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/lit/ - Literature

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What is the greatest piece of American literature?

>> No.2171279

Gravity's Rainbow

inb4 Finnegan's Wake, >Finnegan's, Joyce was Irish, etc

>> No.2171284
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>> No.2171295

Letters From the Earth

>> No.2171303
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>> No.2171306

>>2171303

this

>> No.2171321

Twilight. It's a great reflection on Mormon views of sexuality.

>> No.2171390

The greatest piece of American literature still pales in comparison to a masterpiece like Incredible Crisis

>> No.2171395
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>>2171306
Ah yes. I do forget that its an umbrella term that includes poetry.

How about
Thoreau's Walden and Resistance to Civil Government.

Mark Twain's stuff

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Steinbeck?

>> No.2171396

>>2171390
Never heard o fit. Joking?

>> No.2171445
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Tom Sawyer.

>> No.2171461

Whitman
Emerson
Hawthorne and Melville (maybe)
Jeffers

(TS Eliot if you count emigres)

>> No.2171465

Uncle Tom's Cabin.

/thread

>> No.2171468

>>2171284

This. Seriously though, it's the Great American Novel. Figuratively.

>> No.2171470

>>2171461
>If you count emigres
I'd say Eliot's "Waste Land"
>If not
I might go with East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath? I'm picking Steinbeck either way, though.

>> No.2171472

>>2171468
>>2171284
Why?

>> No.2171485
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>>2171461
>if you count emigres
Well if you count them Tom Paine has to be there!

>>2171470
Is East of Edan really that good? ...I can jack that copy from work no one seems to want...

>>2171472
I haven't read it yet, but it is a story of America, and the whole age we are in the middle of. The metaphors abound.

>> No.2171486

>>2171472

Melville captured the zeitgeist of his time in America perfectly but also managed to apply a book that delves into universal themes so well that it can pretty much be applied to any time. It also shows Melville was ahead of his time with the whole "racism is bad, m'kay" aspects. And the lyrical prose is very nice too.

Of course, any BEST X EVER is sort of stupid, but if you were to try to attempt it with great American literature, Moby-Dick would have to be up there.

>> No.2171492

>>2171485
East of Eden is probably my favorite book. I think it's fantastic.

Although, in retrospect, I'm not sure about it for this thread. Although I'd call it the greatest piece of literature from America, I don't know if it's as quintessentially American (which is a whole other can of worms) as some other great works.

>> No.2171528
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Moby Dick FTW

>> No.2171539

Moby Dick
Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn combo
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Civil Disobedience
Common Sense
The Great Gatsby
For Whom the Bell Tolls

>> No.2171562

Lolita

>> No.2171588

You damn pussies, I know the answer lying in the back of every one of your slithering tongues. Yet you hesitate, you are afraid, you don't want to say it, but I'll do it, I'll break the curse.

Catcher in the Rye

>> No.2171589

>>2171588
YOU FOOL! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE UNLEASHED?

>> No.2171597

Bunch of phonies in this thread.

>> No.2171598

>>2171588
You got me. I almost wrote it.

>> No.2171639
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>>2171562
I will use this reaction image to reply to the linked post and the one that suggested East of Eden. I haven't read nearly enough American literature, but I can safely say that East of Eden is by no means the greatest piece.

>> No.2171732

The Invention of Morel

>implying America is a country