British Literature vs. American Literature

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Originally Posted by McGrain

I really have to dispute this. What is it that makes you so sure that Faulkner is a "greater" novelist than James Joyce? Joyce coined modernism and Ulysses, as a work, seems to single handedly hamstring post-modernism. It's a monstrous work, and although Joyce was not one for saturating his market(!) Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man surely qualify as great works also.

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Fine. That is your opinion. This is my opinion. You don't have to accept it. What makes you such an expert?

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Fine. That is your opinion. This is my opinion. You don't have to accept it. What makes you such an expert?

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I'm not an expert on Faulkner. You certainly seem to be, which is why i asked you to clarify your very firm opinions about him. It's my opinion, as you so rightly point out, that Joyce could be regarded as the greatest novelist of that century, indeed, that Faulkner sprung from Joyce. I've breifly outlined why above.

I certainly didn't mean to upset you, and as it is your right to hold your opinion regarding Faulkner it is your right to ignore the questions i've asked you about that opinion.

If I was asked this question two years ago I would have said British literature 'Hands down', howver, that was before my exposure to writers such as James, Poe, Dickenson, Millay, Hemmingway, Millay, Faulkner, Hughes, Emerson, Fuller and of Course...Whitman. Before them I thought the language of British novels and poems so much more superior to American Literature. After them, I find that American writers have a beauty all of their own. I have come to appreciate American litereature more. As to which is better I find it hard to say for sure, although I am 52% sure I still prefer British Literature.

If I was asked this question two years ago I would have said British literature 'Hands down', howver, that was before my exposure to writers such as James, Poe, Dickenson, Millay, Hemmingway, Millay, Faulkner, Hughes, Emerson, Fuller and of Course...Whitman. Before them I thought the language of British novels and poems so much more superior to American Literature. After them, I find that American writers have a beauty all of their own. I have come to appreciate American litereature more. As to which is better I find it hard to say for sure, although I am 52% sure I still prefer British Literature.

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Originally Posted by PeterL

Both countries have produced great literature. If you want to see which has prodduced more or better literature, then it is partly a mattter of taste, and literature has been produced in Britain for a longer time than the US has had writers.

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Yep. Definitely depends on taste. If you kinda like "Ye Olde English" then Brit's for you, but for a more modern touch one should stick with an All-American approach.:D

I love both British & American Literature but I think I love British Literature better. I just like the way British authors write.:) :) :)

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Originally Posted by illuminatus

Yep. Definitely depends on taste. If you kinda like "Ye Olde English" then Brit's for you, but for a more modern touch one should stick with an All-American approach.:D

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I'm not sure that "Ye Olde English" is the right term to use here. British writing is not all formal and old-fashioned; although there are the great and famous writers like Austen and Shakespeare, modern writers deserve to be recognised too. There is some amazing modern British writing out there at the moment. The American style is different, but it would be unfair to class it as 'more modern'. British writing reflects Britain, which is different from America, but we're not completely out of touch over here! I don't think that either is better or worse: just different.

Virgil;

I certainly can't dispute your thoughts upon 20th century American poetry. There are certain poets from other countries who are unquestionably giants... and some of whom I prefer over almost any American contemporary (Rilke and Montale for example) but as you suggest, in most cases its one or two central figures or top-tier poets. The Germans have Rilke, Paul Celan (OK... he wasn't German, but he wrote almost all that he is known for in German), and maybe Ingebourg Bachmann. The Italians have Eugenio Montale and perhaps Salvatore Quasimodo and Giuseppe Ungaretti. I might acknowledge 3 or four Russian giants: Anna Akhmontova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam, and Boris Pasternak. The French...? Eluard? Valery? Apollonaire? Do any of these attain the first rank? And the Brits: Yeats, Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, Auden, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill... and a great body of smaller (yet still wonderful) poets: Dylan Thomas, Walter de la Mare, Owen, Robert Graves, etc... perhaps the Spanish offer the best competition: Lorca, Antonio Machado, Vincente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, etc... But you are correct about the Americans: T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.C. Williams, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Hart Crane, e.e. cummings, Marianne Moore, Ammons, John Ashberry, Richard Wilbur, Mark Strand, Anthony Hecht, etc...

