How was one nation able to create so much great literature?

How is Shakespeare's time, where they literally burned witches and Catholics and existed under a strict monarchy, in any way related to the Britain of our time, except through history? Modern day Britain has more in common with Singapore or South Korea than it does with Shakespeare's Britain. The british are not good at writing by any stretch of the imagination. Proof? Grab some Brit off the street and tell him to write a good book.

But there isn't any good literature in Scottish gaelic or Cornish. only in irish, scots and English.

and welsh.

no reply? i win.

t. self-loathing Brit who has just finished English a-level

Don't you mean english? Gosh darn it, Albion, you ought to be ashamed of being an englishman.

Big ol Empire combined with vitalistic ruling class with historical mission to fulfil (spreading capitalism). Those all combined make for energetic literary production. Once they disappeared, we saw the slow decline. If British Literature recovers any new kind of momentum, it'll be (by definition) because a new group has forced it down a new direction, because the old one's clearly running off of inertia right now.

So why didn't all the non-english individuals (niggers) create so much great literature?

Because their average IQ is 85. There have been some good books by blacks but obviously not as many as by whites. I hear Ethiopia has a rich literary tradition that hasn't been translated. What has this got to do with my post though?

Sure, but the obvious separation of culture between England and Scotland and Wales ans especially Ireland mean that they really can't be considered one nation.

Britain has so many languages as well, it's ridiculous.

endogamy

The Anglos are something else.

So because Shakespeare wrote in 1500s Britain, this means he wasn’t a British writer? What the fuck are you talking about you spastic??

Britain didn't even exist in Shakespeare's time. But even if we are charitable and assume he was, the distinction is completely meaningless. Might as well group writers by hair colour and arm length.

Salt

You posted the wrong flag ;^)

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Britain's the island retard, not the state.

You are incredibly stupid

Irrelevant. Try answering the point instead of harping on a trivial point which I even granted you.
Nice argument, cock gobbler.

You didn't, but fine. Given that a nation is simply an imagined community, why do you deny the existence of any form of continuity between Shakespeare's Britain and ours? When what is meant by 'Britain' is specifically the continuity a people perceive with the past, that seems pointless. It's a metanarrative after all, not a hard science. What do you gain from such petty deconstructionism as relating to such a (relatively at least) uncontroversial point as the notion of a national literature? Do you consider yourself the same individual despite the huge changes you've seen in the last decade? Presumably. Even if you claim on an abstract level that you don't, I doubt your actual actions reflect that. Which comes to the same point - the notion of you, a concrete, differentiated individual may well be a 'fiction', a narrative. But an extremely useful one, that allows you to do things you otherwise wouldn't. So what's the issue.

All categories are only as good as they are useful. I have tried to maintain that the compartmentalisation of writers by nationality is just as absurd as grouping by any other arbitrary trait -- eye colour, for example -- except in cases where it is a small country with one unified culture and language which has not gone through a drastic change with time. This has nothing at all to do with whether Britain is a continuous metanarrative or anything of the sort; rather, the question is whether the statement "How can a nation produce so much great literature", and the implied grouping-by-nation of writers, is a sensible one. A modern day British writer would have more in common culturally with a Singaporean or an American than he would with a person in Shakespeare's day, so the grouping-by-nationality makes absolutely no sense. I have a feeling it is simply an intuition that arises from our need to somehow identify ourselves with greater men on the basis of an arbitrary trait we share as a palliative for our own lack of greatness.

As to what I "gain" from it: nothing, but you gain nothing from responding to me either, so I don't see your point.

Ethiopians are white.

>Britain has so much good literature
>only reads the English one
please don't say this we know you haven't read any scots.

this.

>All categories are only as good as they are useful
I agree, hence Britain's existence. A people and a ruling class wouldn't put so much effort over so much time into propagating something that wasn't useful, would they?
>compartmentalisation of writers by nationality is just as absurd
You again seem to be failing to grasp the difference between a nation and something like arm length or whatever.
The former has *ideological* significance in a way the latter just doesn't (which isn't to deny the 'ideologicalness' of arm length in theory etc, but there's quite clearly a difference, both in degree and quality).
>small country with one unified culture and language which has not gone through a drastic change with time
Mate, a nation is an imagined community. You are attempting to argue against the subjectivity of IMAGINATION. You quite literally can't. The fact is that generally, peoples (for myriad reasons) invest huge significance into nation, not arm length. 'Social construct' is not a synonym for 'falsehood' (just as 'falsehood' isn't a synonym for 'bad'). Obviously there's blurring at the edges and debate and so on. But the fatal flaw of pomo is the refusal to accept the fairly commonsense notion that a fuzzy, porous line, is still a line.
It has everything to do with 'whether Britain is a continuous metanarrative', because 'Britain', being a 'nation', is an 'imagined community'(!). Thus, narrative is integral. If your issue (as you imply) is why Britain SPECIFICALLY should be a nation, there's many reasons, hence your line
>A modern day British writer would have more in common culturally with a Singaporean or an American
is not only attempting to argue against a subjective notion, but is even factually wrong on several, obvious counts. A modern Briton shares linguistic, genetic, geographical, religious and, yes, political roots that they just don't with Singapore etc. I don't even have to say this. You equivocate between, the *Shakespeare's Britain* and *an individual in Shakespeare's day*, in an attempt to reinforce this. Society is not just a collection of individuals. You seem to think that because Britain is not exactly as it was 5 centuries ago, it cannot be related, in a clear line of march, to the former. Even though I specifically mentioned *Continuity*, i.e. process, becoming. Not static being. The Britain of Shakespeare was in the process of *becoming* 'our' Britain. This process never stops.
> I have a feeling it is simply an intuition
Partially correct.
>somehow identify ourselves with greater men
Conjecture.
You're even attempting to deny the gains we both derive from this conversation lmao, like you're such a pomo cynic that every event is just a characterless neutral void, with no meaning or even existence to anything, not even the most unconscious desires of the Subject, as may well be playing out in this exchange. I'm not even going to bother listing all the things we both might feel we 'gain' from this exchange.

They are Capital's divine instrument. Praise Gnon!

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They're all depressed