Which COUNTRY has produced the greatest literature?

[manolia]

Ancient Greek authors without any doubts have heavily influenced modern literature. The modern Greeks have little in common with the Greeks from the times of Homer or Pericles- even the language is completely different.

Well you are correct in the first point. We modern greeks are different in physiognomy from our ancestors. Our history explains why (400 years under Othoman occupation) but you are very much mistaken in the second point. The language is not completely different as you say. True enough it has evolved during the centuries but a greek like me can fully comprehend a text in ancient greek. And if one learns modern greek and then compares it with ancient can actually see where all the words come from. Moreover, ancient greek is taught in schools in greece so that the students get to know their language better.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

I think my vote would go to Russia-esp. 19th century Russian literature-Russia has an enormous variety of authors back then-guess it merely serves to prove Harry Lime's point that political despotism often causes a great degree of cultural development-we have satirists such as Gogol and Chernevskii and Goncharov poets such as Pushkin, short story writers such as Chekov (and Gogol, again) as well as writers of "epics"-whether "short epics" such as Lermontov or "longer epics" such as Tolstoi. And who can forget the great Dostoevskii or Turgenev? 20th century authors such as Nabokov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov also deserve a mention.

Other great countries for literature include Italy (Morante, Moravia, Calvino, Eco, Primo Levi, Manzoni, Svevo, Boccaccio, Petrarch) and France. (Fourniet, Gide, de Beaviour, Sartre, Hugo, Flaubert, de Balzac, Stendahl, Laclos, Camus, Yourcenar, Proust.)

[Lioness_Heart]

Being English, I obviously tend to read more books in my own language tahn any other, but I think that for the last few hundred years, Britain has produced some amazing writers... and... Shakespeare... need I say more?

[somerickguy]

Has anyone mentioned GERMANY yet? Brecht, Goethe, Grass, Hesse, the two Manns (or should that be Menn?), and Nietzsche were no slouches.

Still, I think the good old U.S.A., melting pot of world cultures (including their literary traditions), has produced the best literature in the last 200+ years.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

German literature is good, though in my opinion it lags behind French and Russian literature-however if you included German speaking countries or writers i.e Czech, Austria, then Germany would easily be the equal of French and Russian literature-Musil, Walser, Kafka, Joseph Roth were all non-Germans who wrote in German.

I am not too sure about America's status as the greatest country for literature over the last 200 years-I am not really that big a fan of American literature, being a European in tastes, and with the exception of Faulkner's and Twain's novels, as well as "Catch-22", "The Invisible Man" and "Moby Dick", I can find little in American literature that measures up to Dostoevskii, Kafka, Flaubert, Shakespeare etc. I am not a big fan of other American heavyweights, such as Hemingway, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and Hawthorne, and as de Tocqueville noted, American literature during the 18th and later on the 19th century wasn't great-only three novels from that time period come to mind, "Moby Dick", "The Scarlett Letter" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin", as well as Mark Twain's novels.

[bazarov]

Still, I think the good old U.S.A., melting pot of world cultures (including their literary traditions), has produced the best literature in the last 200+ years.

You're joking, right?

[JBI]

The literature that stuck the most with me is mostly Ancient Greek. Sophocles Euripides, Homer, Aristophones, Aristotle, Sappho, Hesiod, etc.

Then of course, there were some very excellent Latin writers, Ovid, Lucien, Virgil etc.

During the time between Normandy and the 100 years war, I would say French/Provencal were the most diminant in literature. The whole courtly love movement in Provence really saw the birth of some excellent lyric literature.

From there up until Elizabethan times, I would say Italian was very dominant in terms of literature in the western world. There were quite a few formidable poets coming out of Italy around 1300 and all through the renaissance, particularly Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, etc.

After that however, the world sort of shifted in my opinion to a more English.
During the Elizabethan period we saw the birth of a whole new literature; we had poets like Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton writing excellent works. But at the same time, there were also French writers like Moliere and Voltaire about to show their faces.

Now after all that? I would probably say the country that produced the best literature is probably the United Kingdom (specifically England). The quality work that has come out of England during and after the Elizabethan, through the Victorian period, and now into modern times has just been incredible.

France, Russia, Canada, The United States Italy, South America, and India also have some excellent writers, and with the new literary movements happening now may yet be in my opinion "The Country that has produced the greatest literature", but as it is, since most of my reading has been in English, and most of the books I have read that were originally written in English are from the British Isles, I would have to say The United Kingdom.

Note though, that I really didn't talk at all about Eastern literature since I am not very familiar with it. There are of course some excellent works that came out and are coming out of China, Japan, and other eastern countries, but the language barrier prohibited me from reading much into those works.

[EAP]

I am not too sure about America's status as the greatest country for literature over the last 200 years-I am not really that big a fan of American literature, being a European in tastes, and with the exception of Faulkner's and Twain's novels, as well as "Catch-22", "The Invisible Man" and "Moby Dick", I can find little in American literature that measures up to Dostoevskii, Kafka, Flaubert, Shakespeare etc. I am not a big fan of other American heavyweights, such as Hemingway, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and Hawthorne, and as de Tocqueville noted, American literature during the 18th and later on the 19th century wasn't great-only three novels from that time period come to mind, "Moby Dick", "The Scarlett Letter" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin", as well as Mark Twain's novels.

Maybe you ought to read outside the box a bit. Here are fifteen American novels which are easily as good as anything written by the Dostoevsky's, the Kafka's or whatevers of the world and I barely read American novelists to begin with!

