prose

[Anonymous No.22329395]

Who's got the best prose in English?

I'm tired of shit that reads like a blog post. I want to read authors that put some care into the words they string together, like Faulkner or McCarthy.
I've mostly just read in Spanish though, I barely know English literature.

[Anonymous No.22329440]

>>22329395
>I barely know English literature.
Yeah, it shows.

[Anonymous No.22329449]

>>22329395
Melville
Clark Ashton Smith
Thomas Browne
Lafcadio Hearn (especially his translation of the Temptation of Saint Anthony)
Lord Dunsany
Moncrieff's translation of ISOLT
Florio's Montaigne
John Milton (which reads a lot like his blank verse)
John Ruskin
Oscar Wilde
Malcolm Lowry
Dylan Thomas
Joyce
Urquhart's translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel
John Williams
Edgar Allan Poe
Walter Pater
Nabakov
Yeats (underrated)

There's probably many others I'm missing (not a fan of most stuff from the 20th century).

In any case, you've read most of what English prose has to offer if you've read all of Shakespeare's plays (yes I know they're in verse, but there are many prose sections and Shakespeare in any case has had a profound influence on English verse and prose alike), and the King James Bible.

[Anonymous No.22329481]

>>22329440
I am not ashamed that I can barely keep my attention on most books written in English when I haven't yet exhausted the Spanish canon

[Anonymous No.22329496]

>>22329449
thanks brah
would you put Faulkner and McCarthy on that list? Just talking about prose

[Anonymous No.22329512]

>>22329496
lol no

[Anonymous No.22329517]

>>22329449
Yeat is a rapper, you idiot

[Anonymous No.22329518]

>>22329512
Then I think I'll stick to Spanish

[Anonymous No.22329526]

>>22329518
based

[Anonymous No.22329542]

>>22329395
William Gass.

>>22329512
Why wouldn’t you put Faulkner and McCarthy on your list? Even if you didn’t, the dismissiveness of your response is absurd. You people are a dime a dozen and yet you all act the same because you’re convinced you’re different. And your picks aren’t even informed. John Milton? John Milton is an awful poet, let alone prose stylist

[Anonymous No.22329556]

>>22329542
I'm >>22329449 and the guy you replied to isn't me. Yes I think Faulkner and McCarthy are solid, and I would consider them such if I consider Melvllle their stylistic father as such. Also
>John Milton is an awful poet, let alone prose stylist

Who do you consider good poets then? Milton is one of my favorite poets personally.

As for being informed, I've read from all these authors and I like their command of prosody and imagery.

[Anonymous No.22329559]

>>22329542
when he said peak English prose is a man who never wrote a novel... lmao
Crazy how anglos deify Shakespeare when he is so limited in comparison to the likes of Cervantes
It must be a propagandistic effort by the anglo empire because otherwise it doesn't make sense, and there certainly is a lot more to English literature than Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.22329572]

>>22329556
I like Dante, Eliot - who interprets his style, Byron, Shakespeare, and a lot of others. I don’t like John Milton’s non-particularity and lack of sight - figuratively though also literally, it makes his poetry sound very cold to me. Paradise Lost is a great work of literature but nothing in the actual verse ever put it’s claws into me

[Anonymous No.22329575]

>>22329559
>Crazy how anglos deify Shakespeare when he is so limited in comparison to the likes of Cervantes

Can we shut the fuck up about this meme for a second and not let ethno-linguistic bias kick in?

The only book Cervantes is remembered for is a funny book with a lot of wordplay, very rarely wrote in a higher style, and had an almost non-existent plot. He was good at what he did, but he's extremely limited compared to Shakespeare (or even Rabelais, Ariosto, or Goethe).

[Anonymous No.22329578]

>>22329572
>non-particularity and lack of sight
I'm not the fella you're replying to but I'm curious as to what you meant by this?

