Lit Net Top Author?

[Adagio]

In no order...

1- Victor Hugo
2- Charles Dickens
3- John Keats
4- Shakespeare
5- Charlotte Bronte

Five is certainly not enough.

[kelby_lake]

No cheating now

Never actually read any Racine admittedly, I was showing off. However it is true that we have some at home

[Thespian1975]

Never actually read any Racine admittedly, I was showing off. However it is true that we have some at home

I meant you chose 6 authors.

1- F Scott Fitzgerald
2- Tennessee Williams
2- Charles Dickens
3- Franz Kafka
4- Ambrose Bierce
5- Jane Austen

[mortalterror]

I would think, Racine's range rather limited. I mean there are particularly moving moments of his that I have read, my favorite being Aricie's discovery of Hyppolyte's body after he has been destroyed by the Sea Beast, but the dependence on one plot line, and no action away from that line, nothing unrelated to the one setting, one direction, one thread of action, is troubling to me.

It's interesting that you should point that out while referring to Racine as unoriginal. Racine is following a play that had been done famously several times before. Euripides' and Seneca's versions of the play are both extant, but neither includes the character of Aricia. She is one of Racine's own particular touches. In Euripides' play, Hippolytus is an ardent follower of Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, and he is punished by Aphrodite with a perverse love for not giving Aphrodite her due. His abstinence offends the gods and he is justly or unjustly punished. The inclusion of Aricia in Racine's version is a characteristic departure of his own invention, which allows him to set up one of his patented love triangles. When he adapted Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis he includes another original character which allows him to craft an altogether different ending than the earlier version of that play.

What is great about this kind of following in a tradition and adapting the classics is the narrow range one has for departures. When the audience is already familiar with the tale, they are looking for a novel approach to the story, and each slight variation is amplified, imbued with a special meaning. That's why Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Seneca can tell the exact same plot and each one is a masterpiece and totally different from the others. It's a little like the way that no two performances of a play can be the same. An emphasis is shifted. Something is changed. The movie The Godfather has the exact opposite moral from the theme in the book. The Merchant of Venice is an anti-semitic comedy, but when Al Pacino did it recently for the screen he made the character of Shylock sympathetic and it became a tragic warning tale. Racine is all about re-interpretation, and when you already know the plot the other details such as character, and language are pushed to the foreground.

It's like reading Chaucer and then reading Boccaccio. Boccaccio wasn't even the originator of most of his stories. While I was reading Apuleius' The Golden *** over Christmas I found two of Boccaccio's tales in the novel, which is also a source of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, Apuleius was already ripping off an earlier Greek novel of the same name by Lucian, and so on and so on. This is the format of all Greek literature. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides derive their plays from stories in Homer. Then Ovid writes them down later and every writer of any worth tries his hand at them for two thousand years. They invite the comparison. It's like a rite of passage. Each new telling of the familiar text is like a new draft, or a new chapter in an ongoing conversation, and we are all connected like links in a chain to this vital and ongoing tradition. Isn't that beautiful?

A format is not restricting. It is liberating, for when everything is permitted nothing is extraordinary. We need certain boundaries in order to feel our liberty, in order to have something to push or measure our freedom against. Traditions and conventions give us license to test those traditions and conventions, to re-invent them, to define ourselves in relation to what is other. It gives direction and focus to what would otherwise be misshapen blurtings.

[Dark Muse]

1. Poe
2. Shakespeare
3. D.H. Lawrence
4. Jean-Paul Satire
5. Umberto Eco

[Jeremiah Jazzz]

1.James Joyce
2.Friedrich Nietzsche
3.Marcel Proust
4.William Shakespeare
5.Vladimir Nabokov

[prendrelemick]

Lets see, today my favourites are:-

Jane Austin
Shakespeare
Tolstoy
Tolkien
Homer

Next week who knows?

[LitNetIsGreat]

OK, after a little thought:

1 Shakespeare
2 Dante
3 Milton
4 Euripides
5 Homer

Beat that!

I have based my five on the grounds that they all must have more than one great work to their credit and that I have must read and studied them to some degree personally. I have thought about the translation issue but that is something that can't be helped and I didn't want to limit myself soley to those writing in English, though I have to include a Western bias, simply because this is what I have read.

I choose Euripides above Aeschylus and Sophocles as it seems to be Euripides offers a little more, is a little more experimental (though I am not an expert in this area) though maybe that has something to do with him coming a little later. Regardless of this I just seem drawn to Euripides more than the other two for some reason.

The rest stand on their own and need no explanation.

I realise there is no sole prose works on the list, if there had have been I would have included Austen, over Flaubert, for sheer consistency if for nothing else.

If it was for love alone I would have included Wilde and Keats.

[stlukesguild]

These lists are truly absurd and prove nothing but the tastes of those who participate... and I would almost think that these would change for each individual depending upon when they responded. My first two would never change... but I can certainly imagine replacing the next three with Aeschylus, Virgil, Spenser, Montaigne, Cervantes, Firdowsi, Tolstoy, or any number of others... but what the hell:

1. Shakespeare
2. Dante
3. Milton
4. Blake
5. Homer

By the way... do you really find Leopardi that great, JBI? I certainly admire what I have read... but I can't imagine placing him on any list of the 10 greatest writers ever... let alone 5.