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
It - Stephen King
The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
Boys & Girls Together - William Goldman
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Dune - Frank Herbert
Mary and the Giant - Philip K. Dick
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
The Runner - Cynthia Voight

[ennison]

How can anyone answer a question like this except out of ignorance of what has not been read. A lot of the time we are reliant on what others have said about even the small number of texts within the range of the languages in which we are literate. Look at the list of authors available in this site alone. How many of us have personal knowledge of most of them, even of half of them? The fellow Crawford in the list was a famous author in his day but seems to be relatively unknown today - perhaps deservedly.
I don't know much about Indian literature and am totally ignorant about Chinese and these two nations constitute a large proportion of the World's people. I don't think my ignorance is unusual.

[JBI]

Maybe you ought to read outside the box a bit. Here are fifteen American novels which are easily as good as anything written by the Dostoevsky's, the Kafka's or whatevers of the world and I barely read American novelists to begin with!

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
It - Stephen King
The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
Boys & Girls Together - William Goldman
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Dune - Frank Herbert
Mary and the Giant - Philip K. Dick
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
The Runner - Cynthia Voight

George R. R. Martin was English the last time I checked. As for Frank Herbert's Dune, the novel itself was largely influenced by European literature (Including Shakespeare, who I know you loath). Half the books there are boring sci-fi (yes, I know not all sci-fi is bad, but you chose some of the more boring works, and aside from U.K. Leguin, I wouldn't have chosen any of those authors.)

Stephen King's It gets a large scope of reviews. My personal opinion on that novel (and most of King's work) is that he doesn't think before he writes. He wrote is his memoirs that he just writes, and doesn't think over what he is going to write before he begins. That conveniently leads to lame endings, and poor pacing/padding.


And P.S. last time I checked, most of those weren't written in the 19th century.

JBI

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Haven't heard of a lot of those novels to be honest, but to compare Stephen King with Dostoevskii or Kafka is ridiculous in my opinion. I guess such a list is very subjective, but I doubt whether many of those authors anywhere near as influential as many of the European authors listed.

[tantus]

First of all I think it's not distinguishable which nation possesses the most important man of letters.

But what is clearly distinguishable is that this list must have been some kind of ridiculous joke. There are dozens if not hundreds of authors who are highly preferable compared to those mentioned below.

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Storm of Swords - George R. R. Martin
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
It - Stephen King
The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin
Boys & Girls Together - William Goldman
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
Dune - Frank Herbert
Mary and the Giant - Philip K. Dick
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
The Runner - Cynthia Voight

[EAP]

George R. R. Martin was English the last time I checked.

Your check was faulty. Check again, George R. R. Martin is American.

http://www.nndb.com/people/215/000044083/

As for Frank Herbert's Dune, the novel itself was largely influenced by European literature (Including Shakespeare, who I know you loath).

Sources, please. In any case it doesn't matter, Frank Herbert was most definitely an American national, whether his works were influenced by the Shakespeare or The Art of War doesn't matter in this particular context.

Half the books there are boring sci-fi (yes, I know not all sci-fi is bad, but you chose some of the more boring works, and aside from U.K. Leguin, I wouldn't have chosen any of those authors.)

Have you read those books which you term 'boring science fiction?' In case you have than that's fair enough, it's, at least, your educated opinion and I can respect that, in case you haven't though, striking with such broad brushes accomplishes nothing and summarily dismissing something one hasn't even read makes one kinda look like an idiot.

Stephen King's It gets a large scope of reviews. My personal opinion on that novel (and most of King's work) is that he doesn't think before he writes. He wrote is his memoirs that he just writes, and doesn't think over what he is going to write before he begins. That conveniently leads to lame endings, and poor pacing/padding.

It is among the most moving novels I have ever read and a masterpiece of pure storytelling. Stephen King's output varies in quality from sublime to utterly ****e and It, alongside the Dark Tower saga is easily his best work.

And P.S. last time I checked, most of those weren't written in the 19th century.

Yes. Relevence to the thread topic?

Haven't heard of a lot of those novels to be honest, but to compare Stephen King with Dostoevskii or Kafka is ridiculous in my opinion.

Well, that's your opinion. I think even Stephen King himself will agree with you, however I, and several others have derived far more enjoyment out of King's stuff than Kafka or Dostoevski.

I guess such a list is very subjective, but I doubt whether many of those authors anywhere near as influential as many of the European authors listed.

'Influential' is an interesting word. What exactly do you mean by influential? A novel like It, The Shining or Salem's Lot has probably entertained more people the whole canon of someone like Rilke put together. In Salem's Lots' case, it pretty much revived the whole horror genre of its own in the United States. Dune is cited by most people as the premier sci-fi work of its era, Hyperion combines all the qualities of the space opera sub-genre with the edigness and ideas inherent in social science fiction resulting in a story which not only packs a huge emotional punch but is thought provoking as well.

The influence of a book on people's lives can seldom be measured.

Inspiration is a strange thing and is found in the oddest of places - most literature students seem to measure the 'influence' of a book by the number of copycats it has or other literary works which directly ackowledge its influence. IMO, that's a very presumptious and erronous way of doing it.


And seriously, this thread amounts to nothing more than nationalistic wang-waving - naturally, like all controversial issues, it generates more discussions than other, meatier threads.

[EAP]

But what is clearly distinguishable is that this list must have been some kind of ridiculous joke. There are dozens if not hundreds of authors who are highly preferable compared to those mentioned below.

Such as?

[tantus]

Sorry mate, don't want to stay up all night...

What I wanted to say is: I just do not agree mentioning authors like stephen king in one line with Shakespeare, Goethe, Dostoevsky.. etc.