British Literature vs. American Literature

[McGrain]

Regarding "British literature" and what it includes (whether to include chaucer, shakespeare etc) I think it would be best to use the term "Literature from the British Isles" instead.

Yeah, I will go for that. I'd also like to add that it's very, very difficult to claim a lot of the modern greats solely for Britain - the big example is Rushdie. Can you be absolutley convinced that he doesn't come in under "eastern"? Especially his newest one, "Shalimar The Clown" (exellent), reeks of east.

It should also be said that American work has probably overhauled Literature From The British Isles in one area, weird literature. As is mentioned above, UK has no Poe and Lovecraft is probably that great man's equal. On a long enough time scale US probably catches UK in many areas. However, and i'm sorry to harp on, what about Shakespeare? I really don't want to ram it down anyone's throat, but if you line up American literature's greatest, say, 12 works, he probably has them matched on his own. No?

[Virgil]

I defintely agree that British literature overpowers American lit. I have taken courses in both literatures and British is FAR more interesting and in depths than American literature. There is no American Shakespeare, Austen, or Bronte..period.

Well, did you consider that the US is only a little more than two hundred years old? Frankly if you want to just focus on one century, the 20th century, I think the US stacks up quite well. William Faulkner is the greatest novelist of the century and T.S. Eliot is definetely the most important poet of the century.

But I can't stand this my literature is better than your literature attitude by anyone. Look at how many fine works are coming today from India and other places not in the US or Britain. It all strikes me as childish.

Of course I am the old man here.

[Scheherazade]

Well, did you consider that the US is only a little more than two hundred years old?

Of course, it is also possible to argue that American Literature has the same origin as the British Literature (common language) but later on branched out as a different entity.

Of course I am the old man here.

Ah, there comes the acceptance!

[McGrain]

Well, did you consider that the US is only a little more than two hundred years old? Frankly if you want to just focus on one century, the 20th century, I think the US stacks up quite well. William Faulkner is the greatest novelist of the century and T.S. Eliot is definetely the most important poet of the century.

I agree with all of this APART from your remark about Faulkner. I would say that Rushdie and Greene both measure up quite smartly to your man.

[Virgil]

Of course, it is also possible to argue that American Literature has the same origin as the British Literature (common language) but later on branched out as a different entity.

Oh that's for sure Scher. My point was that British lit can go further back with more writers.

[aeroport]

There has never been a British Steinbeck, Poe and Irving, too.

Or James!!

[Niamh]

Both countries literature is great in itself. Both have their differences which is possibly influenced by their different lifestyles etc. Because of this i think it is very hard to decide which is better as both are great in their own way. I also dont think it is right to say one is better than the other. All literature is great literature.

Kilted, "literature of the british isles". I see where you are coming from.

[Virgil]

Or James!!

How do we count James? He lived a good deal of his life in England and ultimately got a British/English (? don't know how that works) citizenship.

His works strike me as American, though

[ennison]

'Regarding "British literature" and what it includes (whether to include chaucer, shakespeare etc) I think it would be best to use the term "Literature from the British Isles" instead. I know this may seem pedantic but it is a more fitting term.'
I agree but then we would see that as the best definition, you and I.
Chaucer Shakespeare et al are English - not British (however you define it) and the latter was definitely a 100% English nationalist.... not as mad and bad as Spenser though.
Dunbar who wrote also in English was Scottish and though he is one of the foremost Scots makars he is nowhere near as good as about twenty other Scottish poets who did not use English at all.
The rather happy note about English literature written by the English is that despite the huge dumbing down of England's culture there are still excellent English writers and the unhappy note for Scotland is that outside of Massie and one or two others the majority of modern Scottish writers are freak show exhibitionists.

[kilted exile]

I agree but then we would see that as the best definition, you and I.
Chaucer Shakespeare et al are English - not British (however you define it) and the latter was definitely a 100% English nationalist.... not as mad and bad as Spenser though.
Dunbar who wrote also in English was Scottish and though he is one of the foremost Scots makars he is nowhere near as good as about twenty other Scottish poets who did not use English at all.
The rather happy note about English literature written by the English is that despite the huge dumbing down of England's culture there are still excellent English writers and the unhappy note for Scotland is that outside of Massie and one or two others the majority of modern Scottish writers are freak show exhibitionists.

