/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13560266]

Unironically, why are the English so superior at writing poetry to the French? As far as I can tell the French produced Baudelaire and Rimbaud, whereas the English have dozens at or above that level. Where's there Shakespeare? Their Milton? Their Blake? Their Yeats?

[Anonymous No.13560283]

monosyllabic language for baby retards

[Anonymous No.13560294]

>>13560266
>As far as I can tell the French produced Baudelaire and Rimbaud
you can't tell very far, neither can I but have Villon, Hugo, Eluard for starters

[Anonymous No.13560305]

>>13560266
>Where's their Shakespeare?
Shakeseare was multiple people (how you want to interpret this is up to you), and therefore not English.

> Their Milton
He was (in spirit) the first American, therefore not English.

> Their Blake
He was a mystic, therefore not English

> Their Yeats
He was Irish, therefore not English.

Though, the greatest English writers are: Sterne, Fielding, Jane Austen, Marry Anne Evans, Hardy, Dickens, and unironically T.S Eliot.

The French have: Proust, Flaubert, Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, Baudelaire, Pascal, Rimbaud...

[Anonymous No.13560318]

>>13560266
>Isidore Ducasse

[Anonymous No.13560334]

>>13560305
wow I wasn't ready for this level of retardation this early in the day. Half or more of the French writers you listed wrote prose, not poetry. And I meant English language writers. Not writers who were born and lived in England.

[Anonymous No.13560495]

>>13560266
Rimbaud, Verlaine and Laforgue are what english people study when they look to the fin di siecle there is no good writer in this time period in the western canon except for whitman maybe

[Anonymous No.13560514]

>>13560334
Poetry is: "The best words in their best order" (Coleridge) https://www.bartleby.com/100/340.77.html
but sure, go for the "muh verse" argument.

Further, let's not pretend to get all, or even most out of people like Shakespeare, Milton, Blake and especially Yeats because: one understands most of the words. The truth is that the average English speaking person will understand Baudelaire in translation more than he would say people like Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser or Yeats.

Also, the idea: "Why are English (language) writers more based" is ridiculous since there wouldn't be a huge chunk of it if it weren't for the French.

[Anonymous No.13561450]

>>13560318
He's Uruguayan

[Anonymous No.13561454]

>>13560305
It's more likely that Shakespeare plagiarized Sir Henry Neville, so who we call "Shakespeare" should just go to Sir Henry Neville.

[Anonymous No.13561461]

>>13560266
So what you're telling us is because you're ignorant about French poetry the English are better at poetry? Quite an interesting form of reasoning, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

[Anonymous No.13561486]

>>13560305
>He was (in spirit) the first American, therefore not English.
>He was a mystic, therefore not English

10/10

[Anonymous No.13561532]

>>13560266
> As far as I can tell the French produced Baudelaire and Rimbaud
Honest question: have you read them in the original French? Or even in translation?
Even if you have, there's no excuse for not knowing Verlaine, who was Rimbaud's lover, and Hugo and Gautier, who inspired all of them. Among the main successor of Baudelaire (aside from the already mentioned Verlaine and Rimbaud) there is the very accomplished Mallarmé, and among the disciples of Mallarmé the impressive intellect that is Paul Valéry.

But among Rimbaud's contemporaries there are the Parnassiens (mainly Heredia, De Lisle and de Banville, also Villiers de l'Isle Adam thoufh he wrote also novels, Prudhomme who got the first literature Nobel Prize, and to a lesser extent Mendès). There are also the decadents whose chief poet is Lautréamont, and the symbolist (apart from their tutelary figure it's worth to note Laforgue).

For the earlier romantics you have Lamartine, the odd schizo Nerval, Musset and Vigny.
All poets mentioned here only cover the 1800-1915 period, except for Valéry for comes a bit later. That's not to mention all the poets of early 20 th century (Char, Appolinaire, the Surrealists, Claudel, Eluard, Aragon, Cocteau, Reverdy, Supervielle, Bonnard, among others), the non-French poets who wrote in French (Swinburne, Verhaeren), , and most importantly the pre-19th century poets, such as Chénier, the whole Pleiade movement (Ronsard, Du Bellay, Pontus of Thyard and a few others), the pre-classical including Malesherbes and Clément Marot (the father of the modern French sonnet) as well as the terribly violent Aggripa d'Aubigné. Nor is it to mention the best verse-writers of the classical French theatre writers, Corneille and Racine (Racine alone is a display of self-restraint and mastery pretty much unrivalred in the history of Western literature), their friends the fabulist La Fontaine and the critic Boileau (who Borges admired) and of course Molière (though that one was more of a playwright than a poet).

That's also not to mention the earlier poetic tradition that includes Villon, Ruteboeuf and even Old French epic like Song of Roland.
I've given you a rundown of the most famous names, quite a few of these would not be known by most French highschoolers, but eve, French highschoolers will have encountered a few that aren't listed here.

TL;DR: You're ignorant, read French poetry and stop being an illiterate faggot.

[Anonymous No.13561548]

>>13561532
High quality post but you still replied to bait.

[Anonymous No.13561551]

>>13560266
>dozens at or above their level
>most likely haven't read either
>only mentions four English names
>most likely haven't read those either
Solid 8/10 bait

[Anonymous No.13561553]

>>13560514
retard

[Anonymous No.13561559]

>>13561548
That's the point, you have to make the bait pay rent by using it as an occasion for effortposting.
Now everyone itt has gained a recs list of French poetry, and none of them can ignore it.

[Anonymous No.13561590]

>>13561532
BASED. I just finished reading Rimbaud's collected works and letters, originally due to interest in Bob Dylan's "Tarantula". Incredible! I spent hours reading and rereading and reciting his writing in English, and then going back over and reading the French once I had the English memorized to hear the rhythm, number, etc. Was as groundbreaking for me as the first time I read Whitman. And his letters were so touching and full of depth. Reading Rimbaud is better than having sex, and reading him for the first time was better than losing my virginity. I feel like that is an odd analogy to throw in here, but whatever.

I also read Divagations and Dice Thrown by Mallarme this month, what an epic genius.

[Anonymous No.13561595]

>>13560266
because you can't speak french, retard

[Anonymous No.13561841]

>>13561532
>tfw I'll never be good enough at French to read any of these guys