Which COUNTRY has produced the greatest literature?

[JBI]

Huh... almost every European country didn't take definite shape until the end of WW2... that doesn't mean the country didn't exist...

So basically you are trying to say that Goethe wasn't German? I think that tu t'es mis les pieds dans les plats.



Ok, so what would you call a polish-writing author under Russian or German occupation? I personally would call him a Polish author. And how do you call an Ukrainian author when Ukraine was part of Russia, and wrote in Russian? I call him a Russian author. Had he written in Ukrainian, I would have called him an Ukrainian author. It is a matter of language and culture, not a matter of where the boundary is set by the politics of the time.

Isn't Nabokov an American writer when he wrote in English in America? When Joyce wrote all across Europe - but not in Ireland - wasn't he still not a Irish author? It all comes down to language and culture.



We're talking about a colony here, which is something completely different.

I'm unsure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing here. You just prove my point that you cannot go by country, since countries didn't take definite shapes until later. If Germany didn't exist in Goethe's time, and the German culture wasn't the same when he lived, as it was in 1871, and we are unsure of whether he would have approved of it or not (seeing as that sort of answer is impossible), than how can we label him as such.

The way I see it, we can only categorize him based on his movement. Thereby, we can compare movements, his being Weimar Classicism, and Shakespeare's being the English Renaissance. Otherwise we won't ever agree.

Either way it is pointless; as stated above, this thread makes no real sense, seeing as these authors didn't even categorize themselves as such.

[Etienne]

I'm unsure whether we are agreeing or disagreeing here. You just prove my point that you cannot go by country, since countries didn't take definite shapes until later. If Germany didn't exist in Goethe's time, and the German culture wasn't the same when he lived, as it was in 1871, and we are unsure of whether he would have approved of it or not (seeing as that sort of answer is impossible), than how can we label him as such.

Germany DID exist in Goethe's time, that's what you don't understand. You keep bringing that 1871 and talk about a "definitive" shape, which is completely unrelated, and which was not definitive at all, just like England's shape was not definitive in Shakespeare time, and like Russia's shape was not (and far from it) definitive in the times of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Basically, your argument makes no sense. 1871 was only the unification, or reunification of German "states", unification that existed before 1814 under the name of Holy Roman Empire, as an official name, but still Germany - what's in a name?

[JBI]

By your logic, what nationality does Gogol fit into?

[AwayAloneAlast]

Of course that is, by your own admission, personal preference. I would not be so quick to discount the British/English contributions to prose: Robert Burton, Samuel Richardson, Daniel DeFoe, Lawrence Sterne, Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, James Boswell, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Walter Pater, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Samuel Beckett, etc... Certainly Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and even Checkov are towering figures that may not have been surpassed by any single contribution of prose in English (which is debatable) but to ignore the wealth of the British contribution as a result would not be unlike suggesting that the Spanish contribution to Modernism in art outweighs that of the French on the basis of the fact that no single French Modernist surpasses Picasso.

I gotta admit I'm not much of a fan of those guys you listed. Dr. Johnson is awesome, I'll give you that, as are Conrad, Joyce, and Beckett, but I've never been able to get into many of the others. The style just isn't my thing... I prefer the styles of, as I said, the Russians and South Americans.

Of course France has Rabelais, Montaigne, Rousseau, Moliere, Hugo, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Proust... no slouches there. And the Germans have Goethe, Holderlin, Novalis, Nietzsche, Kafka, Rilke, Hesse, Mann... again, not without some real genius. And what do we really even know of Chinese literature considering that little of its vast body of literature has even been translated... to say nothing of the level of the translation... into most Western languages?

Again, a lot of guys on that list, though commonly considered greats, just aren't my thing. I'll give you Nietzsche and Kafka, though; both are muy bien

[Etienne]

By your logic, what nationality does Gogol fit into?

In a previous I gave an example of him without using his name. It is Russian literature because he wrote in Russian, had he written in Ukrainian, he would have been an Ukrainian writer. One can always consider him an Ukrainian writer if he wants...

But will you admit that saying Goethe is not German (sic!!) was completely talking through your hat?

