/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16825732]

Are there any writer who excelled at multiple languages?

By excelled I meant, being better than most native writers in that target language.

[Anonymous No.16825741]

>>16825732
Nabokov. John Gower also wrote well in French, English, and Latin, and plenty of early modern writers were accomplished Latin stylists too (Johnson, etc)

[Anonymous No.16825743]

Wilde
Nabokov
Beckett

t. hasn't ready any of them

[Anonymous No.16825744]

>>16825732
Nabokov

[Anonymous No.16825752]

>>16825743
*read

Free bump 4 OP

[Anonymous No.16825773]

>>16825732
yes

[Anonymous No.16825779]

>>16825732
Borges makes Nabokov look like a drooling fucking retard

[Anonymous No.16825810]

Joseph Conrad was a native Polish speaker and didn’t learn English until he was like 30 and can very well be considered a master of the English language

[Anonymous No.16825826]

>>16825732
Swinburne wrote in both English and French iirc.

Also most example itt are modern Anglo writers, but the kings of multilingual writings were probably ancients and medieval writers (up to the Renaissance). Most of them had to know latin and in some cases also Greek on top of their own native languages and often several regional dialects.

A particularly striking case is Montaigne, who was raised by Latin speaking caretakers, and who in fact didn't hear a word of French until he was 13 years old. His native language was Latin, but he chose to write in French.

I believe Racine, despite using a very restricted vocabulary in his plays, was very competent in Greek and Latin, and knew at least some Spanish and Italian as well. We still have his personal copy of Thucydid, with comments handwritten in Greek in the margin.

Both Borges and Valéry read in at least 3 or 4 language. Borges had pretty much a native grasp of English due to his Anglophone grandma (similar to Nabokov, who was native Russian but schooled in English since infancy, so that he could write in English before he could in Russian), and also read Italian and French among others. Valéry read in French, English, Italian, Spanish and published a translation of Virgil's Georgics.

Of course let's not forget Conrad, a Polish native who wrote mostly in English.

It seems in fact in some regions and eras multilingualism was the norm among elites, and sometimes also among the general population. In some places this has survived to this day. Check out this guy:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambhadracharya
> an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, educator, Sanskrit scholar, polyglot, poet, author, textual commentator, philosopher, composer, singer, playwright and Katha artist based in Chitrakoot, India
>Rambhadracharya can speak 22 languages and is a spontaneous poet and writer in Sanskrit, Hindi, Awadhi, Maithili, and several other languages. He has authored more than 100 books and 50 papers, including four epic poems,

[Anonymous No.16825843]

>>16825732
Kundera

[Anonymous No.16825876]

>>16825732
There some Italian poets who could write poetry at ease in their native tongue or Latin or in any other of the romance derivatives. There are also the Kraut autists who could write scholarly tomes in their native language, ancient Greek or Latin.
Special mention goes out to Madame de Staël who could write in her native French, German or Italian.

[Anonymous No.16826159]

What are some multilingual books?
Books that would have an equal amount of multiple languages, not just a phrase here and there

[Anonymous No.16826169]

>>16825732
Conrad

[Anonymous No.16826210]

>>16825732
Me.

[Anonymous No.16826220]

Zizek.

[Anonymous No.16827148]

>>16825732
John Milton. Wrote poetry in Latin, Greek and Italian and knew a ton of other languages as well

[Anonymous No.16827467]

pleb thread so far but im bumping it for exposure

[Anonymous No.16827762]

>>16825810
Yeah that’s the first thing I thought of