Which COUNTRY has produced the greatest literature?

[Dori]

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.

No, she didn't. What I enclosed in my previous post was all she had to say on the topic, though I'm sure she could have said more if she felt the need to (the information was supplied as a side note, separated from the main text).

... and don't forget Stone-cold Steve Austen!

I failed to mention him!

No, because we are somewhat ethnocentric here on this board, and pretty much limited to only Western Literature. Quick name 20 Chinese authors worth mentioning. I reckon you will have a far easier time naming 20 American ones.

You're right. After Sun Tzu, I don't think I could name even one Chinese author (whether (s)he was worth reading or not!).

[Eric Cioe]

Exactly! You call it ethnocentric, I call it anglocentric. Same thing.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? I feel pretty connected to American writers because mostly they're talking about the world that I know. You call it anglocentric, I call it having a sense of identity with your countrymen.

[mortalterror]

A side by side comparison of mostly European literature

Greece, Rome, Italy, England, France, Germany, Russia, Other
Epic
The Odyssey, The Aenead, Jerusalem Delivered, Paradise Lost, The Franciad, ? , ?, The Lusiads
Short story anthologies
Aesops Fables, The Metamorphoses, The Decameron, Canterbury Tales, La Fontane's Fables, Grimm's Fairytales, Anderson's stories
Comic novel
?, Satyricon, Orlando Furioso, Catch-22, Gargantua and Pantagruel, ?, ?, Don Quixote
Comic play
Lysistrata, The Pot of Gold, Love For Three Oranges, The Importance of Being Ernest, Tartuffe, Leonce and Lena, The Inspector General,
Tragic play
Oedipus Rex, Thyestes, ?, Hamlet, Phaedra, Faust, ?, The Doll House, Fuente Ovejuna
Novel
?, ?, The Betrothed, Tom Jones, Madame Bovary, Sorrows of Young Werther, War and Peace, Dream of the Red Chamber, Tale of Genji,

I don't know what I'd compare The Divine Comedy to, and yes I know Tom Jones probably belongs under the comic novel heading. But as you can see, most cultures labor in the same fields, and each produce miraculous fruits.

If you want to compare golden eras, then England and Spain had theirs around the reign of Queen Elizabeth. France had a similar period of prominence during the reign of Louis XIV. Germany was strongest during Goethe's time, and Russia came into it's own in the nineteenth century. However, the French and English weren't much behind the Russians in the nineteenth century either. Italy had it's big period in the thirteen hundreds. Greece and Rome were biggest in the clasical period. They all tend to pass the torch and no one stays on top of the heap for long.

Russian XIX, French XIX, English XIX
War and Peace, The Red and the Black, A Tale of Two Cities
Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, The Scarlet Letter
Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, Moby Dick
Dead Souls, ? , Huckleberry Finn
The Brothers Karamazov, Chartrehouse of Parma, Middlemarch
Chekhov's short stories, Maupassant's short stories, Poe's Short Stories
Fathers and Sons, Old Goriot, Barchester Towers?
the analogy starts to break down here but...
Eugene Onegin , Germinal , Ivanhoe
Oblomov ,Notre Dame de Paris ,Great Expectations
A Hero For Our Time, ?, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jude the Obscure

Even if you believe that Russia gets the better of this fight, that's because we're mostly just comparing novels and short stories. If you include the poetry and drama of the period, then Russian begins to shrink in the face of the English and French powerhouses. However, I am not well versed either in poetry, or the Eastern literatures so I can't make further comparisons. I've heard that China's Tang dynasty was something special. I've read Tu Fu, Li Po, Wang Wei, and Po Chu-i who were all excellent, but beyond that I couldn't say. What I've read of Iran's Shahnama was pretty good too and probably deserves a place beside the Odyssey or the Mahaberata. Would you rank the Faery Queen with them? Should we include history, philosophy, and essays? From what I can tell, literature and high culture in general tends to be the history of people having enough economic prosperity to feed and house themselves so they want other things and turn to luxuries. The better educated they are, the more prosperity there is, with this comes more leisure to read and write and so better books.

Then there's the problem of which leisure pursuits get emphasized in wealthy societies. During the centuries when Italian and German literature is weaker than France and England's their music was much better, so things have a way of evening out, especially in the long term.

[kelby_lake]

Probably England or maybe America.

