Why is this country so devoid of good literature?

That's right.

>I am the damned
>I am the dead
>I am the agony inside
>The dying head
>This is injustice
>Woe unto thee
>I pray this punishment
>Would have mercy on me

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Melville
Faulkner
Fitzgerald

/t

>Kick me
>Kike me
>Any way you like me

>Jew me, sue me
>Everybody do me

Whitman
Dickinson
Faulkner
Melville
Salinger
O’Connor
Crane
Ashbery
Moore
Fitzgerald
Morrison
Hemingway
Hawthorne
Poe
Pound
Glück
Baldwin
DuBois
Douglass
Stevens
Wright
Lovecraft

All of these writers aren’t on the same level but it’s to exemplify the variety of excellence American literature covers. Anyone who thinks America is devoid of lit simply doesn’t read enough.

They're alright, c'mon, lad.

John Steinbeck
Cormac McCarthy
Hubert Selby

Oh I forgot

Pynchon
DeLillo
Steinbeck
McCarthy
Foster Wallace

What a dumb thing to say and post?

modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

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>Morrison
>Stevens
>DuBois
>Crane
>Baldwin
kek is this what's considered great in Burgerland? the absolute state.

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burger here. 90% of my literature is euro and 70% is french. its true unfortunately

For their respective fields, yes. Not every writer is going to be Melville, Whitman, Faulkner, and Dickinson. René Char isn’t Mallarmé but he is notable in his own respect. What, can you name 27 writers from a single country who depict a variety of subjects and are of equal rank? I’d be impressed.

Phoneposting is illegal, Reddit.

Lack of a hereditary aristocracy

Out of the anglo offshoots were pretty good compared to like canada and australia

So you're admitting they are mediocre at best and that you have lower standards for blacks? Well, at least you're honest. Also, the only "respective field" is literature (novel, poetry, short stories, etc). Makes no sense to judge them differently. Stevens should be compared to Dickinson, and Morrison to Faulkner. Otherwise you're nurturing mediocrity and weakness.

Withman is a hack

You’re projecting that sentiment onto me. There’s a reason I didn’t include Hughes or other black poetic figureheads on this list, because if I wanted to lower the standard for black people, I would’ve. Baldwin excelled at the essay and his subject, likewise did Douglass and DuBois. The essayist is to be compared with the essayist, and they are all very good at that craft. Hughes isn’t a notable enough poet for me to place him on a list exemplifying the country’s prowess, but Morrison is a notable enough novelist as she is certainly on par with, if not better than, O’Connor. Funny how you single out the black authors and not the very blatantly least technically skilled of the bunch: Lovecraft, who was also included because he did excel at his medium. Would you compare Lovecraft to Faulkner, or M.R James? If Faulkner then it’s senseless, we compare like with like, and rank each according to what they sought to do. Yes it’s all “literature” but would it make sense to compare Montaigne with Baudelaire? No. Therefore we praise each for what they’ve done. Note how Coates isn’t included here either. There’s a lot of black mediocrity in America as well as white, but this is just what I consider to be some of the best of their respective mediums for the position. If you want to name better American essayists than Baldwin and DuBois be my guest, but if you think it’s irrational to categorize writers for their medium then I don’t know what to tell you.

Cormac McCarthy

Just to be clear, by your logic we should compare Dickinson with Joyce, Joyce with Montaigne, and Montaigne with Lewis Carroll. Because it’s all just literature right? No sense in comparing writers to others of their medium, literature is all just one thing!

No, I said the field was literature, but I implied the areas were novels, poetry, short stories, etc. That's why I put them in parenthesis and I clearly stated that Stevens should be compared to Dickinson (both poets) and Morrison should be compared to Faulkner (both novelists). I never said one should compare a poet and a novelist. I think it's pretty clear what I meant. Read my reply again.

It's because the american society doesn't have any cultural background to draw back from. Their history started 250 years ago while every other society in the old world is thousands of years old.

You can't expect a country like that to start producing great literature out of the blue.

I got that, but denying the “respective field” categorization likewise denies the ability to diversify ranking according to one’s craft. Sure, you do admit to some necessary level of categorization, but since you dismiss a form of it earlier, I’m confused as to where you stand on the matter. My whole point about ranking essayists within their medium was in response to “you admit they’re mediocre and lower standards for blacks” because I can only understand calling Baldwin “mediocre” in a context which contrasts him from the poetic zenith of Dickinson. A contrast which I go on to deem inappropriate for the aforementioned reasons. Anyway, now that the miscommunications have been cleared, in what way are Baldwin and Dubois mediocre as American essayists? You might rival them with Emerson at best, but in no way can i see them omitted from a list which exemplifies the strength of America’s literary tradition.

