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Professors’ list of Great Books | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 25 of 40 13 May 2014 at 3:25am | IP Logged | |||||
You're right, of course, as usual. My comment was actually a joke, delivered in deadpan. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4639 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 26 of 40 13 May 2014 at 6:50am | IP Logged | |||||
German simply can't be a contender. Dante was born in 1265. So we're looking at a period of about 7 centuries. German literature was a pygmy before Goethe arrived 250ish years ago. I disagree that it's about personal taste. In terms of greatness we should be looking at the writers who are consistently revered among great thinkers. Edited by AlexTG on 13 May 2014 at 6:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6062 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 27 of 40 13 May 2014 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
While I'd not give the top spot (and why should there be one?) to Germany, I'd like to point out that this argument of yours reflects a few choices in dates and is, therefore, biased IMHO. When Dante was born, the Germans already had Parzival, Tristan and Das Nibelungenlied under their belt. I don't think they're a match for the Divina Commedia, but it means there was cultural life in that neck of the woods. I'm not German, but I'd heard of such books before. My little country produced more than a handful of excellent writers, playwrights and poets between roughly 1450 and 1600. Spain had its Siglo de Oro (the 16th Century). Both countries were living glorious times, with massive influx of money, people and ideas. My point is that prosperity generates art (pays for it, in fact). If half your city is dying of the plague or under siege (Thirty Years' War, anyone?), you don't get someone to sit down for a few years and write a masterpiece. Not easily, at least. For centuries, the superpowers of Europe (France, Spain, Austria, even Russia, England, Sweden and Denmark) went to Germany to settle their differences (fight, pillage, burn). We can forgive the locals for a few years without masterpieces.
I agree wholeheartedly. But they must be revered in countries with different traditions. That's why I gave this list above. Edited by Luso on 13 May 2014 at 2:02pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4639 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 28 of 40 13 May 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Naturally when I say languages are out of contention I'm not trying to deny the existence of their
masterpieces. Some literatures have to be bigger than others. There are different factors including population, wealth, stability, the respect given to different artforms. The Germanic speakers produced some pretty decent composers in their time so it wasn't just the instability of war keeping their literature down. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6062 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 29 of 40 13 May 2014 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, some pretty decent composers... :P Nice touch. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 30 of 40 13 May 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I meant that choosing the best out of English/France/Germany/Italy is a matter of personal taste.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dmaddock1 Senior Member United States Joined 5434 days ago 174 posts - 426 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Esperanto, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 31 of 40 13 May 2014 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As someone attracted to language learning primarily because of literature, I've found it surprisingly hard to find "canon lists" for specific language traditions. Even finding an answer to the simple question "What book(s) originally written in X does every native speaker have to read in school?" is difficult. I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing, a reflection of the state of the literature of language X, or my search criteria.
"Global" Great Books lists have the problem of mixing languages, which invites disputes over the dominance of the biggest languages. However, when I search for a good list that covers only a single language outside of the top 4-5 I usually find little. You would think the primary and secondary education systems all over the world would have some kind of curriculum in place already. Yet, it is not so easy to find. This is the kind of information that gets me excited to learn a language, but ironically I can't effectively find the information until I already know a bit of the language... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 32 of 40 13 May 2014 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Greater Books Master List has put together
information on several Great Books lists. It includes the language of the original work. What surprises me is that one can't find Greater Book information that answers questions like: * List Great Books originally written in X. * What vocabulary size would one need to understand 98% of book Y. * List selected books in order by original publication date, author, title, etc. * An indicator of difficulty beyond vocabulary. (vocabulary breadth, sentence length, word length, fog index, lexile, etc) * Links to public domain parallel texts. * Links to public domain audio. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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