[JBI]

Is that necessarily a bad thing? I feel pretty connected to American writers because mostly they're talking about the world that I know. You call it anglocentric, I call it having a sense of identity with your countrymen.

Canadians primarily read English and American novels, with the French Canadians reading French literature primarily, with some native works mixed in.

Despite this however, Canada is one of the most multi-cultural countries in the world. It would make sense that at least works written in Canada should be read, if not works showing the heritage and traditions of other nations, whose immigrants make up a vast amount of the Canadian population.

In Europe there are similar things occurring, thanks to the easing of boarders because of the E.U, there are more immigrant workers in non-native countries. With this, there should be the opening up of all European literature, not just the native one. Considering so many Europeans decide to take on another language, it would make sense that they would expand that way at least.

The point I'm trying to make is that, we can't with Chinese literature. Chinese doesn't translate, and is extremely difficult to learn. Most people will never know Chinese, but most people will learn English. Therefore, when piling, everyone knows English, it being the second language of most of the world, and very few who post here know Chinese. None of us will be able to defend that canon, therefore it is inevitable that the discussion is between European countries, primarily Russia England Germany and France. France, of course, gets thrown around, since too much is lost in translation. Russia gets over represented because of people's fascination with Dostoevsky, and German generally gets unmentioned, despite a major contribution, and perhaps the greatest contribution in non-fiction.

England, and the United States end with the most exposure because everyone here speaks English. We can all agree on the greatness of certain English authors, but we all don't know many of the French, or German ones. Russia is no where close to these, since their only mentionable literature begins with Pushkin, and they seem to have ebbed under Soviet rule. Either way, when piling a list, everyone will know the great American authors, and great English poets and play-writes, and even novelists, but none will know the Chinese ones better than these, and none will even mention India. The fact that you believe anglocentricism is good has nothing to do with the outcome.

[Luce]

I think that Italy and France have both produced great literature and I don't think Britain has produced the best literary work; it surely has produced a lot, but the literary tradition of Italy can certainly rival it.

[kandaurov]

The point I'm trying to make is that, we can't with Chinese literature. Chinese doesn't translate, and is extremely difficult to learn. Most people will never know Chinese, but most people will learn English. Therefore, when piling, everyone knows English, it being the second language of most of the world, and very few who post here know Chinese. None of us will be able to defend that canon, therefore it is inevitable that the discussion is between European countries, primarily Russia England Germany and France. France, of course, gets thrown around, since too much is lost in translation. Russia gets over represented because of people's fascination with Dostoevsky, and German generally gets unmentioned, despite a major contribution, and perhaps the greatest contribution in non-fiction.

Too true (especially the part on Russian and German lit, spot on!). And, like you, I also think that it's both inevitable and harmless that we are somewhat Western-Literature centered. Okay, it's the globalization era, but do we have to be intimate with the literature from every country in the face of this planet? I think it's kind of hypocritical to say that you know literature from this and that continent and that one too, unless, of course, you have a deep understanding of the culture the literature's inserted in. I'm only well acquainted with portuguese, english, american and german culture, therefore I read the literature from these countries. Sure, I like to expand my horizons every once in a while, but if I read a book from the Phillipines now, without having a clue about the Phillipines whatsoever (I'm not even sure I spelled the blessed country's name right), can I really say I've read it like I would have read, say, an English novel?

[barbara0207]

Too true (especially the part on Russian and German lit, spot on!). And, like you, I also think that it's both inevitable and harmless that we are somewhat Western-Literature centered. Okay, it's the globalization era, but do we have to be intimate with the literature from every country in the face of this planet? I think it's kind of hypocritical to say that you know literature from this and that continent and that one too, unless, of course, you have a deep understanding of the culture the literature's inserted in. I'm only well acquainted with portuguese, english, american and german culture, therefore I read the literature from these countries. Sure, I like to expand my horizons every once in a while, but if I read a book from the Phillipines now, without having a clue about the Phillipines whatsoever (I'm not even sure I spelled the blessed country's name right), can I really say I've read it like I would have read, say, an English novel?

I agree with most of what you and JBI said. Translation is certainly an issue, especially where poetry is concerned. But with prose it's a bit easier.

And I do not think that you have to have a deep insight into a culture before you can read its literature. Perhaps it's the other way round - literature might get you interested in a culture, might give you a better understanding of a country and its people.

