Attempt (and subsequently fail) to disprove this meme ranking
Russia
Greece (Classical)
///POWER GAP///
England
France
Ireland/Germany
America
Italy
Spain
///POWER GAP///
Irrelevant
English for me, thanks
>>8112525
France = Russia > America = England > Germany > Ireland = Italy > Spain > Everybody Else
>>8112549
Spain = Argentina
>>8112525
For starters
>Ireland and Germany on same level
>Japan irrelevant
I pity you
>>8112525
>England>France>Ireland/Germany
So you're English, and hoping nobody notices you don't speak Russian or Greek?
You wish you could have this literary tradition tier: Great Britain
Unfortunately started to believe its own hype tier: France
We wrote something 500 years ago tier: Italy
Diamonds in a sea of shit tier: all of Latin America
So culturally bankrupt their only worthwhile work is written by expats tier: India
You have 1 billion people and you've produced how many great works? tier: China
All head, no heart tier: classical Greek
all heart, no head tier: modern African lit
Animals trying to be human tier: Russia
Literally just hundreds of pages of ululating: Arab literature
>>8112525
>Germany
>America
>Italy
>Spain
>at all
lol
>meme trilogy tier
Ireland, America
>God tier
UK, Russia
>awesome tier
France, Deutschland, Japan, antiquity Greece
>taco tier
Latin America, Spain
>generally irrelevant but with some outliers
everyone else
>>8112575
preety much...
Why does the American literary tradition suck so bad? Is it because Americans are retarded?
>>8112959
I know Americans are notoriously close-minded about other countries' literature, but you're no less close-minded for dismissing ours. I'm curious to hear what you think the best of American literature is.
>>8112963
Clearly I'm not a person you should be asking for "best of" recommendations since I think the entirety of the selection is garbage.
Thanks for proving my point about Americans being retarded, and being an asshole about it as well.
>>8112963
tao lin
>>8112963
Please, America dismisses its own tradition every twenty years and considers that generation done.
>>8112575
Stay mad that your poets suck major dick you filthy bong.
Russia
France
Germany
England
>>8113070
Oups forgot to put greeks on top.
>>8112575
>You wish you could have this literary tradition tier: Great Britain
Is it because GB wishes they could claim all the Irish authors? Gotta be tough when the people you colonised learn the language better.
No-one here honestly believes that X country's literary tradition can actually compare with works like Moby Dick and Leaves of Grass, not to mention a canon of writers including Faulkner, Pynchon, McCarthy, Thoreau, Crane, Pound and Eliot right?
>>8112525
Denmark > Sweden + Denmark 2 > Finnland > "Russia" (Chekhov + christfags from the time Russia was lagging behind the ROTW was therefore more SPIRITUAL. satyrists ignored save for Gogol.) > "Germoney" (Marx, Hesse, Nietzsche, Mann, Schopenhauer, 19th century philosophers) > Shakespeare > "France" (Existentialists and Sorbonnaut philosophers; contemporary authors) > "England" (Victorian women, Charles Dickens and Scotsmen describing Caribbean pirates. Also, Lewis Carrol and Bernard Shaw) > Dante > da Holy Writ > Soviet authors and Americans
>>8113151
der is oalso Rune Kipling. Add him to England.
>>8113144Sterne, Swift, Wilde, Joyce, O'Brien, Kinsella, Heaney, Yeats, Synge, O'Connor, Stoker, Shaw, Beckett, Behan, Hearn, Burke, CS Lewis...
>>8112968
His question was perfectly valid since one can despise a tradition as a whole but still enjoy a few works within it.
>"best of"
Kek, this man can't into basic English usage but he thinks himself fit to judge art
>>8113159
Ireland is the only country that comes close to America in fiction.
America still has the greatest poetical canon of any nation.
>>8112968
>Clearly I'm not a person you should be asking for "best of" recommendations since I think the entirety of the selection is garbage.
>Thanks for proving my point about Americans being retarded, and being an asshole about it as well.
Your hypocrisy knows no bounds: You misconstrued my post, and had the gall to call me a retarded asshole.
When I said,
>I'm curious to hear what you think the best of American literature is
I wasn't asking for recommendations, you miserable prick. I was asking what books you thought were "America's best" in order to understand what kind and caliber of books you're basing your negative opinions off of.
Look at a mirror before you start flinging around insults, shitstain.
>>8113165
Try harder.
