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I had a Spanish professor who used to mock English literature and would always refer to the Bard contemptuously as "Billy Shakespeare."
Personally, I prefer the sexy ones with spanking to the ones about dudes named, like, Chuck VII, or something.
Anyway, Moliere's better.
Non. I only ever learned to speak Spanish in the present tense. And then I forgot most of that.
Speak for yourself, ya darn Anglo-centric canards.
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Also, Zola, Dumas, and Hugo are all better than Dickens.
Did you hear the one about Bellman, the American and the German?
Balzac.
[Giggles]
Did you hear the one about Bellman, the American and the German?
Why yes, I have indeed heard that one. Ah, thinking about it makes me want to go in search of times lost.
Balzac.
[Giggles some more]
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No... That is not the main problem with French. The truly horrid parts are their verb forms and their masculine/feminine articles.
Madame Sissyl, would you like to look at my Balzac?
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Oooooh, but.. We're not alone here, mr Sartre...
as a Australian, but not a Territorian, I wish I could speak French :(
French is nice to speak, but annoying to write.
I am not Doodlebug! I am his faux French avatar!
The real Doodlebug can't judge between Billy Shakespeare and Moliere, he's only read Tartuffe; and that was, like, two decades ago!
Anyway, Geraint, would you like to see my Balzac?
Hmph!
Speak for yourself, ya darn Anglo-centric canards.
Are you calling YD, Doodlebug and LazarX ducks?
Or are you accusing them of being deliberately misleading stories?
Darn anglo-centric ducks.
Also, I may have been reading about the latest Nigel Faragery - makes you break out in francophilia like nothing else.
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My favorite Shakespeare is his character in Clifford Simak's The Goblin Reservation.
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wait is it bad to like stuff that I like or is it okay
I had a Spanish professor who used to mock English literature and would always refer to the Bard contemptuously as "Billy Shakespeare."
Personally, I prefer the sexy ones with spanking to the ones about dudes named, like, Chuck VII, or something.
Anyway, Moliere's better.
How does a Spanish teacher get to mock any literature? The only decent piece if literature ever written in Spanish is Don Quixote and that's it. All the prolific Mexican authors write in English, and I can't think of a decent author from Spain in the last 300 years.
Aside from the afore mentioned Mexican authors who write in English there are so many other great English authors (and I won't even count Shakespeare.) Milton, Chaucer, Bacon, Swift, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and that's literally if the top of my head.
But none of that matters because the best the literary world has to offer all come from Russia.
I had a Spanish professor who used to mock English literature and would always refer to the Bard contemptuously as "Billy Shakespeare."
Personally, I prefer the sexy ones with spanking to the ones about dudes named, like, Chuck VII, or something.
Anyway, Moliere's better.
How does a Spanish teacher get to mock any literature? The only decent piece if literature ever written in Spanish is Don Quixote and that's it. All the prolific Mexican authors write in English, and I can't think of a decent author from Spain in the last 300 years.
Aside from the afore mentioned Mexican authors who write in English there are so many other great English authors (and I won't even count Shakespeare.) Milton, Chaucer, Bacon, Swift, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and that's literally if the top of my head.
But none of that matters because the best the literary world has to offer all come from Russia.
[Takes out red pencil and strikes out all the "if"s and replaces them with "of"s and "off"s]
[Takes out red pencil and strikes out all the "if"s and replaces them with "of"s and "off"s]I had a Spanish professor who used to mock English literature and would always refer to the Bard contemptuously as "Billy Shakespeare."
Personally, I prefer the sexy ones with spanking to the ones about dudes named, like, Chuck VII, or something.
Anyway, Moliere's better.
How does a Spanish teacher get to mock any literature? The only decent piece if literature ever written in Spanish is Don Quixote and that's it. All the prolific Mexican authors write in English, and I can't think of a decent author from Spain in the last 300 years.
Aside from the afore mentioned Mexican authors who write in English there are so many other great English authors (and I won't even count Shakespeare.) Milton, Chaucer, Bacon, Swift, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and that's literally if the top of my head.