[marakatsu]

It's stupid to claim a nation's literature superior to others. Literature is not monolithic, there's always influences that goes criss-crossing across the borders of culture. Without Dickens, we wouldnt have Tolstoy as we know him. Marcel Proust attributed his use of time to George Eliot's techinque. I think its better to judge works individually

[E.Kant]

It's stupid to claim a nation's literature superior to others. Literature is not monolithic, there's always influences that goes criss-crossing across the borders of culture . Without Dickens, we wouldnt have Tolstoy as we know him. Marcel Proust attributed his use of time to George Eliot's techinque. I think its better to judge works individually

I do agree with you , but each author's work can be considered with regard to his country ..
Comparing English literature to French literature doesn't mean , in my opinion ,
that Proust never took care of George Eliot's technique

[PeterL]

It's stupid to claim a nation's literature superior to others. Literature is not monolithic, there's always influences that goes criss-crossing across the borders of culture.

True, but it's good sport.

[kilted exile]

OK, then is Scotland part of England in this category?

Only if we also count:

Canadian as American
All Central & South American (excluding Brazil as Spanish)
Australian as New Zealand


There are I believe subtle differences between Scottish & English literature, which may be difficult to place for outsiders to the countries. For such a small country, Britain has more distinct regional differences than countries many times larger - this comes out in all aspects of culture, including the literature

[Dori]

A book of mine, The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D., says "We're in luck: Michelangelo's Pieta and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony don't need any tranlation, and we can read Shakespeare in the original. Nobody can touch the English when it comes to literature, just as nobody beats the Germans in music or the Italians in the visual arts. (Some wit has pointed out that the French are second-best at everything.)"

[Etienne]

A book of mine, The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D., says "We're in luck: Michelangelo's Pieta and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony don't need any tranlation, and we can read Shakespeare in the original. Nobody can touch the English when it comes to literature, just as nobody beats the Germans in music or the Italians in the visual arts. (Some wit has pointed out that the French are second-best at everything.)"

I find it very funny that it's always Shakespeare the justification for such judgment (but never talking about the Victorian era ). I am in the opinion that if you took away Shakespeare from England, England would become a Black Hole.

[stlukesguild]

Some wit has pointed out that the French are second-best at everything.

Close... but I think I'd almost have to go with the Italians for the second-place in Music.

[Eric Cioe]

I can see two countries at the forefront for me:

Germany. Mann, Goethe, Hesse, and Kant if you're going to include philosophers.

America. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Thoreau, Poe, Melville, Twain, Eliot, James, and some more personal ones for me like Ted Roosevelt, Jim Harrison, and Olaf Swenson.

[Dori]

I find it very funny that it's always Shakespeare the justification for such judgment (but never talking about the Victorian era ). I am in the opinion that if you took away Shakespeare from England, England would become a Black Hole.

The book also cited "...other Elizabethans, the seventeenth-century poets including Milton, and the Romantic poets..." It continued to say "And they've got competitive entries in all the other categories, too---from the epic (The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost) and the romance (Malory's Morte d'Arthur) to the essay (Bacon, Addison and Steele, Dr.Johnson)."

I can see two countries at the forefront for me:

Germany. Mann, Goethe, Hesse, and Kant if you're going to include philosophers.

America. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Thoreau, Poe, Melville, Twain, Eliot, James, and some more personal ones for me like Ted Roosevelt, Jim Harrison, and Olaf Swenson.

If you were to include German philosophers, you might also say Schopenhauer, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, and last but certainly not least, Nietzsche. However, I wouldn't include philosopers in a debate about literature.

I think the area that American's most excel at is the short form (short stories and poetry). A few more Americans that come to mind: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Hawthorne, Whitman, etc.

[Etienne]

The book also cited "...other Elizabethans, the seventeenth-century poets including Milton, and the Romantic poets..." It continued to say "And they've got competitive entries in all the other categories, too---from the epic (The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost) and the romance (Malory's Morte d'Arthur) to the essay (Bacon, Addison and Steele, Dr.Johnson)."

Yes but did she have any argument? I mean I can enumerate a lot of great authors in many languages and from many cultures too.