British vs French 19thc century lit rumble

[Cort Haus]

- or was he 20th century? Either way, I'll get my coat ...

[duke o' york]

Yes, 1920s I seem to remember.

[lord of the mark]

Ulysses is published just after the war I think, but Portrait of the Artist is pre war. But post 1900, I think.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Bwahaha

Gerard de Nerval

From Wikipedia: Gérard de Nerval (May 22, 1808 – January 26, 1855) was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, the most essentially Romantic among French poets.

You can't get any more spleenful, romantic, melancolic and pretentious than that:
# El Desdichado (Gérard de Nerval).

Je suis le ténébreux - le veuf, - l'inconsolé,
Le prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie;
Ma seule étoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie.

Dans la nuit du tombeau, toi qui m'as consolé,
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé,
Et la treille où le pampre à la rose s'allie.

Suis-je Amour ou Phébus?... Lusignan ou Biron?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la reine;
J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la sirène...

Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron:
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée
Les soupirs de la sainte et les cris de la fée.

"I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."



Owned.

[Kuciwalker]

Ouch! Spiffor, I do believe that is game, set, and match

[Seeker]

Does Lord Dunsany count as a Brit?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Ouch! Spiffor, I do believe that is game, set, and match

That's just because you don't understand French

[Nostromo]

If we look only at the novelists, France is a clear winner, IMO.

But if we look at the poets, I'm not sure. There sure are heavyweights on both sides...

But nobody cares about poetry anyway. So even if British poetry wins, and if they do they don't pwn France, not with Rimbaud on their team, France wins the day. QED

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
"I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."



Owned.

Try harder. I understood every individual word. I can't do it with de Nerval's.

[duke o' york]

Laz, your name will go down in the annals of CIVILIZATION!

[Ben Kenobi]

Promoting a gay icon !

I really like the Importance of Being Earnest. Maybe I'll get a chance to see a performance someday.

[Provost Harrison]

Ah yes, Shelley, quite a man...went to my old college and was an outspoken atheist - quite something in that day and age...

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Now let's wrap this one up.

Bring on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Anthony Trollope!

The pro-French argument is somewhat hampered by the fact that the early part of the century is a bit of a culotural wasteland, as far as their output was concerned. Meanwhile the British hit the ground running with the Romantics in 1800 and never let up. There are a few big French hitters in Hugo and Flaubert, but they can't hold out against the onslaught.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Now let's wrap this one up.

Bring on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Anthony Trollope!

You believe you can impress La France Eternelle with your amusing three-hit combo?

Just to entertain you by responding to your little jabs, here's Théophile Gautier, Lamartine and de Vigny!

[Spiffor]

BTW

Leconte de Lisle