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Professors’ list of Great Books | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4242 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 40 09 March 2014 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think I agree with this. Though my opinion is likely shaded by being more familiar with film canons, where the canon was made within the past ~100 years and hasn't completely settled yet. But in general I tend to think of canons as being shifting things with fuzzy edges. I think it's healthy to have an evolving canon that reflects the critical climate of the time, and then gradually you see which works consistently make these lists of greats and which were introduced and then later dropped because they were fashionable with whatever critical theories were popular at the time. Edited by YnEoS on 09 March 2014 at 3:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7193 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 10 of 40 09 March 2014 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's true that many books show up on various lists and that too tends me give them more weight. Some lists do focus more on a particular literary tradition. For example, the Harvard Classics confesses that it draws more from American and English authors for a variety of reasons, partly cultural, partly practical (no translation necessary), and partly because of the expected audience. Edited by luke on 09 March 2014 at 7:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4858 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 11 of 40 13 March 2014 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And I don't think he's just wanted the book to have been published for 100 years. I think the authors themselves have to be dead 100 years. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4626 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 12 of 40 14 March 2014 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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English does generally have a reputation as the strongest literary language of Europe. Historically the only
real contenders were Italian and French, the other strong Languages like Russian and German were late comers. English got a major boost over Italian and French thanks to Protestant support for vernacular language and widespread literacy. I think canons are great. It's impssible to read every book. I want to maximize the odds that the ones I do read give me lots of pleasure. So I look at what other people have loved. Edited by AlexTG on 14 March 2014 at 12:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4232 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 13 of 40 14 March 2014 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There is something oddly literary about the British Isles in that sense. It's far from
my area of study but yeah I see what you mean. Some of the first vernacular literatures to develop in Europe were in Ireland and England with Wales not close behind and it's like they've never shut up. I'm constantly surprised at how great a range of literature English has and if someone had made me aware of the early Saxon poetry, Medieval Miracle plays, philosophical treatises etc alongside the more canonical stuff (Milton, Spenser, Blake etc) when I was younger I'd be much better off for it. Ah well. It's funny because the literature tends to be snobbed by those people who in turn seem to be near illiterate. I had no idea German and Russian could be considered late comers, interesting. I think with Italian though you have to admit until recently it was the language of the novel, Eco, Calvino and a host of others...parfait. French too has a grand, wealthy, tradition especially if you like essays. Meh, pretty much most languages have great traditions I'm just glad to have a chance to discuss the concept. I mean one never sees Spanish beyond Quixote but things like Tyrant Lo Blanch are bloody excellent. As for the professor's list...well...if you're after lists go find experts in those literary canons and see what they've put out rather than cleaving to a single list which was made for whatever purpose. Also be advised that canons are highly malleable and the difference between emic and etic (internal and external re: a culture) can often be huge. If we were to compile a list of the "most important" (grah!) Ancient Greek works to read based on common consensus it would look QUITE different from a contextually created list of what the Greeks themselves though. This was one of the tasks we were set as first year under-grads actually...we took the popular list of like 100 classical works all "must read" and then we went through what the ancients themselves rated and...it was so different. Yet either list would suit. Your own personal list would be even better. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7193 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 14 of 40 14 March 2014 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think he waits until the author has been dead for 100 years because of the forum's rules on copyright. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6049 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 15 of 40 14 March 2014 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting. I've lived all my life with the notion that it would be French. In this thread (so far) 11 persons have contributed (if I counted correctly): - 7 list English as native language (none for French); - only 3 persons claim to be fluent in French (all 11 for English). I could do the same exercise for German, Italian, Spanish or whatever, and it would be the same. Globally speaking, this is a language learning forum for people that already speak English. Maybe there are exceptions, but that's more or less true. Disclaimer: the idea behind this post is just to point out that many times we don't get access to unbiased information. Maybe English has the strongest literary tradition in Europe. I don't know. But this is probably not the best place to find out, since most people will fight for their "lady". And here the odds are not good. As they say in your language: it's not a fair fight. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Elanguest Newbie Malta elanguest.com Joined 3854 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 40 12 May 2014 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I recently read a short bio of Rafael Sabatini and found it very interesting that, as a polyglot (fluent in 6 languages),
he read a lot of Europe's great literature as a child, and when he began writing novels himself, he chose to write in English because apparently he felt that the best stories were written in English. Just wanted to comment on what you said about Don Quijote, Lykeio: there's a lot of really great Spanish-language books from the Western Hemisphere: Jorge Luis Borges, Bioy Casares, Julio Cortázar, Juan Rulfo, etc. Also don't forget Miguel de Unamuno from Spain. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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