Quite, and on a related note a poem by a guy named shug (Hugh MacDairmid)

My Quarrel with England

And let me pit in guid set terms
My quarrel wi' th' owre sonsy rose,
That roond about its devotees
A fair fat cast o' aureole throws
That blinds them in its mirlygoes,
To the necessity o' foes.

Upon their King and System I
Glower as on things that whiles in pairt
I may admire (at least for them),
But wi' nae claim upon my hert,
While a' their pleasure and their pride
Ootside me lies - and there maun bide.

Ootside me lies - and mair than that,
For I stand still for forces which
Were subjugated to mak' way
For England's poo'er, and to enrich
The kinds o' English, and o' Scots,
The lesat congenial to my thoughts.

Hauf his soul a Scot maun use
Indulgin' in illusions,
And hauf in gettin' rid o' them
And comin' to conclusions
Wi' the demoralising dearth
O' onything worth while on Earth....

From A drunk Man Looks on the Thistle 1926

[Brendan Madley]

There has never been a British Steinbeck, Poe and Irving, too. I personally can't seem to decide whether I find American Literature better or British Literature attracts me more, but I think that calling British Literature "far more interesting than American Literature" is something I would not feel comfortable to say with all great American writers around. Anyway, that's a matter of opinions.

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.

And I would like to state that, yes, I mean by Britain the British Isles, and I hope I am not offending any Irishmen. From now on please regard the "Britain" of the thread title as the British Isles, which were collectively Britain once anyway.

[aeroport]

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. ...
no American alive ever, which technically speaking is since 1776, can come close to that thank you,

Well, um, I hate to be redundant here, but actually yes, James can, and does, and is quite possibly, as such things go, "greater" than any author you've hitherto mentioned. He's obviously somewhat exceptional for the country, both for his genius alone and for his prolificity. But he counts, and he counts for a great deal. Certainly he was influenced a great deal by the Victorian authors, but no one before could have done what he did. Of course, we are also omitting a whole host of other American writers: Dickenson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Bishop, Frost, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Thomas Wolfe, Sylvia Plath, William Dean Howells, Ezra Pound, Thomas Pynchon, Walt Whitman, Nabokov, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, etc., etc... Hugely important many of these were.

EDIT
I think I probably made "prolificity" up. Not seeing it in my pocket dictionary. Sorry.

[McGrain]

If we're including Ireland, what about James Joyce? He's the one isn't he? I know he's not as fashionable since "post post-modernism" (!), but he was surely the most influencial of them all, a proper monster.

Getting far to into this for my own good.

[Pensive]

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.

First of all, I don't agree with what you have said over here. I think that American Literature is fairly popular as well, even in public opinion. As Jamesian has mentioned above that there is a great deal of good American writers who can compete all these British writers you have mentioned. I don't want to offend, but your over the top, fanboyish, head-in-the-mud obstinate defense of the phrase that "American writers can not be compared to British writers in a matter of quality" is making this thread look like a joke.

And anyway, your post in the above of this thread asks our opinions. Why start a thread when you can't bear other people's opinions?

Which has provided great work? Britain: Shakespeare, Dickens, Doyle, Eliot, Hardy etc. or The United States: Steinbeck, Twain, Melville, Fitzgerald etc. I know many will say British and so would I, but I want to hear your opinions.

We don't have ramble on about how Shakespeare has been the best writer ever because the critics say so. We don't have to go on talking about how much good Hardy's works were, because three people out of four said so. Public opinion does matter, and even though I stick to the fact that American Literature is quite popular in the public (the popularity of its grammar also indicates that), but still I think that we do not have to base our opinion on the opinion of others and this is what you want us to do probably.

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.

Please, don't accuse me of things I have not even mentioned in any of my posts.

[manolia]

Well, did you consider that the US is only a little more than two hundred years old? Frankly if you want to just focus on one century, the 20th century, I think the US stacks up quite well. William Faulkner is the greatest novelist of the century and T.S. Eliot is definetely the most important poet of the century.

But I can't stand this my literature is better than your literature attitude by anyone. Look at how many fine works are coming today from India and other places not in the US or Britain. It all strikes me as childish.

Of course I am the old man here.

I agree. Why should we compare literature. Wherever there are human beings
there is good literature and artistic creation. Besides if you insist to compare them you can't because it is pointless to compare dissimilar things (meaning that every nation has its way to express itself-or even better every individual has a different way to express himself not to mention grand personages like Poe or Dickens) Moreover some of the authors mentioned here have lived in different eras and write about different genres of literature. I like both american and british literature. They have contributeted greatly in the advance of human intellect.