/lit/ - Literature

Twain, Faulkner, Palin

hemingway, faulkner, and i dunno
also what do you mean by important? most widely read? most influential to other authors? most academically approved?

>>1757498
just important. whatever you take that to mean.

>>1757502
well way to completely clarify your incredibly vague and open-ended question.
twain i guess would be the third one

My buttcheeks (both), my asshole

Have produced some very influential wokrs (m,y shit)

Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and William Faulkner?

>>1757505
I'm just curious to see what people come up with, it's why I left it vague.

Poe, Faulkner, Nabokov
(DFW and Pynchon if they were appreciated)

Ernest Hemingway
Thomas Pynchon
Edgar Allan Poe

>>1757598
>nabokov
>american

>what do you MEAN russians aren't americans quentin fucking troll 0/10 fag go killl yourself worst poster of /lit/ ever

>>1757598
>Nabokov
NOPE.AVI
>DFW
OMGWHYWTF

MARK TWAIN
MARK TWAIN
MARK TWAIN

Hemingway
Fitzgerald
Twain

Steven King
Neil Gaiman
George Orwell

Melville, Faulkner, and Harper Lee

>Implying Nabokov didn't live in Manhattan

Twain, Poe and Pynchon. That leaves out a lot of fucking people, but you did say three.

Emerson, Twain, and Hemingway.

>>1757620
>Melville
Acceptable choice.
>Faulkner
Have to mention him.
>Harper Lee
Pic related.

Just to be controversial...

Raymond Carver
Philip K. Dick
Thomas Jefferson

>>1757637
I'm not the person who posted that, but I'd have to agree with them. Harper Lee was an incredibly important American author. Maybe (actually, almost definitely) not top three, but very likely a top ten or fifteen.

>>1757644
Not top ten or fifteen and hardly important to literature at all.

>>1757660
>>1757644
>>1757637

Guys relax I was just kidding. My real third pick is Tao Lin.

mencken
raymond carver
john fante

No love for Didion in this thread?
Though I agree, not top three...
I'll go with Hemingway, Poe, and Twain.

Same as any other English-speaking nation.
William Shakespeare & a couple of locals.

>>1757497

>CARVER
>CHANDLER
Because without them we would not have Murakami, Peace Be Upon Him.

>KING
This should be self-evident.

Hemingway
Faulkner
Pynchon

>>1758065
Gotta agree with this.

inb4 OMFG THEY HAVE SAME OPINION, SAMEFAG, SAMEFAG!

Gary Gygax
Robert Anthony Salvatore
Richard Allen Knaak

Tom Clancy
Stephen King
George R R Martin

>>1758077
Of those three, the only author I have enjoyed is George Martin. Tom Clancy is boring and King's work isn't my choice for literature.

>>1757602
You read Lolita and tell me it isn't an American novel. Nabokov was adaptable.

Hemingway
Twain
Capote

NABOKOV WAS A RUSSIAN SUBJECT, RUSSIA MADE HIM, IT IS RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

Kanye West
Stan Lee
Jean Teasdale

>>1758136
obviously you didn't get enough arts and crafts in second grade. america is a nation of immigrants

>>1758136

Prague made Kafka.
Kafka is czech literature.

>>1758101
Lolita: written about america, by a russian, from a french character's point of view.

tell me humbert humbert doesn't sound like a massive exasperated french toolbag

that said, the 'feel' is very americana

I'd say Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, Gertrude Stein

>>1757753
I dunno about top three, although I feel kind of ridiculous trying to come up with a top-three list anyway, but I am kind of surprised that she's never ever mentioned on /lit/

>>1758128
not bad not bad


i say
twain
flannery o'connor
hemingway

also:
raymond carver
falkner
cormac mccarthy

>>1758141
SO A RUSSIAN AUTHOR WHO CAPTURED THE ESSENCE OF AMERICANA IS STILL RUSSIAN LITERATURE, HE JUST DID IT BETTER THAN AMERICAN BORN SUBJECTS.

TOLSTOY, PUSHKIN, GOGOL, DOSTOEVSKY, CHEKHOV, LERMONTOV.

IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE GOVERNMENT KILLED OFF THEIR AUTHORS AND SENT THEM TO THE GULAG? NO FUCKING PROBLEM! SOLZHENITSYN, SHALAMOV, PASTERNAK, GROSSMAN, ILF, KHARMS, PLATONOV, BULGAKOV, EVEN LITTLE RANDY COMES OUT SWINGING HARD ON THE INFLUENCE OF WESTERN CANON.

SHIT FUCK, FORGOT ONE OF MY FAVOURITES, ANDREYEV.

>>1758143

sure, if you scratch T.S. Failiot from that

>>1758163
>SO A RUSSIAN AUTHOR WHO CAPTURED THE ESSENCE OF AMERICANA IS STILL RUSSIAN LITERATURE, HE JUST DID IT BETTER THAN AMERICAN BORN SUBJECTS.

no, bro.

SORRY, LOLITA IS RANKED IN THE TOP TEN BOOKS IN HOW MANY LISTS CONDUCTED BY PROMINENT WESTERN BODIES?

>>1758077
>Stephen King

>>1758183
it is a popular book. but is it ever ranked number 1?

>HE JUST DID IT BETTER THAN AMERICAN BORN SUBJECTS.


also, nabokov was an idiot. he hated on his share of great authors. and what great americana does nabokov show exactly? i'd love to hear it.

Mark Twain
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hemingway

Fitzgerald
Twain
this guy I know who is not yet published but who, I am confident, will be very very hot shit someday.

>>1758196
THOSE BOOKS AREN'T RANKED BY POPULARITY. LOL

WELL, I'M NOT THE EXPERT ON AMERICAN WORKS, I ACTUALLY DIDN'T ENJOY LOLITA THAT MUCH, NOR DID I FEEL MUCH FOR STEINBECK'S THE GRAPES OF WRATH.

BUT MAN, JUST FUCKING GOOGLE IT, TONNES OF SHIT THERE THAT WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION QUICKER THAN A WHISTLE OF A BIRDIE.

>>1758204
fine fine. but nabokov was never in any discussion of highly influential american lit in the courses i had in college.

>>1758223
I, CAPSGUY CANNOT BE BLAMED FOR YOUR INSTITUTIONS INABILITY TO RECOGNISE NABOKOV'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICANA.

SHIT LIKE THIS IS SUBJECTIVE, AND THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH THEY CAN TEACH IN THE ALLOCATED TIMES FOR CLASSES.

>>1758233
or maybe they were using authors who were more important to americana.

i'm seeing a few authors for a class specifically called "american literature" named itt.

i anonymous, say to you, sir. whatever, hater.

>>1758202
is "this guy" a bald dude who wears silly glasses and lives in china

Emerson.
Poe.
Henry James.

Most Important:
Irving
Poe
Hemingway
Best:
W.S. Burroughs
Faulkner
Ezra Pound

The three most important American writers are:

1. Thomas Paine

2. Mark Twain

3. J.D. Salinger

Hope that helped.

The most important American writer of this century at least is Rachel Haywire.

>>1758382

I thought Ezra Pound was kinda like T.S. Eliot, in that he was American-born, but mostly did his stuff in England? I dunno, I had both of them in my British Lit class instead of American Lit.

shut up and post more pics of obama

>>1758402
I'm claiming him as an American.

>>1758404

Poe isn't really top 3, he never wrote a great american novel and his poetry was often pretty monotonous and contrived.

I'm really surprised by the lack of mentions for Thomas Paine.

America was pretty much founded on that guy's ideas.

>>1758404

>post more pics of Obama

>>1758422
MAYBE BECAUSE HE IS NOT AMERICAN, YOU DUMBASS!

>>1758422

Important for the whole world, not just America.

As paradoxical as that might seem to you.

>>1758442
>Thomas "Tom" Paine (February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736[1]] – June 8, 1809) was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.[2][3]

Right there, one of the founding fathers of the UNITED STATES. Of course he's American, dumbass. He was one of the first Americans. He might have been born British, but he was sure as hell an American by the time he died.