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Mt. Rushmore of Authors

wakephan09 said:
Correct answer:

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Spencer

My answer:

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Joyce
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I chose those guys as the correct answer because of the analogue. Scholars - well into the middle of the twentieth century - considered these four to be the most important authors in the english language. If there were really a Rushmore, they would be on it.

As for Spencer, the novelty of his language is outdated, the themes are essentially meaningless, and the conventional aspects of the work don't even make much sense anymore; he is rarely studied as part of the essential canon.

Chaucer: not all of the Canterbury Tales are written in quite the same language as the first fourteen lines of the prologue. Chaucer's middle english is not terribly different from our own; quite a bit of the lexicon has fallen out of favor, however.

Chaucer is singlehandedly responsible for popularizing the 'London' dialect of English that went on to become what the Brits speak today (and the origin for American English). If it weren't for Chaucer, we would be speaking a dialect from the midlands (think Pearl-poet or Langland, for example) much closer to the Anglo-Saxon.
 
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wakephan09 said:
I chose those guys as the correct answer because of the analogue. Scholars - well into the middle of the twentieth century - considered these four to be the most important authors in the english language. If there were really a Rushmore, they would be on it.

As for Spencer, the novelty of his language is outdated, the themes are essentially meaningless, and the conventional aspects of the work don't even make much sense anymore; he is rarely studied as part of the essential canon.

Chaucer: not all of the Canterbury Tales are written in quite the same language as the first fourteen lines of the prologue. Chaucer's middle english is not terribly different from our own; quite a bit of the lexicon has fallen out of favor, however.

Chaucer is singlehandedly responsible for popularizing the 'London' dialect of English that went on to become what the Brits speak today (and the origin for American English). If it weren't for Chaucer, we would be speaking a dialect from the midlands (think Pearl-poet or Langland, for example) much closer to the Anglo-Saxon.
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i mean certainly scholarship didn't stop in the middle of the 20th century. if you really look at who's on Rushmore, it's not like it's just the founding fathers up there. likewise, it shouldn't just be the lexical masters up here IMO. i think the father of modernism, Eliot, deserves a nod. definitely could use a romantic writer in there, and my vote is for Coleridge, if only for Rime and Kubla Khan. or another option for comparison, teddy roosevelt is basically the same person as henry thoreau, so that might work, too. lincoln and whitman have some big time ties.
 
Fair point that Rushmore isn't composed solely of founding fathers.

If I'm not mistaken, Rushmore is Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln, right?

We must simply choose an analogue for each.
 
Washington: Geoffrey Chaucer
Jefferson: William Shakespeare
Roosevelt: Henry David Thoreau
Lincoln: James Joyce (or Eliot)
 
wakephan09 said:
Washington: Geoffrey Chaucer
Jefferson: William Shakespeare
Roosevelt: Henry David Thoreau
Lincoln: James Joyce (or Eliot)
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Lincoln has got to be postmodern, lol. In Eliot's case, the Brits are definitely the southerners.
 
Washington - Shakespeare

There's problems there because Washington was stalwart, humorless, clear on religion, and anti-partisan (all things Shakespeare was not). The ways it works are clear, though. Both made the most important developments in their field (arguably), were filled with convictions, and had open and obvious problems with authority.

Jefferson - Milton

Lincoln - Whitman

Roosevelt - Eliot/Thoreau/Steinbeck
 
If it's Rushmore, shouldn't they be American?

Faulkner
Twain
Poe
Steinbeck
Guided tour by animatronic Hemmingway
 
wakephan09 said:
Correct answer:

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Spencer

My answer:

Conrad, Dan Brown, Wharton, E. Bronte
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Fixed


Hard to argue much with the "correct" list, except Spencer. My personal Rushmore would be: Shakespeare, Faulkner, Dickens, Nabokov. Boom. Didn't see him coming.
 
TownieDeac said:
i'd like to see what the tagger thinks.

truif, i really like flanner o'connor. do/have you read much Raymond Carver? he's easily my favorite short story writer.
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Not as familiar with Carver but do like Nathaniel Hawthorne a lot too.
 
OldGoldBeard said:
Fixed


Hard to argue much with the "correct" list, except Spencer. My personal Rushmore would be: Shakespeare, Faulkner, Dickens, Nabokov. Boom. Didn't see him coming.
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I know you hate my taste in lit generally, but I have absolutely never mentioned Dan Brown ever haha. And I don't love edith either. Substitute Evelyn Waugh, and you are close to the mark.
 
Hemmingway, Poe, Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss.....

Without De. Seuss hundreds of millions of people would not have started their enjoyment of literature.
 
Sorry, I meant to say Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, and David Sedaris.
 
Best storytellers are Dickens, S. King, Hemingway, Shakespeare. Dickens is long winded as hell - probably because he got paid by the word - but his stories and characters are second to none.
 
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