[JBI]

It's interesting that you should point that out while referring to Racine as unoriginal. Racine is following a play that had been done famously several times before. Euripides' and Seneca's versions of the play are both extant, but neither includes the character of Aricia. She is one of Racine's own particular touches. In Euripides' play, Hippolytus is an ardent follower of Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, and he is punished by Aphrodite with a perverse love for not giving Aphrodite her due. His abstinence offends the gods and he is justly or unjustly punished. The inclusion of Aricia in Racine's version is a characteristic departure of his own invention, which allows him to set up one of his patented love triangles. When he adapted Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis he includes another original character which allows him to craft an altogether different ending than the earlier version of that play.

What is great about this kind of following in a tradition and adapting the classics is the narrow range one has for departures. When the audience is already familiar with the tale, they are looking for a novel approach to the story, and each slight variation is amplified, imbued with a special meaning. That's why Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Seneca can tell the exact same plot and each one is a masterpiece and totally different from the others. It's a little like the way that no two performances of a play can be the same. An emphasis is shifted. Something is changed. The movie The Godfather has the exact opposite moral from the theme in the book. The Merchant of Venice is an anti-semitic comedy, but when Al Pacino did it recently for the screen he made the character of Shylock sympathetic and it became a tragic warning tale. Racine is all about re-interpretation, and when you already know the plot the other details such as character, and language are pushed to the foreground.

It's like reading Chaucer and then reading Boccaccio. Boccaccio wasn't even the originator of most of his stories. While I was reading Apuleius' The Golden *** over Christmas I found two of Boccaccio's tales in the novel, which is also a source of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, Apuleius was already ripping off an earlier Greek novel of the same name by Lucian, and so on and so on. This is the format of all Greek literature. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides derive their plays from stories in Homer. Then Ovid writes them down later and every writer of any worth tries his hand at them for two thousand years. They invite the comparison. It's like a rite of passage. Each new telling of the familiar text is like a new draft, or a new chapter in an ongoing conversation, and we are all connected like links in a chain to this vital and ongoing tradition. Isn't that beautiful?

A format is not restricting. It is liberating, for when everything is permitted nothing is extraordinary. We need certain boundaries in order to feel our liberty, in order to have something to push or measure our freedom against. Traditions and conventions give us license to test those traditions and conventions, to re-invent them, to define ourselves in relation to what is other. It gives direction and focus to what would otherwise be misshapen blurtings.

When I was talking about one plot, I didn't mean that he couldn't follow one plot, I meant that, by Aristotelian thought, a good play only has one plot line. Everything is centered around Phaedre. Even Aricia is just there to be a foil for Phaedre, and not to be an actual full, or even central character. The plot doesn't breathe, there are no sub plots, only one plot, as was the fashion. Aricia, I knew, was a Racine invention (having read Euripides's version, though not Seneca's), but really the problem I have is he doesn't allow for anything to not be part of the plot. The plot is so absolute, so demanding, as to disallow breathing.

O.K., one could say the same about Othello, but really, Shakespeare allows us the beautiful opening speeches from Othello, and the love scene at the beginning of the play - the play can breathe. Racine on the other hand trades that off for drama - makes everything so time-strained, which limits things, as much as develops things. I think my problem is I like a less fast paced, more reflexive story, and with Racine, I think, being drama, the action is too quick - too driven, too compact into too little time, if that makes any sense.

There don't seem to be any subplots in Racine. Even the romances in Andromache, and the triangles only enforce the central plot line, only build upon one idea, one direction. I think it becomes complicated, when quite frankly there are more than 3 actors on the stage, and more tools available, yet the structure is still following a 2000 year old model.

[Dark Muse]

These lists are truly absurd and prove nothing but the tastes of those who participate...

You know, it is just for fun, you needn't take everything so deathly seriously. If you are so against lists you needn't partake, but no need to be a humbug on everyone else for having a little fun.

[JBI]

These lists are truly absurd and prove nothing but the tastes of those who participate... and I would almost think that these would change for each individual depending upon when they responded. My first two would never change... but I can certainly imagine replacing the next three with Aeschylus, Virgil, Spenser, Montaigne, Cervantes, Firdowsi, Tolstoy, or any number of others... but what the hell:

1. Shakespeare
2. Dante
3. Milton
4. Blake
5. Homer

By the way... do you really find Leopardi that great, JBI? I certainly admire what I have read... but I can't imagine placing him on any list of the 10 greatest writers ever... let alone 5.

He sucks in translation - try picking up a real copy of the Canti - they are Eliot-dense, there is more to him than a few idylls, and some conversations. Quite frankly, he doesn't really translate well, and doesn't really sit well outside of his context. Certainly though, a lot of it has to do with my taste, but I wager your championing of Blake has the same thing to do with your taste. I still think though, that if more people were exposed to Leopardi, they would think better about poetry. These boards are so prosaic that poetry is often pretended to be liked, and never really embraced - I think the furthest we can get in a discussion is generally the standard "Ooh, that was lovely, he's soooo moving." etc.

Some things just don't translate.

[Mag Master 21]

In no order...

Steinbeck
Hemingway
Dostoevsky
Salinger
EDIT: After some thought, taking out Nietzsche and adding Brett Easton Ellis (also mentioned right below me)

[kilted exile]

Dickens
Sir Walter Scott
Vonnegut
Robert Louis Stevenson
Brett Easton Ellis

[Saladin]

1.Dostoevsky

The rest are in no particular order:

2. Shakespeare
3. Ibsen
4. Kafka
5. Hamsun

Two dramatists and three novelists - and of course two of them are norwegians...



Ok, Shakespeare is in second place.