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/lit/ - Literature

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23105713 No.23105713 [Reply] [Original]

Who is the Bach of literature?

>> No.23105725

>>23105713
Joyce

>> No.23105743

Closest analogues I can think of off the top of my head would be Dante or Melville

>> No.23105745

>>23105743
Actually, could make a case for Poe Dickinson, or Christopher Marlowe

>> No.23105771

>>23105745
>Dante or Melville
Dante, yes. Melville, not so much.
>>23105745
>Poe Dickinson, or Christopher Marlowe
No, no, and no.

>> No.23105927

Shakespeare

>> No.23105932

>>23105713
John Dryden

>> No.23105936

>>23105927
Too sensual.
>>23105932
Not accomplished enough.

>> No.23105938

>>23105936
why don't you have the answer then, mr fucking smart guy

>> No.23105940

>>23105936
He's the second best English poet of the second half of the 17th century

>> No.23105945

>>23105940
Bach is the greatest composer of all time.

>> No.23105991

>>23105743
>Melville
Lol. Bach has dozens of masterpieces. Meanwhile, Melville is a one hit wonder. Closest is Shakespeare.

>> No.23106003
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23106003

>>23105745
Is Marlowe actually good?

>> No.23106004

>>23105991
Pierre, The Confidence-Man, and Clarel are masterpieces, too.

>> No.23106361

>>23106004
To Melville superfans maybe, but not to the general audience. That can be said of a plethora of other writers as well. Bach has a dozen widely recognized masterpieces.

>> No.23106530

Goethe

>> No.23106538

>>23105713
Beckett. At least if you are talking about style and not just making retarded claims about greatness.

Ordered picrel the other day, looking forward to it.

>> No.23106539

>amazing composer
>Ancestors, other relatives and offspring are also good composers
Are there any writing families?

>> No.23106541
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23106541

>>23106538
>forgot picrel
Yeah, I am a retard.

>> No.23106595

>>23105743
Dante is a good choice. Just compare the architecture of their works

>> No.23106657

>>23106530
This.

>> No.23106666

>>23106530
>>23106657
Goethe wasn't even a Christian in any exact sense

>> No.23106931

>>23106541
this looks fantastic, thanks anon

>> No.23106970

>>23106595
Shame that I can't read it
I guess that's the limitation of literature

>> No.23107128

>>23105713
Thomas Browne.

>> No.23107811
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23107811

so i would say bach has the following qualities (amongst others):

>extremely technically accomplished and intricate, more so that almost anyone (although technically he didn't really innovate; he just mastered styles of the time and was even somewhat old fashioned in some ways)
>polyphonic
>joyful/dance infused
>yet pure and calm; feels refreshing and like it cleans your mind to experience
>gigantic oeuvre, almost all of which is seemingly perfect and wonderful
>lots of religious art; said that all of his art in general was in service of the divine
>big fat child bearing chad

just so we're clear what analogue we're looking for
i doubt there's any author who does all of that exactly but i guess it's which aspects you find most important

bach is love bach is life

>> No.23107819

>>23107811
child bearing was the wrong phrase lol
oh well you get what i mean
i shouldn't get impassioned and drunkpost about bach on 4chan

>> No.23108714

>>23105713
Leibniz

>> No.23109283
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23109283

>>23105725
>>23105743
>>23105745
>>23105771
>>23105927
>>23105991
>Lol. Bach has dozens of masterpieces. Meanwhile, Melville is a one hit wonder. Closest is Shakespeare.

This guy gets it. You look at any list of the greatest works of classic music, it's going to be equally dominated by works from the big three: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart

in pic related, they asked 125 of the best living writers “to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time– novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”

by number of works selected it was:
William Shakespeare — 11
Henry James — 6
William Faulkner — 6
Ernest Hemingway — 5
Fyodor Dostoevsky — 5
Franz Kafka — 5
Charles Dickens — 5
Jane Austen — 5
(tie) James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf — 4

>> No.23109530

>>23105713
kurt gödel obv

>> No.23109781

>>23105713
John Saul

>> No.23109838

>>23105725
No, he's more like the Mozart of literature.

>> No.23109844

>>23109283
You should really be more choosy with your listing. The idea that Woolf, Hemingway, Kafka, Dickens, Austen, or James would even have a chance of comparing to Bach is laughable.

>> No.23109849

>>23105745
HA! No you couldn't.

>> No.23109898

>>23106361
>Bach has a dozen widely recognized masterpieces.
To Bach superfans maybe, but not to the general audience.

>> No.23109901

>>23109898
Lol. Dumbass.

>> No.23109905

>>23109898
If by "general audience" you mean, "rubes who couldn't tell you Faure from Holst," yeah, sure.

>> No.23109935

>>23109283
They didn't even ask Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo or William T. Vollmann. They asked literally whos, Redditors like Chabon, people who appeared in Oprah. I wouldn't trust this list.

>> No.23109942

>>23109905
So now culture matters. In your other reply it was just popularity. Funny how the metrics change to your convenience. Here's a truth bomb: The general audience can't name nor distinguish Bach's musical pieces.

>> No.23109947

>>23109935
Cormac McCarthy appeared on Oprah
https://youtu.be/Qidyx3oXqpY?si=XBgsLViUn8tWVbfj

>> No.23110014

>>23109942
I'm not that anon. I just answered you anway, but culture isn't my point. If you don't have a certain amount of learning in any area, how can you possibly estimate or equate the importance of its participants? If you aren't familiar with Bach, why would your opinion on who the Bach of literature is matter?

>> No.23110317

>>23109947
In retrospect, that seems like a mistake, but no one could get people watching TV to read like her. I think it was a good short term choice considering he was putting himself out there to make more money.

>> No.23110321

>>23110317
But everyone else who went on Oprah is just a retarded redditor? Their motives weren't as pure as money?

>> No.23110362

>>23107811
>>gigantic oeuvre
He was indeed prolific, and wrote in every genre of his time except for opera, although there's even a Coffee Cantata, which is likened to a miniature comic opera by some. Which of the authors mentioned ITT was as prolific as Bach? There are 1,126 individual pieces in his catalogue, and many more are considered lost.

>> No.23110430

>>23105713
French playwright Jean Racine