In your opinion, who is the greatest writer since Shakespeare?

marienbad

Proust,Joyce and possibly Sebald if he had lived.

lockman

marienbad wrote: »

Proust,Joyce and possibly Sebald if he had lived.

In the few pieces that he left to the world before his untimely death, Sebald had shown himself to be one truly remarkable writer.

bootybouncer

Stephen King

Mardy Bum

bootybouncer wrote: »

Stephen King

Most successful maybe but greatest?

bootybouncer

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Most successful maybe but greatest?

In with a shout champ........................

Hellywelly

Some great choices already


1. Greatest English language writer pre 1900. John Milton
2. Greatest English language writer since 1900. William Faulkner
3. Greatest American literature writer. F Scott Fitzgerald or William Faulkner (again!)
4. Greatest non-English language writer pre 1900. Tolstoy
5. Greatest non-English language writer since 1900.Nabokov or Kenzabura Oe

Kinski

Hellywelly wrote: »

Some great choices already
5. Greatest non-English language writer since 1900.Nabokov or Kenzabura Oe

Nabokov is famed for his writing in English, not his early Russian output.

Hellywelly

ooops. I'll take him out so and leave in Oe whom I'm sure wrote in Japanese

Carawaystick

Isaac Azimov was published in every main category of the dewy decimal system

Again for breadth of work Oscar Wilde is up there

Who's the best?
I haven't read enough to decide, but if I was to take a wild stab in the dark, I'd say an American sportswriter is probably the best writer. If you look at the likes of George Kimbal or David Remnick, at their best, they have a poetic lyrical quality, that good american, and world sportwriting has.

If you include writing to include songwriting, then Dylan has to pop up the ranks, including his prose Chronicles 1, along with his song canon, and if you include screenwriting, which hardly anyone ever reads, but interprets through the screen, the waters muddy more. (much more than a playwright, as a top screenwriter would probably have a closer relationship with a director/producer than a playwright-director in theatre)

Mardy Bum

Carawaystick wrote: »

If you include writing to include songwriting, then Dylan has to pop up the ranks, including his prose Chronicles 1, along with his song canon, and if you include screenwriting, which hardly anyone ever reads, but interprets through the screen, the waters muddy more. (much more than a playwright, as a top screenwriter would probably have a closer relationship with a director/producer than a playwright-director in theatre)

Screen writing is very dependent upon visuals whereas theatre does not suffer this constraint and is much closer to poetry. A performance of Brian Friel's Faith Healer (best Irish play since Waiting for Godot IMO) for instance could be heard by a deaf person and that perception would be as valid as a person watching it.

At the same time I would say David Simon and Ed Burns' (The Wire) creation is one of the greatest dramatic works America has had the privilege of claiming.

Courtesy Flush

Greatest in terms of sales would be JK Rowling ?

Hard to define greatest, I guess its the ones that last the longest in their cultural influence. I guess its hard to argue against Dickens in that sense. You could argue too for Tolkien in influential terms

Jimmy Iovine

Courtesy Flush wrote: »

Greatest in terms of sales would be JK Rowling ?

Not even close it would seem. According to this list, Agatha Christie is estimated to have sold between 2 and 4 billion books while Rowling has only sold between 350 and 450 million.

Da Shins Kelly

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

Not even close it would seem. According to this list, Agatha Christie is estimated to have sold between 2 and 4 billion books while Rowling has only sold between 350 and 450 million.

Measly.

Courtesy Flush

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

Not even close it would seem. According to this list, Agatha Christie is estimated to have sold between 2 and 4 billion books while Rowling has only sold between 350 and 450 million.

I stand corrected
Also outsold by the likes of Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele and Harold Robbins

Ormus

Cormac McCarthy is the greatest.

Although the best story tellers are probably Dickens and Dumas.

Honorable mention for Stephen King for imaginative and prolific storytelling, but his writing doesn't measure up to the greats.

MJ23

Ross O Carroll Kelly

stick girl

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Carawaystick

Courtesy Flush wrote: »

I stand corrected
Also outsold by the likes of Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele and Harold Robbins

What if you use the dollar value of sales?



