/lit/ - Literature

1604: Francis Bacon, for his contributions to modern thought
1609: William Shakespeare, for his contributions to the fields of English Drama and Comedy
1614: Miguel de Cervantes, for his highly innovative prose experiments
1619: Ben Jonson, for his continued dominance of English Theater and Poetry
1624: Luis de Gongora, for his reinvention of modern poetry
1629: John Donne, for his deeply inspiring Christian Sermons
1634: Felix Lope de Vega, for his continued dominance of Spanish Theater.
1639: Galileo Galilei, for his contributions to modern philosophia naturalis
1644: Pedro Calderon de La Varga, for his philosophical dramas
1649: Rene Descartes, for his theory of the soul
1654: Robert Herrick, for his revival of pastoral poetry
1659: Ex-Aequo to Pierre Corneille, for his renewal of French Drama;
and J. B. Poquelin Moliere, for his renewal of French Comedy
1664: Joost van den Vonde, for his towering contributions to dutch literature .
1669: John Milton for his towering contributions to English Epic Poetry
1674: H. J. C. Grimmelshausen, for his novel Simplicius Simplicissimus
1679: François de La Rochefoucauld, for his Maxims.
1684: John Locke, for his contributions to modern thought
1689: John Dryden, for his mastery of English poetry.
1694: Jean Racine, for his religious dramas
1699: Charles Perrault, for his creation of the Fairy Tale.

1704: Madame D'Aulnoy, for her expansion of the Fairy Tale.
1709: William Congreve, for his translation of Moliere into English
1714: Jonathan Swift for his accurate portrayals of English decadence
1719: Antoine Galland for his translation of Les Nuites Arabes into French
1724: ---------------------
1729: Daniel Defoe for his contributions to the art of the political pamphlet
1734: Baron de Montesquieu for his Lettres Persanes
1739: Alexander Pope for his Imitations of Horace
1744: Alain Rene de Lesage, for his naturalization of the picaresque genre to French soil.
1749: Pierre de Marivaux, for his contributions to the genre of Pastoral Drama
1754: Ex-Aequo to Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson for their new style womanly novels
1759: Declared Void after supposed winner Denis Diderot Encyclopedie is banned from publication, later awarded to Antoine abbe Prevost for his Manon Lescaut.
1764: Tobias Smollet for his translation of Don Quixote into English. Smollet declined the prize and stated that Philip Roth, sorry, Laurence Sterne should have won it instead.
1769: Carlo Goldoni, for his reinvention of the Commedia Dell'Arte
1774: Pierre Marie Arouet, Voltaire for his Historical opus and modern fables.
1779: Jean Jacques Rousseau, posthumously and as an one time exception to recognize his towering genius.
1784: ------------------------------
1789: --------------------------------
1794: Citizen Maximilien de Robespierre, for his rousing speeches. Declared void after his execution, and awarded to Jacques Cazotte for his Diable Amoreux.
1799: Vittorio Alfieri, for his revival of Italian serious drama.
1804: Johann Goethe, for his bildungsroman novels.

I have a gap for the years 1724, 1784 and 1789 because the microfiches were lost during the political instability following the period after la revolution. I'd appreciate your help and proposals to see who should have won on those years, since the official record is now lost."

So, discussion/thoughts/make your own faux-Nobel in lit lists

And Nobel general as well. Coming up pretty fast now. My personal hopes are for Mo Yan, Ngugi wa Thiog'o or Nooteboom.

For one thing the Nobel prize committee has never been that prescient. They would have given it to someone like Samuel Butler or Jeremy Taylor and ignored Swift for not being respectable enough.

It's fun reading through this.

>>3033813
I'm rooting for Nooteboom, but i doubt he has a real chance.

bump

>>3033795
>implying Machiavelli (particularly The Prince) would have been accepted by the establishment

>>3033804
I nominate Piere Choderlos de Laclos for the 1789 Nobel prize, for his immense contribution to the world of prose at the time.

I like this thread.

I hate this thread.

Now I have to look up every single one of these guys.

>>3033842

Murakami is the favourite with the bookmakers and they were right about thomas the transformer last year...

Neat concept, but the choices definitely reflect modern literary taste moreso than what people would have chosen back then.

>>3035862

I've a suspicion that George Washington may have won a nobel proze that year.

The authors of the declaration of the rights of man would have won maybe the literature prize, or the peace prize if Wahsington hadn't nicked it.

>>3036873

Sophie Oksanen is 75/1 - might be worth a speculative punt.

Wouldn't Galileo's prize have been a mite controversial?

>>3035857
The Prince wasn't published until 1932.

>>3037702

I think you mean 1532.

This is definitely Thomas Pynchon's year.

> ctrl+f
> no Joyce
> no Proust
> no Kafka

psshht

>>3037690
Ladbrokes currently gives her 100/1. Still, it's not bad from someone who's only published four novels and two plays. Looks like anti-communism is still a great marketing strategy.

>>3037715

Not a chance in hell. I'll give you 150/1, any size bet you name.

Pynchon will never receive a Nobel prize

I'm not very good at modern literature and the associated bullshit. Does Murakami actually have a chance?

>>3037719

Hey, fuckhead - Joyce was alive and eligible for a Nobel prize. He just didn't get one.

>>3037732

I personally thought that an Arab would win it last year, and I haven't changed my mind this year. I think Adonis will win it.

I have never correctly predicted the Nobel Prize winner, and last year I lost £100 on Adonis.

>>3037730
No fucking way. Absolutely not.

>>3037730

He's got a chance - and a lot of people think he's favourite, but the Nobel committee have a habit of going against expectations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/23/haruki-murakami-nobel-prize-literature

>>3037769
Don't give a fuck what Guardian says. He's got as much of a chance at winning as Pynchon.

>>3037779

Much more chance. Because he would undoubtebdly accept the award. The reason Pynchon won't get it is because the committee are terrified he'll tell them to fuck off, or just use the opportunity for maximum trolling.

>>3037786
But Murakami just writes for adolescent white kids and isn't respected in his native Japan. Fair, he's got more of a chance than Pynchon, but he's got nothing that the nobel committee loves.

>>3037846
>he's got nothing that the nobel committee loves.

Dunno about that - it's a while since a Jap won it, and these things are largely political.

I don't think he'll win it myself - I don't think he's serious enough for the committee - but I still think he's in with a chance.

A dutch person has never won the prize and Cees Nooteboom seems to have come out of nowhere in the nominations - it could be him if the committee decide to give another European the prize.

>>3037855
1994 isn't that long ago, is it?

>>3037862

It's 18 years. I consider that a long time.

Bob Dylan will win the nobel prize this year

>>3037889

Nah. That's just the Swedes trolling everyone into a pre-emptory rage. Aside from anything else, there's very little chance that an American will win it for a while.

>>3033795
>1534: William Tyndale, for his indelible translations achieved before he was barbequed alive.

>Shakespeare
For some reason I don't think he would have been awarded it in his lifetime, he'd possibly be the first posthumous recipient.

>Galileo
Just would flat out have never received it, might get an honor some time down the line though.

>Alexander Pope
Apparently people didn't like him (as a person), so it's possible his award would have been withheld.

>Voltaire
I believe his political troubles might have hampered a Nobel award.


>>3037501
This.

>Rabelais
He wouldn't have won, he was a scoundrel in his times.

>Swift
People liked him for about five minutes before they started vehemently hating him. He was widely-perceived to be mentally-disturbed, though we know now it was some inner-ear disease.

>this