>>8113166
Yes, that's why the majority of those executed as leaders of the independence movement in America were renowned poets too.pfffffftt
>>8113070
England is easily the best of those listed, it's not even close. Theirs is a tradition so strong that even their "internationally unimportant" poets are expert professionals: Landor, Housman, Cowper, etc
>>8113169
>try
You did all the work for me
>>8113168
>muh best
>muh favorite
If I'm trashing your shitty country's lit then obviously I don't have a high regard for it, retard. Why would you ask me what I think is "the best?" Would you show me a pile of turds and ask me to pick out the best?
So let's say I pick a book. Then what, you build a strawman in some unbearable pseud post about how I'm just not reading muh secret actual big boy americana lit.
"No senpai, that turd is clearly not the best. THIS turd, is the best."
>>8113180
It's quite obvious he's asking what the "least bad" books are, according to you.
>>8113175
You sperged about validity (as if this makes any fucking sense at all.)
I guess you mean "valid" in a logical sense, which is a dead giveaway that you're a pseud and also retarded, which is why I'm not really wasting time on you. All I'll reply is that you're wrong since can doesn't equal does.
Then you had a problem with best of. I'm sure you have a reason for why but I'm also sure it's incredibly autistic so I'm not really interested in hearing it.
Before you write your response you should know that I'm never going to read it because I'm bored with this and going offline now. You will always have to live with the fact that you didn't get the last word. You will always know that I casually rebuked you with finality. Your autistic little heart will shrivel with impotent rage as the chance to vent your frustrations against me via retarded trolling is denied.
>>8113186
>Pick out the best turd
>No, he actually meant "pick out the least bad turd"
Holy shit could you be any dumber
>>8113192
>You sperged about validity (as if this makes any fucking sense at all.)
>I guess you mean "valid" in a logical sense, which is a dead giveaway that you're a pseud and also retarded, which is why I'm not really wasting time on you. All I'll reply is that you're wrong since can doesn't equal does.
This is some of the stupidest shit I've read in my life. Yes, I was criticizing your logic, what else could I have been doing?
>Then you had a problem with best of. I'm sure you have a reason for why but I'm also sure it's incredibly autistic so I'm not really interested in hearing it.
It reveals your piss poor vocabulary "Best of" as an adjective- vulgar exceedingly
>Before you write your response you should know that I'm never going to read it because I'm bored with this and going offline now.
You'll read it, kek
>. You will always know that I casually rebuked you with finality. Your autistic little heart will shrivel with impotent rage as the chance to vent your frustrations against me via retarded trolling is denied.
This is true I guess tbqh
>>8113180
>some unbearable pseud post
That's funny, I would ascribe that designation to the person who's made three posts now without saying anything new, but rehashing the same one point—if it can even be called that—all the while evading my question with a bunch of angry, defensive hand-waving.
>Would you show me a pile of turds and ask me to pick out the best?
No, but I would ask you to pick out what you actually liked among a survey of such quintessentially entry-level American writers as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, or Faulkner. To compare the works of these writers to piles of turds is passably charming if ironic, and laughably pretentious if not. Any failure to find worth in even these basic works is just that—a failure.
I'm not here to have a dick-measuring contest. I'm genuinely interested in hearing you back up your claim that American literature is shit. Though if we're going with the turd analogy, I can't imagine you've read much American lit, unless you love consuming shit.
On second thought, it wouldn't surprise me.
>>8113195
So Moby-Dick, Mason and Dixon, Portrait of a Lady, and Jurgen are all trash to you?
>>8113192
>Before you write your response you should know that I'm never going to read it because I'm bored with this and going offline now. You will always have to live with the fact that you didn't get the last word.
I can only head this coming from a whiny 16 year old white boy trying to make his voice sound deep and authoritative. The effect is glorious.
>>8112525
whoaohhh...OP have cancer
>>8113232
kek, I'm saving his delicious pasta for future use
>>8113242
Might as well get what we can out of it
>>8113192
That last paragraph is pastaworthy, holy shit.
>>8112575
>India
Read Tagore in Bengali or Tamil poetry you fucking plebs. The modern novel in India is dead, but there are ancients that rival the Greeks and good colonial /lit/ that actually blends the works of it's oppressors.
>>8112525
Do you people not consider poetry at all and only focus on novels and other forms of european prose?
>>8113173
Being known by pleb americans isn't a valid confirmation.
>>8113390
Should we have considered African oral traditions in our discussion of literature?
Must cryptokikes such as yourself defile every discussion that excludes your precious niggers and other lesser races?
>>8113405
sad frogposter
Is this including poetry?
>>8112736
>awesome
kys
Russian classics are literaly 19th century /pol/
>>8113391
No, their skill is. That was the point of the post you mongoloid
Where are we situating the rest of the five eyes in this? In "English"?
>>8113130
Other than Joyce and Yeats (who was partly anglo) there is no one.
