Where does American literature rank?
Generally, quite highly. Same with film and music. America, being a society of Spectacle, has long been the global hegemon of the Arts.There's a reason the phrase "The Great American Novel" has circled the zeitgeist for a century.
>>24718698Mid. Having obscene resources to print everything possible to the page has certainly led to a solid handful of exceptional works, but nothing on the epoch-defining level of a Homer, Shakespeare, or Petrarch. And it never will happen either as the state of American publishing means any future talent to incidentally come out out of the US will have a pointed distance from being identifiable as American, a la Eliot or Pound. >>24718737>and music.Why do I think you are not trolling, but genuinely retarded?
>>24718831>nothing on the epoch-defining level of a Homer, Shakespeare, or PetrarchEvery time picrel's work was translated into another language it sparked a poetic revolution in that country>>24718698Hard to say without being familiar with world literature and I'm not very familiar with world literature. China probably ranks first, they've just been writing world-class literature for over two thousand years. US lit is in a weird spot -- our best writer is Faulkner, but he never wrote a book as good as Moby-Dick, but Whitman's the most internationally influential US literary figure, but Dickinson is the superior poet
It's hard to gauge because the U.S. is such a new nation, but American literature ranks fairly high in terms of quality and influence.In the 19th, I'd say that America was fourth, losing out to Russia, Britain, and France in the Western tradition. For a while, Longfellow was one of the most popular poets in the world, but I'd say that American literature really came into its own with Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Twain, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and James.In the 20th century, I'd argue that America overtook Russia, but that is just as much due to the emergence of the Soviet Union. Whether or not the literary achievements of 20th century America surpass those of France or Britain is debatable.
There is exactly one American writer worth reading, and it's Faulkner. Everything before and after him has been derivative or outright garbage.
American pulp writers are better than any European writers.
>>24718698K Amis wrote once>There is no distinctively American literature. They offer a vast number of books that in some ways resemble British literature and in other ways don't. Those other ways are likewise non-American, whether they come from other European cultures like German or French (the latter by direct borrowing) or from non-national cultures: Jewish, Negro. No coherent culture could emerge from all that.
>>24718959Western
>>24718737>There's a reason the phrase "The Great American Novel" has circled the zeitgeist for a century.because America takes her writers too seriously (a British novelist once said 'in New York, book REVIEWERS get recognised in restaurants'). She regards them as key operators in the national heritage business.There's a desire to find and reward the 'great', because they have no real literary tradition. & the Melville initiative of forcing a universal scope. Actually the pursuit of a masterpiece has bedevilled American writers ever since.
>>24718987It's only bedevilled literary writers. Genre fiction writers are writing in the American tradition. Western, hardboiled, sword and sorcery, superhero, etc.
>>24718865You in your own post prove why Whitman is not an equivalent to Homer or Shakespeare. He's ultimately more highly regarded for his influence than the quality of his poetry, and he's not head and shoulders above every other American writer.
>>24718831>Why do I think you are not trolling, but genuinely retarded?because you don't listen to music.
>>24718987>America takes her writers too seriouslywhy is that bad, exactly? the Arts are where culture flourishes.>they have no real literary traditionsophomoric.
>>24718932>In the 19th, I'd say that America was fourthUtterly retarded. You overrated American writers to a ridiculous degree. Emerson, Hawthorne, Whitman, Melville, Twain, Dickinson and James is not a superior literary tradition to what Spain, England, Greece, Italy/Rome, France, Germany, China, India, etc. had created, and America has still not eclipsed them and never will.
>>24718997Lol go back to kindergarten.
>>24719025Why?
>>24719021>why is that bad, exactly?Might be hard for an American to understand, but horrible praise is worse than any criticism. Also not-so-great writers get outrageous marketing. I read something Amis said around the time The Naked and the Dead was published; ‘I thought someone the size of Dickens was among us, I hadn’t accounted for the fact Mailer was American.’
>>24719022First of all I'm talking about the literature of the 19th century exclusively, nothing before or after. I'll concede that the literary output of England, France, and Russia were inarguably greater than that of America in the 19th century. In terms of both quality and influence, which 19th century writers from Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, China, and India stand above all of the American examples? I love Galdos and Manzoni, but they haven't written a novel to rival Moby Dick.
#1
>>24719039there’s people who still rank moby dick as the greatest book ever written which should say something about the america propaganda machine
>>24718698Considering its short history, not badMoby Dick, of course, is their main achievement
>>24719073>>24719142Lol
>>24718952>one American writer worth reading, and it's Pynchon.Fixed
>>24718698Save for a few novelist and poets, generally shit.
>>24719018American composers are universally jokes and American folk music is profoundly unexceptional in part due to the extreme brevity of tradition; that leaves pop music which is still outsourced half the time (British invasion being the peak of the medium.)
We own the novel. With poetry, on the other hand, we definitely lag behind.
There are legions of literally-who American novelists whose outputs are worth more than entire European national literary traditions. Who on that continent is even competition- Russia and France? Ireland? An Englishmen has never produced a great novel, and Central Europe is a sea of disappointment.
>>24720756>An Englishmen has never produced a great novelDickens is the only real counterexample, but I'm a fan of Douglas Adams' and Terry Pratchett's styles of humor, even if their books don't reach the level of "great">inb4 performative contrarian faggotry trying to pretend he's too good for Dickens
>>24720756You sound very upset
>>24721007I like how you think that people would object to Dickens and not Adams or Pratchett, who are both objectively shit. >>24720756Middlemarch clears
>>24721108He's clearly acknowledging that Pratchett and Adams are not super highly regarded as literary titans, that is why he just says he is a fan. Dickens however is a literary titan, and should be considered as such, and only contrarians would attempt to claim otherwise.
I think there’s a lot to be said for the American sci-fi tradition, which I believe stands above the European sci-fi of the late 19th century and the Soviet tradition of the 20th.
Out of idle curiosity decided to check out what universities in my corner of Europe have on their reading lists for their Introduction to Western Literature courses. Ended up with four because college website design hasn't improved at all since my time as a student, one in particular had in their For Students section the faculty's recent publications and recent projects but not the study guide for upcoming courses.Anwyay, one of the universities didn't have a single American author in their reading list. Likely reason is that they were the only ones who had merged the Introduction to local literature course with their Introduction to Western lit and apparently this meant the Americans didn't make the cut.Another university had Toni Morrison (Beloved) as their only American in a comparatively very short list that didn't have any mention of any of these books being optional.Third one had Ursula Le Guin (Left Hand of Darkness) as their only American. She was explicitly an example of a post-modern author and seemingly the students had to choose between her and Italo Calvino as the exemplars of post-moderns.Fourth one had a very extensive list in general, which included ”other belles lettres” as you shall see, and consequently had a lot of Americans, but also so many others that you could easily skip having to read a single American author:Edgar Allan Poe: Collected TalesWilliam Faulkner: The Sound and the FuryErnest Hemingway: The First Fortynine StoriesToni Morrison: BelovedVladimir Nabokov: LolitaJ.D. Salinger: Catcher in the RyeEmily Dickinson: A Collection of PoetryHenry David Thoreau: WaldenWalt Whitman: Collected PoemsT.S. Eliot: The Waste LandNorman Mailer: Armies of the NightSylvia Plath: ArielArt Spiegelman: Maus I-II
>>24721215Your problem is you looked up Western literature courses instead of American literature courses.Easy mistake to make when you’re not a college graduate yourself, don’t worry.
>>24718698Probably around 11th or 12th, I'm open to either of those rankings.But not higher or lower.
A Confederacy of Dunces is the best comedy book ever excluding Don Quixote.
>>24718865who?
