British vs French 19thc century lit rumble

[Provost Harrison]

You frog, you think you're culture has had so much influence on ours. But au contraire, you are wrong

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You frog, you think you're culture has had so much influence on ours. But au contraire, you are wrong

How do they say? Honni soit qui mal y pense? It's somewhat of a déjà vu...

[Provost Harrison]

You're just too avant garde I'm afraid

[duke o' york]

Laz, of those only Trollope was new to the thread. And why anyone would want to mention Stevenson twice is beyond me.

[Sandman]

William Topaz McGonagall

The worst poet in history

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You frog, you think you're culture has had so much influence on ours. But au contraire, you are wrong

Culture hasn't had any influence on you PH?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by BeBro


Culture hasn't had any influence on you PH?

*whoosh*

[molly bloom]

Let's get technical:

Charles Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle and On The Origin Of Species

Or religio-philosophical & wigged out:

William Blake- Milton

Or druggy: Thomas De Quincey- Confessions of An Opium Eater

Utilitarian: J. S. Mill 'On Liberty'

Economic: David Ricardo- On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Feminist, political: Christina Rossetti- 'Goblin Market'

Artly critical: John Ruskin- The Seven Lamps Of Architecture

Craftily Socialist: William Morris: News From Nowhere

Angularly Jesuitically Saxon: Gerard Manley Hopkins- The Windhover

Fishily poetical: George Crabbe- (The Borough)- Peter Grimes

Grubbing around: George Gissing: New Grub Street

Prime Ministerial: Benjamin Disraeli- Sybil

Grouchily Marxist: Eleanor Marx- The Factory Hell

Oscar Wilde counts, naturally, since although being born in Dublin he wrote in English and was a citizen of the British Empire.

[Dr Strangelove]

How about Karl Marx? Didn't he write a bunch of stuff during his British period?

[BeBMan]

Yeah.

[molly bloom]

Henry Mayhew: London Labour and London Poor

George Meredith: The Egoist

Samuel Butler: The Way Of All Flesh & Erewhon

George Borrow: Lavengro & The Romany Rye

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Let's get technical:

Charles Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle and On The Origin Of Species

Or religio-philosophical & wigged out:

William Blake- Milton

Or druggy: Thomas De Quincey- Confessions of An Opium Eater

Utilitarian: J. S. Mill 'On Liberty'

Economic: David Ricardo- On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Feminist, political: Christina Rossetti- 'Goblin Market'

Artly critical: John Ruskin- The Seven Lamps Of Architecture

Craftily Socialist: William Morris: News From Nowhere

Angularly Jesuitically Saxon: Gerard Manley Hopkins- The Windhover

Fishily poetical: George Crabbe- (The Borough)- Peter Grimes

Grubbing around: George Gissing: New Grub Street

Prime Ministerial: Benjamin Disraeli- Sybil

Grouchily Marxist: Eleanor Marx- The Factory Hell

Oscar Wilde counts, naturally, since although being born in Dublin he wrote in English and was a citizen of the British Empire.

Check the first post - non-fiction essays count ONLY if they are primarily known for their literary style. I think that would exclude Darwin, Mill and Ricardo. Ruskin probably borderline.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by 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

France has a few individually strong novelists, but England has a whole bunch of one hit wonders, and prolific if more middlebrow novelists, etc. I think one could make a case for France having a slight edge, for a draw, or for the Brits having a slight edge. It would be pretty subjective to pick one of those positions.

As for poetry, its harder to judge, since you really need to read it in the original, and most of the "brit" side here isnt bilingual (and Im not - i can make out the literal meanings of most of the French poems, but I cant really judge their style) But I think theres a general consensus the Brits have the edge.


So Id say the brits win, but the dont "pwn".

So while they win the battle they lose the war - you cant make a case from this that French in the 19th century was losing its influence due to British lit. OTOH we've deliberately excluded the United States, and bringing in Whitman, Melville, the US transcendentalists, Hawthorne, Twain, Poe, James, would make a big difference.

Of course, as your poetry comment points out, maybe belle lettres is the wrong place to look for influence? Maybe we should be looking at non-fiction?

Another area I like to explore would be the US vs rest of world for fiction in the 1920's and 1930's. I think we could begin to make a case for the US rise to cultural dominance antedating the Second World War.

And Id like to look at high culture generally, from 1945-1960, to show that US post war dominance isnt all popcult.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Another area I like to explore would be the US vs rest of world for fiction in the 1920's and 1930's. I think we could begin to make a case for the US rise to cultural dominance antedating the Second World War.

That's P.G. Wodehouse era, and surely not much beats him for laughs or influence. The most prolific funny writer in English until Pratchett himself.

If the US was generally dominant at that time, it might be because Hollywood bought up talent from everywhere and stopped them from writing their own stuff.

[duke o' york]

Pratchett?

That's stories, not literature - just like Walter Scott.

I studied Ruskin as part of my English Literature course - although it wasn't really literature either, but his ideas were phenomenally influential for the rest of the century, and thereafter, certainly until Marx.