>>8114541
>he doesn't rate Sterne
wow, way to out pleb yourself
>Russia
Excellent XIXth century, but everything before is pretty poor
Spot on. Except America is in the lowest in the second tier.
>>8112525
>English literature
>being second highest
>>8114541
Beckett, but i'm not sure even Ireland can claim him over France
>>8115011
Nah they can have him.
FRANCE STRONK!
Behead the anglos
Greeks>Russia>france/Germany>england/irish
TOP TIER (THE GREATEST 50 YEAR PERIODS OF ALL TIME):
1880-1930 French
1930-1980 American
1880-1930 UK
1800-1850 Russian
SECOND TIER (STILL ELITE)
1590-1640 England
1830-1880 France
1880-1930 German
1950-2000 German
Ancient Greek General
THIRD TIER (STILL GREAT)
1960-2010 Latin America
1900-1950 Russian
1920-1970 Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, etc.)
>>8112968
>americans (including you) are retarded
>thanks for being an asshole
lol
pretty good bait
>>8113144
>Pynchon
what the fuck?
>>8115071
>not 1640-1690 France
Please
>>8115101
Yeah, I agree I should have included that somewhere.. threw this together real quick im sure im missing other good periods as well..
>>8114942
>Spot on.
>Russia above England
Not even close
>>8112525
>Russia
>posts pic of Gogol
>>8112525
the O N L Y conceivable reason for ranking high is limiting your scope to the pernicious form we call "the novel," which is not only already far past its expiration date, but also one of the youngest literary forms we have. even granting the novel, though, America and Ireland are much higher .
>>8115269
Well, he was born in the Russian Empire after all
>>8115269
He's russian
>>8115324
>>8115480
He was Ukrainian by ethnicity. (A current example would be a writer like Azad Zal, who is Kurdish) For what it's worth, I would put Russia up toward the top of the discussion, even conceding Gogol to Ukraine. Also I wonder whether today's Russia would even want to acknowledge Gogol anyway.
>>8116132
why wouldn't they want to acknowledge a great. He was probably the biggest influence to their literary domination of the 1800s
>>8112525
>Ireland/Germany
Just end yourself, OP.
>>8112575
You disappoint me.
>>8116152
Because he was gay.
>>8116866
source? and dont say that flaming fuck Karlinsky
>>8112525
>france
>anywhere on the list
>spain so low on the list
>Joyce lifting the weight of his own country
>countries
>>8116926
>>Joyce lifting the weight of his own country
>Wilde talking over your head about classics
>>8117318
>joyce and wilde aren't british
>>8112525
>Russia
LOL
Russian literature is fucking garbage
>>8112525
Ireland>>>>the rest
>>8116132
>He was Ukrainian by ethnicit
Who gives a shit senpai
>>8117321
>wilde, son of speranza, considered himself british
>joyce, the marx quoting nationalist, who lived past the declaration of indepence, the free state, and into the republic of ireland being formed, was british
man, england really gets upset when ireland and russia are the superpowers
>>8117344
shut up, ireland. we own you.
>>8117344
name 10 decent irish authors
>>8117349
come over here and we'll talk about it. we promise we will explain all the big words and we won't take all your bins away again this time, really.
>>8117349
Owning NI is literally fine by me Nige. Enjoy.
>>8117355
you keep talking shit and we'll send hordes of syrians into your country, potato nigger.
>>8117354
Swift, Beckett, Wilde, Sterne, Yeats, CS Lewis, Flann O'Brien or whatever he calls himself, Synge, Stoker, Moore, Burke, Banville, Kavanagh, Behan, Heaney, Kinsella. I dunno how many that is but some are poets and philosophers and playwrights, and Joyce really isn't that great.
>>8117357
come over we're building one of europe's largest mosques
>>8117371
enjoy your cultural enrichment, britcuck
>>8117367
>Joyce really isn't that great.
lol
>>8117379
Compared to half of those, no he's not. Some of the better ones you have to learn a dead language for so I only included the ones which English readers might get. Joyce's second languages are tourist guide tier.
Ranking countries on something like this is cringeworthy.
>>8117392
Hi England, it's too late to take your language back.
>>8117367
>and Joyce really isn't that great.
>
>
>
I'll add a few Irish language ones since nobody else will
>Merriman
>Raftery
>Ó Cadhain
>Mac Grianna
>>8117408
O Cadhain's going to fast become a meme but it's been bugging me that it gets cited as the introduction to modernism when An Beal Bocht is like seven years earlier and fucking perfect.
