shakespeare is overrated.

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Originally Posted by limajean

Shakespeare is overrated.

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:eek:

Take it back!

No way. Half the people I talk to about Shakespeare these days don't even know why they like him. They only do because they're expected to.

Shakespeare is overrated.

Yeah... an Mozart sucks too.:rolleyes:

Give me a break.

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Originally Posted by limajean

No way. Half the people I talk to about Shakespeare these days don't even know why they like him. They only do because they're expected to.

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Oh, I see. 99% of the people I talk to about Shakespeare call me a freakin' nerd.

And then they laugh when a character says, "What's the matter, ho?" As if it was Shakespeare in da hood.

Half the people I talk to about Shakespeare these days don't even know why they like him. They only do because they're expected to.

Limajean, you're 17. Half the people you talk to probably haven't read Shakespeare... except when it was required for school.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Half the people I talk to about Shakespeare these days don't even know why they like him. They only do because they're expected to.

Limajean, you're 17. Half the people you talk to probably haven't read Shakespeare... except when it was required for school.

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Such is my experience. :(

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Half the people I talk to about Shakespeare these days don't even know why they like him. They only do because they're expected to.

Limajean, you're 17. Half the people you talk to probably haven't read Shakespeare... except when it was required for school.

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What does 17 have to do with it - the majority of people don't read literary (and I use the term loosely) books. For instance, my mother has only read 4 Shakespeare plays, most of which at school in her teenage years, and my father hasn't read any in English.

Certainly you are correct in that few people... even as adults... ever develop a serious love of literature... and put forth the effort demanded to attain something of a expertise in the field that would make their opinions worthy of consideration. Of course the percentage of those with more than a rudimentary degree of experience in literature while still in their teen years is certainly even smaller. Of course there was Rimbaud... Keats... DeQuincey... Milton... and perhaps even yourself, JBI. But such are great exceptions, are they not?