I'm not certain I'd give the award for greatest novelist to Faulkner... although I wouldn't find him to be a bad choice or one easy to dispute either. Joyce certainly can't be ignored, although for the single epic achievement I think I'd go with Proust. But then... what of Thomas Mann? Or Hardy? Woolf, or Lawrence? I'd also ask you about short stories... or rather about those writers who challenged the accepted forms of literature: Kafka first and foremost... was not the 20th century often referred to as "Kafkaesque"? And what of Beckett, Borges, and Calvino? While the 20th century may have been "The American Century", when it comes to literature it might have just as much been the century of multiculturalism. Several older European cultures produced literary figures of a greatly renewed vigor: Italy (Montale, Landolfi, Ungaretti, calvino, etc...), Greece (Cavafy, Kazantzakis), Portugal (Pessoa and Sarmago), and Spain. We also find the Latin American literature comes of age with Octavio Paz, J.L. Borges, Pablo Neruda, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortazar, Marquez, etc... and we start to discover major new writers in India, Africa, Asia, Australia, etc... perhaps one of the reasons I hate the this country vs that country competition when it comes to the arts is that such competitions often lead to the sort of chauvanism that ignores the very real contributions of other cultures.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

perhaps one of the reasons I hate the this country vs that country competition when it comes to the arts is that such competitions often lead to the sort of chauvanism that ignores the very real contributions of other cultures.

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I agree and I've said so in an earlier post in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I agree and I've said so in an earlier post in this thread.

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I agree. It seems unfair to me to compare the two countries literature this way.

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Originally Posted by Janine

I agree. It seems unfair to me to compare the two countries literature this way.

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What's unfair about it? We are just having some literary fun, comparing two seperate things in a never ending competition, as it will never be resolved.

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Originally Posted by McGrain

Or, many would say, the Greeks. Why don't you start a new thread...Russians v Greeks;) . Bet that one would have some legs!

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Russia v. France, Dostoyevski on Dumas, Tolstoy against Hugo. This weekend at Madison Square Garden.

Someboyd may have pointed this out already, I would just like to put in that T.S. Eliot is way cooler than George Eliot. But then T.S. wrote his best stuff while living in London.

I am a huge fan of British literature! Of course I love American literature, but I enjoy British literature so much, because I think modern and "classic" authors(Austen, Dickens, Bronte, and their contemporaries and earlier authors, i.e. Shakespeare, Caucer,etc.) from England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland(the UK) are definitely more culturally and mechanically aware of the usage of English language, as it was intended to originally be spoken("the King's English"). I believe many Americans (especially myself, judging by my terrible grammar and syntax) have butchered the English language, which obviously originated in England! Sorry to ramble and rant. Please reply.

America's greastest contenders were trained by the British, but I believe the pupils have succeeded their teachers.

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Originally Posted by Brendan Madley

Ha, Ha. You're joking right. In the public consciousness and for very good reason, Poe, Steinbeck and Irving or any other American author DOES NOT compare to people like: Doyle, DICKENS, Eliot, Archer, Trollope, Hardy, Byron, etc. Please note that I have used British authors that have lived only since the independence of America; I have done so to prove that no American alive ever, which technically speaking is since 1776, can come close to that thank you, which quite throws your "The British Isles has been around longer" off completley now as America had no response to Victorian writers. They, as a select group of Britain's literature history, far surpass anything America had or has today. Thank you.

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I know I'm commenting on an old post, but the above quote seems to be a bit ridiculous.

How many people here have read "Moby-Dick". The forward of the first edition of the Novel I owned was written by one of the world's foremost literary critics. He called the book, "the best novel of the English Language", and I would have to agree. furthermore, it looks like no one is taking poetry into account here. American poets have been far more innovative and influential than British poets since Whitman and Dickinson. Indeed, an entire movement "The Revival Movement" in 1960's Britain was dedicated to trying to reinvigorate British poetry by looking across the Atlantic to the American Poets.

All this is not to say that American Literature is better than British or visa versa, but that we are missing large swaths of information that should be filled in before we make bold statements in either direction.

First it must be noted that the era that gave us Dracula, The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and Trilby in England is the era in America that gave us The Awakening, Pudd'nhead Wilson, Huck Finn, Mcteague, Maggie, and Sister Carrie. I bring up this era because I believe it was when the Americans were beginning to catch up with the British. I think the early works of Norris and Crane were trying to break out of the rut of innocence that American Literature was caught in, and their works lacked subtlety a little bit, but I'd like to think that if either had lived to be sixty (instead of 30 and 32) they would have been among the best authors in the world. Sherwood Anderson, our closest equivalent to a D.H. Lawrence I think did a few things better than Lawrence. His characters, as creations impress me a bit more than Lawrence's. I have a lot of admiration for Sinclair Lewis's novels, especially Elmer Gantry, but as far as I know we didn't have anyone in America doing that kind of work in the mind-nineteenth century when Thackeray was going strong in England.