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Who Is America's Homer?

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Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#61

Post by runarberg »

wk_end wrote: post #24
runarberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woody Guthrie, who gets a mention in the article, would get my vote. I would argue that while poets and playwrights are a solid choice for ancient Greece, Music and Movies is the equivalent for America. Woody Guthrie is a solid choice because he traveled and collected folk music which was reflected in his own expressions. As for movies I would want Jim Jarmusch to be Americas Homer, just because I like his movies a l…

Steven Spielberg is probably the Homer of American cinema.

I would more consider him a Shakespeare of American Cinema rather then a Homer. Shakespeare was a prolific playwright (and a poet) who wrote plays about varied subjects and situations across the World of, some of his plays are of legendary status, and others not so great (same is true of Spielberg’s movies). Shakespeare’s plays (just like Spielberg) are also grounded in history and fiction rather then folk art and local legends and mythology. Also Spielberg is rather keen on adopting other people’s work to the big screen, which is a bit disqualifying* in this regard.

If you compare Jim Jarmusch who writes about epic road trips of regular people across the country, prisoners on the run from the law seeking the American dream, Vampires, Samurai hit-man in New York, then you start seeing how he reflects on American folk culture and mythology in his movies grounded in stories about American people (ditto Coen Brothers) much like Homer’s work on ancient Greek legends and myths grounded in stories about Greek society at the time.

What I am saying is that while Spielberg (just like Shakespeare) is a prolific director that has left us with many masterpieces (and other not-so-good pieces) he has not captured American legends, American mythology, nor American folk stories in ways Homer captured the Greek legends, mythology and folk stories. Both Jim Jarmusch and the Coen Brothers however have done so masterfully.

---

*: I know Woody Guthrie also played covers and collected folk music and redemption songs, but that is a bit different then adopting an already successful and widely known book into another format (ditto Homer).

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#62

Post by readread »

bsder wrote: post #41
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 U…

I don't see how it's not him, Whitman (the timing of his work is a strong point in his favor, being so concerned with the civil war and that apparently-neveaending struggle in America's metaphorical soul), or maybe Melville though I think he's the weakest of those three. Most other plausible answers are too late in the country's history to take that particular title, for one thing. Irving and Poe are early enough but I don't think either's even close to the combo of clout, staying-power, influence, quality, and breadth of coverage of, specifically, Americanness that one would expect for this (and I like both of them!).

I would agree with other posters that if we allow the search to stretch into the 20th century, odds are we'd end up with a filmmaker or songwriter, but I think we've got our all-around best options already, and they're all (basically) 19th century.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#63

Post by aforwardslash »

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.

You can take note. Writing is a physical action, e.g. performing output.

Writing is an action. You can memorize, take a mental note, but you are not writing.

(Someone else mentioned Camōes, a portuguese who famously/allegedly saved his writings from a shipwreck by swimming with one arm and using the other to keep the book above water; your interpretation of "writing" is an insult)

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#64

Post by aforwardslash »

wk_end wrote: post #35
yaman12 wrote: post #10

Stephen King. Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written. He was popular entertainment with a dose of folk religion. I’m not sure Homer existed. 1000 years from now people will say the same of SK.

...you think 1000 years from now people will wonder whether or not Stephen King existed?

Good question. No. Since the press was invented, our records have improved tremendously, partially because of the low cost of maintaing them. However, we still have detailed records from many eras, tracing back at least 3000 years. The egyptians had archeologists, let that sink in.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#65

Post by aforwardslash »

aforwardslash wrote: post #64
wk_end wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...you think 1000 years from now people will wonder whether or not Stephen King existed?

Good question. No. Since the press was invented, our records have improved tremendously, partially because of the low cost of maintaing them. However, we still have detailed records from many eras, tracing back at least 3000 years. The egyptians had archeologists, let that sink in.

Some fun trivia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#66

Post by JumpCrisscross »

legitster wrote: post #46

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 . F…

> The most technically correct answer is Walt Whitman

why?

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#68

Post by slwvx »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #52
jimbob45 wrote: post #20

English 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.

For Ingalls Wilder, see the following

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder#Political...

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#69

Post by leavesofwalt »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #66
legitster wrote: post #46

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 . F…

> The most technically correct answer is Walt Whitman why?

Unable to speak to why gp said so, but I have a few reasons why.

In the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s philosophers, writers, and poets were all talking about how "this newly formed country" needed its own Epic Poet that embodied the spirit of the country, ala Homer, Milton, Basho, Virgil, Dante, Kālidāsa, et al. This pursuit is also where the phrase "the great American novel" comes from.

The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay on the subject; defining what qualities, to him, such a poet would require.

This essay, The Poet, inspired Whitman to write his epic poem Song of Myself, with such qualities, that would, in later editions, become his collection of poems Leaves of Grass.

Emerson read the first edition and wrote Whitman a letter all but proclaiming him the poet he was imagining, noting "I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed."

It became a point of contention between the two when Whitman published this personal letter as the foreword of the second edition.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69389/from-the-poe...

https://whitmanarchive.org/item/loc.02109

Personally, I still think Leaves of Grass is "the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed".

It still has opportunity for improvement, but as yet, the most extraordinary.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#70

Post by brightball »

runarberg wrote: post #15
brightball wrote: post #4

Solid read. Recommendations elaborated on in the article are a solid set. Mark Twain or Walt Whitman would probably get my vote.

Woody Guthrie, who gets a mention in the article, would get my vote. I would argue that while poets and playwrights are a solid choice for ancient Greece, Music and Movies is the equivalent for America. Woody Guthrie is a solid choice because he traveled and collected folk music which was reflected in his own expressions. As for movies I would want Jim Jarmusch to be Americas Homer, just because I like his movies a l…

Coen Brothers are a good call
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