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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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by ajvenigalla
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...;)Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
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)
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pike Bishop
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? ;)
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...;)Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
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.
I quoted Ajvenigalla post, not yours. I had no reason to answer you, as you claimed in a handful of threads you had me in your ignore list and would be unable to read me. And frankly what worth is to deal in an argument that says Victor Hugo is like Stephen King? It is so ridiculous that it is not worth. You may believe your belly button is the center of the universe, but at the moment you claimed you had me on ignore, I declined to address to you, despite the fact you still address to my posts or to me (with childish "they are in my ignore list, but they keep following me", as if you owned threads or the forum). You call fantasy? Sure, Pike, watever suits your boat.
I cannot sustain the claim about Hugo Status? What about Harold Bloom in the book Poets and poems, calls Hugo the greatest french poet ever? Paul Valéry that claims Hugo achived the highest point of poetical power? Borges who said Hugo was the best french poet? Do I need anyother company or do someone needs anyone else to help me to live in the world where Hugo status is considerable huge? Ah, ok.
Yes, really comparing someone to say Hugo is not one of the greatest ever of all times is bad analogy to tolstoy saying Shakespeare was not one of the greatest ever. They cannot be compared. Really. Very illogical. I am impressed. Really.
And where do I even mention about educational levels? I talk about your display of knowledge and the desperate use of academic therminology to disguise narrow-minded view of world literature and you want to come with degree gloating again? For god's sake Pike, this is an internet forum, your degree, my degree, have no vallue here. It is only about what you post.
A huge list of chinese writers, but of course, someone must bring the list of Roman writers, after all latim still the most dominant language of western literature. Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, Suetonios, Pliny, Seneca, Catullus, Petronio, Lucan, Juvenal, Apulleio (and however i forgot here) and this only in the early empire days...Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Well, you've completely lost it on this thread. So, I'll address your barely coherent "responses" incisively and succinctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
1. I was the only one who criticized Hugo. So, either your post defending Hugo addressed mine, or you were responding like a madman. I'm good with either. And I never compared King to Hugo in quality; I said they shared the same talent. I'm not surprised that went by you. And stop fantasizing about me; it is really disturbing and doesn't speak well of your mental state.
2. No, you can't sustain your claim about Hugo and you still haven't. Harold Bloom is one critc, kid. The fact all you have is him and Valery proves you have nothing and your assertion about Hugo is wrong.
3. Again you don't grasp the silliness and bad logic of your analogy. You said my preferring other poets to Hugo was like Tolstoy attacking Shakespeare. Here's a hint, big guy, I wasn't attacking anybody, and Tolstoy wouldn't be attacking anyone either. So, your analogy was so fractured it was almost adorable...;)
4. You talked about knowledge levels, and education is a big part of knowledge. And I didn't gloat about anything of mine, I asked about yours. And it's clear from your answers--as it is clear from your illogical, ignorant answers and hostile frustration--that your education and knowledge levels are very low.
So, you and I are done here, kid. And you are most certainly done, since everything you said has been proven wrong and humorous. So, I'm putting you back in time out and back on ignore until I see fit to look at one of your posts again. I assure you, I am hardly looking forward to it...;)
Hugo's status as a great poet and dramatist above his work as a novelist in France is my understanding as well. I have heard it said by French posters on this board that he is held in greater esteem than Baudelaire, I believe primarily for his epic The Legend of the Ages, which sadly I have not read. However, I have read Les Miserables and I personally feel it is a better book than Tolstoy's War and Peace. I wouldn't say that Hugo was surpassed by Flaubert and Balzac so much as I'd say that their shorter novels were more focused and had fewer flaws, as shorter novels tend to do. In fact, when I read Hugo's Les Miserables it looked like he was trying to synthesize Balzac and Dickens with some of the Romantic flavor of Flaubert thrown in. The revolutionary struggle bore a strong resemblance to Dicken's Tale of Two Cities, and the ending felt like Hugo's version of Balzac's Father Goriot. But the overall structure I felt was Dante's Divine Comedy, the progression of a sinner to a saint. Plus, the man just had fantastic style. You wanted to read the next page or chapter. It was always a pleasure that paced itself well and didn't drag. In that respect, I suppose it was kind of like Dumas' Three Musketeers. There was so much incident, a real storehouse of invention, seldom equaled except by Lope De Vega, Shakespeare, or Ariosto.
There are a couple of ways to compare different countries' production. We could write the countries names out and then list their great writers. Another way, which I did several years ago when this thread was young is to place the great epics, novels, tragedies, comedies or other genres side by side. But the one I'd favor at the present time is one that takes into account the manner in which empires wax and wane. The center of power shifts, and a country once great for it's literary output is great no more. I think of successive golden ages: the Greeks, then the Romans, Italians during the Renaissance, British during Elizabethan times, the French during Louis XIV, etc. They are hothouse flowers flourishing at different hours.
I have no idea how Hugo was surpassed by Balzac, Proust or Flaubert, unless someone will only read literature as a darwinian struggle. So the newest author will be always surpassing others? It is no wonder that french culture, which by tradition refrain from crowning a national author, almost did it with Hugo. He has a great french mix, popular and at sametimes a bit classicist (as much he was building an anti-classicist model), a sort of disnasty that had to leave the city, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Obviously, that is the strength of France and weakness when you compare those lists: they have lots of kings, probally more than england, spain, germany, italy, in all genres, yet, it is hard to say someone Shakespeare-Cervantes-Goethe-Dante level/reputation.
Anyways, forget the dude. Last reply to me he managed to misquote twice (as claiming I said he compared King and Hugo by quality, when i just said he compared them; and other, funny enough, he misquoted himself, when he was claimming about his comparassion between hugos and other poets, while he mentioned novelists balac, flaubert and proust and I was the one mentioning Baudelaire and Rimbaud) to have his "victory". It is really not worthy. JBI would go nuts arguing with him.