Joyce really isn't that great. The bearlachas in Finnegans shows he learnt Irish second, compared to Myles' grasp on native Irish and linguistics. Joyce writes in Norweigan and it's phrasebook type shit; O'Brien writes in German like he lived there. Joyce is the hipster of style, and while he knows all the technique, he's none of the finesse of a Beckett, O'Brien, or Sterne.
>>8117429
Why do you keep saying Joyce is bad because he doesn't use other languages well?
This is just the worst defamation of an author I've ever read.
>>8117432
i think he means through the lens of him as an irish author.
>>8117437
Ah yes. O'Brien is a great Irish author because of his exemplary use of German.
>>8117432
It's not just because he doesn't use other languages well, it's that he opts to use languages on the idea that none of his readers would look through a phrasebook for tourists and will think he has done more than the minimal research. It's equivalent to the people now who want to insert French into their NaNoWriMo and use google translate. The bearlachas problem spans all of Finnegans Wake- the technique he's trying to use is badly executed and because the parts based in English are strong enough, English only please readers take it as genius, when that's the clearest indication you're doing it wrong. He survives on people dumb enough to not know better.
>>8117441
Well, you see, German is a very guttural language, much like the Irish language.
>russian philosophy
>>8117449
You've convinced me you're actually insane.
Please give yourself some time to think about how stupid this sounds.
>>8117458
>i have no argument but if i don't keep parroting the joyce is great meme, people might not like me
sorry, i just have taste.
Wow, this ranking is a bit Eurocentric, don't you think?
No Iranian or Arabic literature?
England and France are too overrated and America is too low.
Also, I don't know how you're doing this, but are you rating canon by overall quantity or quantity per capita? Because in that case Ireland needs a boost.
But really even considering ranking canons is kinda...phallogocentric.
>>8117462
b-but what about the blind stripling? say what you will about his other languages, his english was superb.
>>8117466
yeah, france doesn't even belong on there, though England is fine, if you include ireland as part of england. which it is.
>>8117468
it's still not up there with the rest of them. it's good, good enough international renown is warranted, but he's not the best out of irish authors. the greatest of all time thing is a meme, he really is not that great. tristram shandy is fucking centuries before him and it's better and, would still be arguably more innovative in style even if sterne had written it in 1900.
>>8117477
tristram shandy eh? i found that shit incomprehensible, so it must be good.
>>8117488
I'm guessing I don't need to tell you to skip Finnegans Wake.
>>8117489
I probably won't skip it. I liked Joyce a lot, despite your obvious disdain for him. But I like a lot of meme authors. It's just one of those things, isn't it?
>>8117495
It's less comprehensible for most people than Tristram Shandy because it's deliberately obscurantism.
>>8117455
they're the two of them very guttural languages, the irish and the german
>>8117503
Tristram Shandy wasn't deliberate obscurantism? i find that hard to believe.
>>8117520
i'm beginning to suspect you don't read. tristram's tangential and verbose, sure, but it's not deliberate obscurantism like writing a book purposefully encoded to try to fuck with analysis.
>>8117524
thanks for the insult. i really appreciate that. thanks for ruining any possible pleasant discussion we may have had.
1. America
2. France
3. Latin America
4. Germany
5. Russia
>>8117526
i dunno, man, i smell bullshit if you call Tristram obscurantism but Ulysses passes muster, and think Finnegans Wake is more than letter salad to most people.
>>8117531
oops forgot only 20 century
>>8117532
i never said that Joyce's work wasn't obscurantism. stop making assumptions, it ruins conversation. all i said is that Tristram Shandy, when i read it, i found it incomprehensible, I didn't have such a difficult time following at least some threads of Ulysses, though obviously Joyce intended a lot of people to be left in the dust. I feel that at least from what I read, it isn't hard to believe that Sterne may have been taking the same kind of piss with his readers, not always making what's going on crystal clear. on purpose, which a lot of people would call obscurantism.
>>8117540
why are you acting like a bitch because i pointed out joyce engages in far more deliberate fucking with his readers? he used brag about it.
sterne on the other hand wanted people to follow most of it, rather than admitting to hoping it kept people who analyse the obscure puzzling for decades like joyce did proudly. it's kind of funny the hipster one is the one you could follow along to and you're this buttmad and insulted because i can tell which author is fucking with his audience to seem cool easier than you can apparently.
>>8117540
btw that you didn't read was the kind option.
>>8117550
enjoy finnegans wake XD
>>8117554
enjoy being an antisocial prick.
>>8117556
oh, you're not leaving.