But none of that matters because the best the literary world has to offer all come from Russia.
Yeah, no joke on that. Happens every time I post with my phone. Which is most of the time :(
Aside from the afore mentioned Mexican authors who write in English there are so many other great English authors (and I won't even count Shakespeare.) Milton, Chaucer, Bacon, Swift, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and that's literally if the top of my head.
*cough* Pole. Writing in English because of reasons*.
But none of that matters because the best the literary world has to offer all come from Russia.
Because they occupied Polish-Lithuanian Republic :P
BTW: Joseph Conrad was born in Polish-Lithuanian territory occupied by Russia. Coincidence?
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Aside from the afore mentioned Mexican authors who write in English there are so many other great English authors (and I won't even count Shakespeare.) Milton, Chaucer, Bacon, Swift, Conrad, Twain, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and that's literally if the top of my head.*cough* Pole. Writing in English because of reasons*.
But none of that matters because the best the literary world has to offer all come from Russia.Because they occupied Polish-Lithuanian Republic :P
BTW: Joseph Conrad was born in Polish-Lithuanian territory occupied by Russia. Coincidence?
** spoiler omitted **
Yeah, Conrad was amazing. English was his 3rd language.
The only decent piece if literature ever written in Spanish is Don Quixote and that's it. All the prolific Mexican authors write in English, and I can't think of a decent author from Spain in the last 300 years.
Dude, South America.
Check out Gabriel Garcia Maquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera. I haven't read him, but I think most people would class it as "decent literature" -- at least, if his Nobel prize in literature is any indication. You've also got Pablo Neruda (Chile); Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Gabriela Mistral (Chile), Saint-John Perse (Guadeloupe), Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala), all Nobel Laureates as well.
Jorge Luis Borges was Argentinian.
Wikipedia also tells me "Argentine Domingo Sarmiento's Facundo (1845), the Colombian Jorge Isaacs's María, Ecuadorian Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879)... are still the bedrocks of national canons, and usually mandatory elements of high school curricula. The Venezuelan Romulo Gallegos wrote in 1929 what came to be one of the most well known Latin American novels in the twentieth century, Doña Barbara... an immediate hit, being translated into over forty languages." See also Julio Cortázar, Roberto Bolaño, et al.
By the way, Octavio Paz (Mexico) wrote The Labyrinth of Solitude (El Laberinto de la Soledad) and most of his other stuff in Spanish. He also got a Nobel prize for literature.
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In terms of defining the English language Shakespeare may have invented a lot of words (over a thousand!) but Geoffrey Chaucer made it acceptable to actually write in English. Before Chaucer literature in the English language had almost died out as the Norman upper classes used Norman French instead.
Honestly though, I think that 20th and 21st century British authors do pretty well for themselves. Neil Gaiman, Iain (M) Banks, Doulas Adams, Raymond Chandler. Genre writers perhaps, but bloody good ones.
Honestly though, I think that 20th and 21st century British authors do pretty well for themselves. Neil Gaiman, Iain (M) Banks, Doulas Adams, Raymond Chandler.
I'd argue that Chandler was quintessentially American (born Chicago, grew up in Nebraska, died in California), despite his UK residence from 1907-1956.
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French is nice to speak, but annoying to write.
Yeah, you don't say half the letters so its hard to remember that they're there.
I'd argue that Chandler was quintessentially American (born Chicago, grew up in Nebraska, died in California), despite his UK residence from 1907-1956.
His subject matter was definitely quintessentially American, but he viewed it as an outsider. He spent his early childhood in America in the US but from 7 years old he grew up in London. Britain and the US are two cultures divided by a common language, and Chandler was just slightly out of step with both. Arguably it makes him a fantastic writer, but a pretty messed up human being.
If you check out the What Books Are Your Reading Thread, you will note that the Balzac has spread.
[Shakes with fright]
Did it tickle?
:(