Except they literally did. Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville arose about 100 years after the country was established. Why are we making excuses for something that doesn’t need to be excused? America already produced literary giants very shortly after its fruition. We should be praising that as a feat, not patronizing an imaginary deficit.

my diary desu

Ah, classic Yea Forums contrarianism. Why is the country that produced the best literature of the 20th century so devoid of good literature? *scratches head*

Outside of hating transgender people, is anti-Americanism the most universally accepted opinion on this website? /k/ is the only board I would describe as pro-American as of 2019.

Excuse me?
We have To Kill A Mockingbird, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, and Huckleberry Finn. Also lest we forget poets like Emily Dickenson and Langston Hughes. Try again.

Standards are racist because black people disproportionately don't meet them.

foreigners have been really vocal about it since shortly after the 2016 election. they hate hearing about America, supposedly, yet here they are on an American website where the largest body of posters are from that nation. also, we have to acknowledge that our nation's imperialism has ruffled feathers in other parts of the world. I'd love it if our imperialism ended and America returned to isolationism, but the state of the modern US economy makes that all but impossible. the elites won't willfully give up what American imperialism has gained them.

nabokov as well

Americans are soulless with at best a simulacrum of a culture maladapted from other legitimate countries. Theyre not as bad as Canadians though, who are a totally lost cause.

Not American born so didn’t include. Didn’t include Eliot because the pussy renounced his American citizenship for the brits.

>Americans are soulless
I think we're among the most soulful people left in the West. Despite the trend toward atheism we're still far more religious than other Western nations.

>best literature of the 20th century
sure it did. you got something to back that up fella?

I guess that’s why American pop culture is universally consumed and emulated. Or why we brought innovations to poetry with people like Whitman that were unforeseen in other English speaking counties. Not to mention Dickinson having one of the most masterful uses of metaphor ever seen in poetry. Or why we wrote what is widely considered one of the greatest novels in the English language (if not the best). And I guess the inventions of jazz and hip hop are irrelevant too right? More unforeseen innovations in art but it’s just a “soulless simulacrum” right? The music of The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, totally impotent huh? And didn’t we produce some of the most renowned English language poets of the 20th century? Eliot, Pound, Ashbery, hell even Ginsberg? And it’s not to say that anything I’ve mentioned is the absolute zenith of art or culture. But to deny its significance and value is absolutely absurd.

Cope

Kek have you ever even interacted with american christians?

it had good literature but the school system has centralized thought and killed motivation to be more than above average

Not him but I will.

Faulkner
Pynchon
DeLillo
Fitzgerald
Hemingway
O’Connor
Pound
Moore
Stevens
Crane
McCarthy
Steinbeck
Salinger

Who are our competitors?

Go eat another burger and chill the fuck out.

Nice counter lol

>Stevens
stop this meme

>his dumb post gets blown the fuck out
>"lol go eat a borgar"
shameful

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No, not really. I was just looking at the numbers.

vocaroo.com/i/s1bv2iRgyD3A

I hate americans because they pushed obnoxious consumerism, macdonalds and omnipresent advertisement into my country and numerous other european countries. They consider it cultural enrichment.

Do europeans actually not like hamburgers?

that's a Roman, not an American, lad.

>Steinbeck
>Salinger
>O’Connor
>Fitzgerald
>Faulkner
>Pynchon

You can discard the rest. Remember that only best authors from a language are translated to English. Pretty sure there are writers of the same level as Hemingway, Pound, Moore in other countries too that hasn't been translated.

More of a cheeseburger continent.

You think we have any say over what multinational corporations produce? They don't represent average Americans. We're just as much the victims of them as you are. You might suggest we vote for politicians that do something about it, or boycott their products, and I'd say your compatriots are free to do the same. The fact is we're in the same position, only we've been ruined by them longer.

Lol most americans are obese fucks. On top of that, theyre arrogant, purposefully ignorant and very artificial. It's not a coincidence that the rest of the world hates americans. The best country to nuke, after China.

consumerism and advertisements exist because corporations want to sell things
>Americans think its culture
based on what?
it's actually neither, but a meme. something that's fun to laugh at, but taking memes 100% seriously leads to /int/ tier shitposting where people from different countries can't even communicate with one another without spitting up a meme salad.
have you been to America, and interacted with Americans? or is your assertion based on some things you saw on the internet? of course the worst and most spectacular is what gets the attention on the internet.

I’ll agree with that. I haven’t read enough from non English lit of the 20th century so say America dominated internationally. But as far as the English language goes I think we won that century.

I loved Faulkner in DBZ bro

>Poe and Lovecraft
>Bad literature
Pick one.

>t. Seething kraut