>>8112575
>overhyping Britain
>shitting on India (hue) while ignoring it's poetic tradition
retarded Britbong confirmed
>>8112525
Bulgaria is hugely underrated
>>8112575
>not mentioning Persia
>thinking bongs come close to ancient China
>>8115071
>1930-1980 America
>greatest 50 year period
>Tunnel published in 1995
wew
>>8119751
it's ok gassposter. His true masterpiece, in the heart of the heart of the city, was published in the period.
>>8119788
country* ill uh, just let myself out....
>>8113159
>C.S Lewis
triggered
>>8113192
>this long ass reply to a four word post
>that desperate defense of pedantic nonsense
>that neckbeard finale
>mfw looked up the word valid and the other guy was right anyway
It has been years since I was last witness to this much asspain
>>8122488
He was too, that's why he wrote My Irish Life.
This sort of /pol/ tier nationalism isn't welcome here.
/lit/ should be a board without borders.
Now all of you actually read a fucking book and learn what's right, or fuck off to /pol/
>>8124805
Yeah, I'd be mad if I wasn't Irish too.
This is just personal taste from favorite to least favorite.
USA
UK
France
Russia
Ireland
Germany
Austria
Italy
Greece
Spain
Japan
China
I prefer the literature of Christendom. I would have put "Latin America" above Spain but then I remembered they are not a country. One of their countries alone is too irrelevant to put on this list.
>>8112575
>All head, no heart tier: classical Greek
triggered
>>8112575
>All head, no heart tier: classical Greek
So you haven't even read Homer then?
>>8112575
Fanfiction gets published tier: Philippines
Russia
Britannia
Germania
Ancientia Grecia
Restia of Europia
Ameria
Everythingia Elsia is Shittia
>>8112525
This categorization needs a Refugee Team. I nominate
Borges
Lem
Krasznahorkai
>>8117311
checked
>>8117344
Kek
Tough luck cunts, they're ours now. Shouldn't have shipped over so many prods with writing skills
>>8117356
This
Bong pls keep
>>8117408
M'fhear gorm
Based Flann can also be added to that list because of An Beal Bocht.
Alan Titley is doing well for himself these days too. Had him as a lecturer for Irish in UCC, did my oral exam with him. Unbelievably sound man, pretty good singer too
>These threads always turn into Nigels vs Paddys
Lads please.
>tfw live in Rathgar so a ton of Joyce and Ulysses sites a stones throw away
Really must read it
>>8117408
ive been spamming O Cadhain for the last few months after reading the dirty dust... good too see another anon that knows him...
>>8127045
posh scum come round my ends blad
>>8117367
Beckett is a French author by any account. Just like Conrad is an English author and Nabokov is an American author. Fucking english fags can't have it both ways
>>8127061
>the not from Dublin
>tfw you know Rathgar locals straight away by how rude and eccentric they are
You'll be pleased to learn that tiny, shitty flats like mine exist among all the grand houses with chandeliers
>>8127063
U fuken wot m8
He wrote in French, but we're talking about country of origin here,not writing language.
It's also worth bearing in mind that he translated his stuff himself into English, with minor tweaks, having seen them performed several times by that point
>tfw one of my lecturers in college still gets excited at the fact that for her masters thesis she wrote to Beckett, and he sent her back a postcard with an answer
So cute when she talks about it, Beckett is her husbando
>>8114541
George Bernard Shaw
Too many taigs in this thread for my liking, lads.
>All this butthurt because they haven't had a single good author since being given their (((independence)))
>>8117367
Don't forget Paul Durcan
>>8127070
why would we be talking about country of origin. I think its more of a country of belonging thread. as i said nobody associating nabokov with russia... I'm fully aware of Beckett's writing and translating process, but when he tried to write in English it was a failure- Joyce mimic (see dream of fair to middling women). So he moved to France, spoke french, wrote in French to try to break free of Joyce's style... most consider him a French author...
But yeah, if you are going by place a birth (why would you that makes no sense) then he's irish
>>8112525
>Russia
Tolstoy is the only very good Russian author though
>>8127081
>Doesn't name any good Prod Northern Irish authors.
Get back to building your bonfires and leave the grown ups to their discussion.
>>8127102
what about jackoff
You will never learn
>>8112549
>america and england before germany
lmao look at this cuck
>>8127063
Oh please, if you're only into late Beckett you ought to be posting shit like
>swishes scarf
>dies alone virginal and smug
You're missing everything around when he was trying to fuck Joyce's crazy daughter and have never read Murphy.
And Nabokov is a citizen of the world if you want to strip him of his Russian title. I know, because he's said as much, and I'm not enough of an idiot like you to argue with Nabokov.
Read an author's works before you white knight him, you're what makes Beckett fans look like arseholes.