[Anonymous No.22329587]

>>22329575
>Quixote a funny book with a lot of wordplay
lmfao @ the current state of universities

[Anonymous No.22329638]

>>22329572
>Dante
I hope you can at least read Italian because every single translation has disappointed me immensely. I'd much rather read the poetry section of the KJV or Whitman (and mind you I'm more sympathetic to Dante's ideals than I am to that of Whitman).
>Eliot
Good critic with good taste, and at times I find myself agreeing with his criticism of Milton, but I found his initial criticism too harsh, and in my personal reading of Milton I found his criticism about Milton having a "lack of sight" exaggerated, though I'm more drawn to him by his prosody.
Personally, I like the coldness of his verse because he was trying to go for a Virgilian sort of artifice and eloquence in his big three works. Yes, I think Keats and Shakespeare wrote smoother blank verse, and they're better at imagery generally, and Milton's prosody can be messy at times, but in large part their projects weren't doing what Milton was trying to do.
I also like Milton's shorter works and think they're highly underrated. Have you tried Lycidas, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, Samson Agonistes, and Comus? All pretty good stuff.
Personally, I can't get into Eliot's poetry. His aesthetic ideal and approach to composition is pretty much the exact opposite of mine.
>Byron
Imo, he's the weakest of the Romantics. I like Darkness, Manfred, and the Destruction of Sennacherib, but most of his stuff (like the Greek tales, Don Juan) I wasn't able to get into. I prefer Shelley as a verse craftsman. If you like him that's fine, but I'm kind of turned off by his cult of personality.

[Anonymous No.22329987]

>>22329638
You’re a unique person in the way you write and approach the conversation. I haven’t read Milton’s shorter works, I read Paradise Lost and then later read Eliot on him and when I reread it I found I agreed with a lot of what he said, which is somewhat what I said. I like Byron, but I haven’t read the full works or even close to that of the other romantics. I also like Chaucer which I’m not sure how I forgot him. I read Ciardi, I don’t have the motivation to learn language to read. I could barely do it for Middle English with Chaucer.

I’ll also add that my initial statement was said as an attack after thinking you were dismissing his writers who I think are both good prose writers even if I’m not massive on Faulkner’s novels

>>22329578
Pic related. Eliot on Milton

[Anonymous No.22330038]

>>22329575
Shakespeare isn’t limited. Cervantes definitely isn’t either. They’re both as good as it gets

[Anonymous No.22330049]

>>22329575
most pseud post i’ve seen here all year

[Anonymous No.22330097]

>>22329395
Nabokov has the best English language prose and he spoke English as his fourth language.

[Anonymous No.22331046]

The selected letters of Emily Dickinson.

[Anonymous No.22331107]

>>22329395

Viriginia Woolf should be on any list.

[Anonymous No.22331156]

>>22329395
Whitman

[Anonymous No.22331198]

>>22330097
Not even Nabokov thought that

[Anonymous No.22331211]

>>22331156
Based and accentual-syllabicpilled

[Anonymous No.22331290]

>>22329395
Joyce
Nabokov
Browne
Faulkner
Melville
Hawthorne
Gass
Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.22331309]

>>22329395
For, its Dickens.

[Anonymous No.22331328]

>>22329395
>I want to read authors that put some care into the words they string together
then you either want non-fiction or you want poetry
prose fiction is for shaved apes

[Anonymous No.22331383]

>>22331107
I don't read women

[Anonymous No.22331393]

F Gardner

[Anonymous No.22331421]

>>22329395
Thomas Browne

[Anonymous No.22331486]

>>22329638
What's your aesthetic ideal, if you don't mind me asking ?

[Anonymous No.22331498]

>Joyce, as the supreme prose stylist -- Nabokov would readily agree.
>Pynchon
>William H. Gass
>McCarthy
>DeLilo
>Poe

[Anonymous No.22331502]

>>22329638
>Keats

What do you think about him in general? I have just recently read basically all of his major works as my first real introduction to Romanticism and I have mixed feelings about him - how would you place him in relation to the other Romantics? I think he's a really interesting case.

I love Milton's verse too though, I find its rhythm absolutely captivating. But what do you mean about his three major works, if you include Samson Agonistes among the shorter ones?

[Anonymous No.22331505]

>>22330097
Lol

[Anonymous No.22331514]

>>22329395
Cormac McCarthy is the greatest writer of sentences since Thomas Browne, and his sentences are the most different from everybody else.

Joyce, on his game, is extraordinary as well but succeeds better in passages.

I don't like Faulkner's prose except occasionally. Nabokov is too self aware and awfully mannered to be transcendent.

The greatest English essayist is Joseph Addison.

[Anonymous No.22331886]

>>22329395
Melville wins