[SleepyWitch]

I don't think you can really answer this question at all (which country has produced the greatest literature), because ppl base their judgments about this on a variety of different criteria.
for example, when I was doing a year abroad in England I took a course on "The European Novel" and the teacher compared Dickens's Great Expectations with Stendhal's The Red and the Black and also veered off on a general discussion of French vs. English Literature (including Madame Bovary). Although they didn't say it directly, most students + the teacher kinda agreed that English Lit was better than French Lit, because Dickens had a happy ending and was more moralistic than Flaubert and Stendhal. They were all kinda shocked not only because Flaubert dared to write about adultery around the same time that English Lit had to mention such things very indirectly and be judgmental about them, but also because he wrote about adultery at all, no matter in which time period.
so, their decision was based on morality, not on how good the writing was. Of course, if you think it's the job of literature to have happy endings, be non-committal and preach morals, English Lit is definitely the best in the world. But that's a very narrow definition of literature, isn't it?

[Geraint]

I can't think of any particularly great or heroic Welsh, Northern Irish or even Scottish novelists.

How can you discuss great literature, and then discount the country that produced Dylan Thomas?

[JBI]

I don't think you can really answer this question at all (which country has produced the greatest literature), because ppl base their judgments about this on a variety of different criteria.
for example, when I was doing a year abroad in England I took a course on "The European Novel" and the teacher compared Dickens's Great Expectations with Stendhal's The Red and the Black and also veered off on a general discussion of French vs. English Literature (including Madame Bovary). Although they didn't say it directly, most students + the teacher kinda agreed that English Lit was better than French Lit, because Dickens had a happy ending and was more moralistic than Flaubert and Stendhal. They were all kinda shocked not only because Flaubert dared to write about adultery around the same time that English Lit had to mention such things very indirectly and be judgmental about them, but also because he wrote about adultery at all, no matter in which time period.
so, their decision was based on morality, not on how good the writing was. Of course, if you think it's the job of literature to have happy endings, be non-committal and preach morals, English Lit is definitely the best in the world. But that's a very narrow definition of literature, isn't it?

Not all people read like that. Shakespeare highest acclaimed works both feature quite nihilistic endings. The super anti-cathartic ending of Lear which drew so much distaste until really the 20th century, when people finally understood what he was talking about, and the nihilistic ending of Hamlet, which seems to make everything in the play seem hopelessly pointless (desired effect). In terms of morality, the English tradition of poetry seems to have a large tradition of poems designed to convince a virgin woman to sleep with a man. I don't think that is very moral.

French and English cannot really be compared if they aren't both read in the original, I am afraid, because French prose in English seems rather clumsy and clunky, relative to the way it flows in French. The idiom seems completely different in accurate translations, and the inaccurate translations cannot be judged.

[jenmcd]

It has to be Ireland - Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Kavanagh, O'Casey, Bernard Shaw.... I rest my case.

[thelastmelon]

It has to be Ireland - Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Kavanagh, O'Casey, Bernard Shaw.... I rest my case.

If a list of a couple of great novelists is what it takes, then why not Sweden: Selma Lagerlöf, Vilhelm Moberg, Astrid Lindgren, August Strindberg, Per Lagerkvist, Hjalmar Söderberg, Karin Boye, Moa and Harry Martinsson...

I don't think it's possible to say that a certain country has produced "the greatest literature". I don't think it works to compare the authors and countries with one another.

[JBI]

It has to be Ireland - Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Kavanagh, O'Casey, Bernard Shaw.... I rest my case.

You surely are joking.
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hardy, Dickens, Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Johnson, Jonson, Spenser, etc.

Irish literature, in the way that you portray it, seems to be a new phenomenon. The English tradition has stronger roots, and has, I would argue, a larger influence on modern (post-medieval) Irish letters than the Irish one. Either way, you missed Swift and Wilde.

[Geraint]

In the past, I disowned a lot of things American in favor of my husband's country, but that can't change the fact that I still am, and always will be, American. Same with Eliot and Pound. Americans all.

that's not remotely fair! Eliot became a British subject, dropped his American citizenship and became an Anglican. He also wrote some of his major works in London. This clearly shows him as culturally British. He cannot be damned as an American, when he put such effort into distancing himself from the USA.