I would say the greatest write since Bill the bard, probably wasn't writing in English. And to use some more maths, is probably alive now, and not considered the greatest at present, but time will tell. (There being so many more people alive, much higher rates of literacy these days)

HeadPig

Carawaystick wrote: »

What if you use the dollar value of sales?



I would say the greatest write since Bill the bard, probably wasn't writing in English. And to use some more maths, is probably alive now, and not considered the greatest at present, but time will tell. (There being so many more people alive, much higher rates of literacy these days)

Are you talking about Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

Shegull

Emily Bronte

mickmackey1

If Shakespeare had died at 25, we'd never had heard of him. Therefore John Keats has a claim on being the greatest ever.

Mardy Bum

mickmackey1 wrote: »

If Shakespeare had died at 25, we'd never had heard of him. Therefore John Keats has a claim on being the greatest ever.

A writer can only be measured by his output. The deductive logic above doesn't correspond to the query posed.

Ormus

mickmackey1 wrote: »

If Shakespeare had died at 25, we'd never had heard of him. Therefore John Keats has a claim on being the greatest ever.

If John Keats had died at childbirth, we'd probably never have heard of him either.

Da Shins Kelly

mickmackey1 wrote: »

If Shakespeare had died at 25, we'd never had heard of him. Therefore John Keats has a claim on being the greatest ever.

Kind of irrelevant since Shakespeare didn't die at 25.

mickmackey1

Ormus wrote: »

If John Keats had died at childbirth, we'd probably never have heard of him either.

What an utterly stupid post. The point is Keats provided ample evidence that he would have challenged Will if he had survived past 25, a claim which no other writer can make. If you cannot understand the difference you should confine yourself to the Teletubbies thread, along with your two mates.

Da Shins Kelly

mickmackey1 wrote: »

What an utterly stupid post. The point is Keats provided ample evidence that he would have challenged Will if he had survived past 25, a claim which no other writer can make. If you cannot understand the difference you should confine yourself to the Teletubbies thread, along with your two mates.

Okay, well there's no reason to be so condescending.

Secondly, what you said was that if Shakespeare had died before the age of 25 no one would have heard of him and Keats would be considered the best, which is a completely hypothetical situation, since Shakespeare did live past 25 and Keats didn't. If you think that Keats is the best writer since Shakespeare, that's fine and there's probably validity to that statement, but what you said before is slightly irrelevant.

Mardy Bum

mickmackey1 wrote: »

What an utterly stupid post. The point is Keats provided ample evidence that he would have challenged Will if he had survived past 25, a claim which no other writer can make. If you cannot understand the difference you should confine yourself to the Teletubbies thread, along with your two mates.

A writer is measured by their output and nothing else. It doesn't matter what they might have done. Your first post simply is flawed logic. Sean O Casey wrote his four major plays, The Shadow of the Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, the Plough and the Stars and The Silver Tassie in the space of four years during the 20s. These are four extraordinary pieces of work. However he produced nothing even close to it after these pieces. I have heard he was distraught after Yeats rejected Tassie but it still doesn't explain it.

Similarly Keats produced some excellent work however, as I said, the only measurement is output not potential output.

mickmackey1

Apologies for being a bit sharp, I was merely attempting to reflect what I had thought would be a universal viewpoint, namely that the premature silencing of Keats represents one of the greatest tragedies in all of (English) literature and that any appraisal of those who were less unfavoured by fate needs to bear this in mind.

HeadPig

Keats at 25 accomplished an awful lot more than Shakespeare at the same age but that doesn't make him greater. Keats had limitless potential but we can only speculate. I enjoy them both, but given Shakespeare's prolific contribution to the English language and the quality of his work I find it hard to rank anyone above him. Love Keats as well though.

Jimmy Iovine

A lot of great names have been mentioned so far. Personally, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy would be very high on my list, but I'm going to have to go with Padraiggg as my number one writer. He has a talent that cannot be taught or learnt. It is simply a gift from God.