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Who Is America's Homer?

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Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#41

Post by bsder »

slwvx wrote: post #2

Mark Twain is America's Homer One aspect of Huckleberry Finn (the novel) that I think is relevant today is the spectacularly stupid zero-sum conflict between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. It seems relevant to the US's politics and many international conflicts

Definitely Twain and it's not even close. Huckleberry Finn even has the episodic flavor of The Odyssey.

For books you have "The Innocents Abroad", "Roughing It", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper", "Life on the Mississippi", "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court".

That's a hell of a lineup and includes a LOT of the flavor of the US as a young country.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#42

Post by furyofantares »

stronglikedan wrote: post #34
01284a7e wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written". They were not written at all. No written literature existed in the time of Homer.

I can write a poem in my head without ever writing it down on paper. I still wrote a poem, even if I just pass it along orally. If I write a song for my girl, I'm not going to hand her a piece of paper with sheet music and lyrics, I'm going to perform it for her. I may write it down, or I may not. Of course, composed is a more precise word, but everyone still knows what I mean if I replace it with write.

Are you also calling it literature if it's not written down?

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#44

Post by riffraff »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #8

I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in. I could also see someone suggesting Hemingway, although I don't buy it. Hart Crane at this point in time seems somewhat secondary, so that was surprising. The Tracy Chapman thing seemed seriously like a troll, I could definitely agree to a black Homer, but then I guess it would be Langston Hughes or James Baldwin as my choices. To suggest someone though who has t…

But this is about poetry, would Twain qualify as a poet?

My vote would go to Edgar Lee Masters because the spoon river anthology is one of the few poetry books I actually read, and it exemplifies a lot of the American spirit, IMVHO.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

stronglikedan wrote: post #34
01284a7e wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written". They were not written at all. No written literature existed in the time of Homer.

I can write a poem in my head without ever writing it down on paper. I still wrote a poem, even if I just pass it along orally. If I write a song for my girl, I'm not going to hand her a piece of paper with sheet music and lyrics, I'm going to perform it for her. I may write it down, or I may not. Of course, composed is a more precise word, but everyone still knows what I mean if I replace it with write.

> I can write a poem in my head without ever writing it down on paper. I still wrote a poem, even if I just pass it along orally

This is generalising the term writing to the point of uselessness. In your example, you thought of a poem and spoke it. You didn't write it.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#46

Post by legitster »

The most technically correct answer is Walt Whitman.

Longfellow got dismissed by several people here for being too sentimental - but I would argue that sentimentality and saccharine character is distinctly part of America's mythos.

Washington Irving and Parson Weems would both also be good candidates. Early writers who had a penchant for mixing real history with tall tales.

The name I would throw out is John Ford. Ford basically invented the modern action movie, the mythology of the West, redefined masculinity, established the tropes of a hero, etc.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#47

Post by bsder »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #8

I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in. I could also see someone suggesting Hemingway, although I don't buy it. Hart Crane at this point in time seems somewhat secondary, so that was surprising. The Tracy Chapman thing seemed seriously like a troll, I could definitely agree to a black Homer, but then I guess it would be Langston Hughes or James Baldwin as my choices. To suggest someone though who has t…

If you're going with songwriters grabbing epic snapshots of life, you're talking about songwriters in the class of Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, or Prince who wrote not just for themselves but others as well and were all pretty prolific in their output.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#48

Post by FeteCommuniste »

moate wrote: post #37
blfr wrote: post #13

Some good takes so I hate to be glib but no one because 1. the US was founded long after the invention of writing and even the printing press plus 2. bronze age morality and worldview are completely alien to us in ways that no subculture in the US is.

The article references "England has Shakespeare (1600s), Spain has Certantes (1600s) Russia has Pushkin (1800s)" whom I assume are intended as their nations' versions. You going to stand on your statement with that as a reference? We're closer to Pushkin than Pushkin was to Homer.

Heh, we're closer to the Beowulf poet than the Beowulf poet was to Homer.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#50

Post by aforwardslash »

Reducing these countries to a single name is probably the reason why we can guess this was written by an american; each country has at least a bunch of inspired authors per couple of generations. The country it is actively being bombed right now is the "modern" reincarnation of a nation that is roughly 10x older than the US. We all know who american Homer is, and this is the first year ever we whish we was the president. Friggin noobs.
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