The most overrated writer is Lord Byron
The most overrated writer is Lord Byron
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
Originally Posted by Anymodal
Come on, Wordsworth is more overrated than Byron.
Never heard about him, but he seems to have a similar profile than Bryon
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
I'll put my vote in for Dickens, and judging from this site alone, Orwell.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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Someone should make a poll with the most popular overrated writers :P
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
The term overrated is just so, well, dumb. All it means when someone says an author is overrated, and especially when it comes to tried and true greats like Wordsworth and Byron, is that that person doesn't like that writer, and rather than accept that their opinion isn't necessarily the sole determiner of artistic worth in the universe, that author is therefore "overrated." It's quite childish, really.
Not to mention that the variable of "overrated" makes no empirical sense. How could this be determined, outside of "my favourite author can beat up your favourite."
I disagree. I'd like to point out that you are assuming that Bryon is a true great, and thats precisely what the debate is about.
Now, of course that in the bottom line there are nothing but opinions, there are no real absolute values. There is no absolute way to put The Illiad above some crapy best seller from last year.
But we live in a society and we set our artificial values so that we can compare our views in a reference frame. That's why we state that Homer is better than Paulo Cohelo (that would we childish too, extending your argument). Hence we can also argue that a writer is worse than another, but of course we should keep in mind that that is valid for a given system of values.
There is a lot of marketing around Lord Byron (old marketing). It has to do with the fact that he was a peculiar character himself, and that he was english, etc. If Lord Byron was from Bolivia and was named Cacho and european academics had the chance to read his literature they would have never put it in the canon of the "important poets". Don't get me wrong, I like him. He is good and I enjoyed The coirsair. But he is, I repeat, very much overrated.
I do agree that is ultimately true, though. You are right, it can't really be determined outside of our favoritisms. But it doesn't prevent us to establish variables for the sake of a discussion.
Last edited by Anymodal; 09-05-2012 at 01:15 AM.
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
I'd say the complete opposite is true. European academia is infected with a politically correct loathing of the dead white European male. Universities and college champion non-white, non-European writers and often exaggerate the quality of their work. If a Bolivian Byron appeared today he'd get far more interest and praise from the self-hating white Europeans than a white, aristocratic writer from England. If you are an African immigrant and you write a mediocre novel about all the racism you've suffered you are FAR more likely to be published and praised in London or Paris than if you are white and middle class and write a superb novel about being a white European.
Hm, i am not particularly fond of english literature (although some of my favorite writers wrote in English...) so i would say that many english writers appear to me to be overrated. Jane Austen i find to be an abysmal writer for example. The tone, the plots, everything bore me to death and i am glad i won't ever have to read anything by her again.
Hobbes is another english writer (non-fiction) that is BORING (and wrong).
Of French writers maybe Camus, not that i think he is a bad writer, but he seems to be hailed as one of the best, and i don't agree there. I recall how tiresome The Plague seemed to me, although i read it many many years ago. I tried to re-read the Stranger recently, but gave up since it seemed trivial.
I don't assume he is a true great. I recognize that he's seen as a true great by such a large community, be it academic or otherwise, that my sole opinion counts for little to nothing, just as your claim of him being overrated does. Your statement of him being overrated goes beyond a simple "I'm not a huge fan of his" (which is all you're really saying) to "I have a better understanding of his poetry than the academic community and the centuries long analysis that has been done of his poetry and have come to the irrefutable conclusion that everyone else is wrong and he was a bad poet." Without offering any evidence, no less. Now, maybe you do have a book in the works that will shake up the whole Byron community and turn it on its head. Until then, though, your claim of Byron being overrated is nothing more than another person who overvalues his/her own opinion.
And there are plenty of ways to put The Iliad above contemporary, bad fiction. That's what the whole of literary analysis does. Not to mention it's historical value--you think that a thousands year old tale that is still read and relevant adds nothing to its objective worth?
This is just hypothetical conjecture. The same could be said for Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, etc. So if an author was born in a different place and therefore under different circumstances his work may be received in different ways? Well, duh. I don't see what the point is.There is a lot of marketing around Lord Byron (old marketing). It has to do with the fact that he was a peculiar character himself, and that he was english, etc. If Lord Byron was from Bolivia and was named Cacho and european academics had the chance to read his literature they would have never put it in the canon of the "important poets".
Byron's influence goes much further than the stories he wrote. So, he is probably a true great. Many anongst those deemed 'great' have not had such influence. Whether you like his weird way of feeling above the rest (literally in some cases) or not, you just can't say he's overrated. And I am sure, characterisation is not the only thing he was great at.
Even when he was alive, he was the first case of celebrity mania. Diana-esque.
I would say Virginia Woolf is overrated because it's very hard to read her novel, but then I probably don't like Modernism.
Never heard of Wordsworth... I suppose there's always a first.
Indeed, there are only opinions in this world, but some opinions are more founded than others.
Wordsworth and Byron are not
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Many people begin with the assumption that art is utterly subjective. It is not, aesthetics are universal, and whilst they contain subjectivity, there is an objective base. What is truly beautiful is truly beautiful in every culture. There are many things which regardless of culture or race, are universally deemed to be beautiful by mankind. Art, Literature, Music is not that subjective - what is subjective is ones own level of understanding. If a Man has never read a poem in his life and one were to give him the Iliad, would anyone be surprised that he might not enjoy it and think it dull? On the other hand a man versed in European literature, would have a hard time not recognizing the beauty in the Iliad. If a man does not know how to multiply and divide, is it any surprise that he thinks algebra useless? aesthetics and their universality are most often limited by the subjectiveness ,in terms of narrow education and context, of the individual. Which is why when a high-school student says Shakespeare sucks, Eminem is real poetry, no one takes him seriously, because contrary to new-age belief, subjectivism when it comes to the art is not a virtue but a fault which prevents us from appreciating the universal aesthetic. Being an individual apart from the crowd tends to be more indicatory about narrowness than of ones rebellious spirit in such cases.
That is not to say one does not have preferences, as St.Lukes always says, he does not enjoy Joyce, but nonetheless he can see the beauty and genius behind his work, it just so happens that stylistically it does not mingle as well with him as others such as Proust or Mann. But there is a huge difference between appreciating the aesthetics of a piece and realizing that you have objections to the particulars, and not being able to see the aesthetics because of the mask of ignorance upon ones face which is vainly worn with much pride as a symbol of some rebellious nature which only the wearer see's.
Last edited by Alexander III; 09-05-2012 at 11:39 AM.
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