> Do we have a great poet who captures the American spirit, the American story, the American identity? Dare I suggest Bob Dylan?
[deleted]
Who Is America's Homer?
51–60 of 261 posts
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#52English majors seem to have banded together to crown only the most inaccessible and politically charged authors as worthy of attention. If you like anyone else, you're just too inexperienced or partisan to appreciate real literature. To hell with them. The answer is Brandon Sanderson who is freely sharing his knowledge of how to write with the world. His teachings will touch more in the coming years than any stodgy 1…
What on earth is "politically charged" or "inaccessible" about Frost or Ingalls Wilder? It's not like they threw in Gertrude Stein or William Gaddis.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#53Reducing 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 presid…
To be clear, there are excellent american authors, and many comments mention them; its more of a "why am I reading stupid questions about history?"
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#54> Do we have a great poet who captures the American spirit, the American story, the American identity? Dare I suggest Bob Dylan?
[flagged]
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#55I 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…
Twain is a good choice, but he also works against the mythology of America. His whole thing was popping bubbles and making grounded stories that work against the backdrop of Americana.
Tracy Chapman is a pretty trolly answer, but I suspect the real answer might very well be a musician or filmmaker, not a writer.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#56We probably need more time to say for sure, but it might be David Chase. The Sopranos is partly an extended character study of someone who strives to fill American values as we imagine ourselves but also embodies American values as they actually exist.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#57> Do we have a great poet who captures the American spirit, the American story, the American identity? Dare I suggest Bob Dylan?
Odd to include Chapman and not Dylan. Much like leaving out Twain - seems like the defacto choice to me.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#58I 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.
The vast majority of Cervantes's work was not in poetry, either. I think the idea is more "emblematic national storyteller" than poet in the narrow sense.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#59English majors seem to have banded together to crown only the most inaccessible and politically charged authors as worthy of attention. If you like anyone else, you're just too inexperienced or partisan to appreciate real literature. To hell with them. The answer is Brandon Sanderson who is freely sharing his knowledge of how to write with the world. His teachings will touch more in the coming years than any stodgy 1…
Which of the proposed answers in the linked article would you characterize as one or both of "inaccessible" and "politically charged"?
I think a couple are bad answers (Wilder? She's fine-ish, but America's Homer? Very, very, no) but can't figure out which ones might be striking you that way.
Re: Who Is America's Homer?
#60this is not super productive, but not including “Germany has Goethe” in the opening line turned me off immediately
And France has Molière, and Portugal has Camões...how many authors should be listed?
If you are a 250 year old nation built on "stolen land" (by the europeans, mind you), I would assume not many. But the US has been home to many great writers. This is just stupid.