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Who Is America's Homer?

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Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#211

Post by coldtea »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #199
kstenerud wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd actually put one in for Clint Eastwood. Although most popular knowledge about him revolves around his earlier acting career (Westerns, Dirty Harry), you'll notice a distinct change in many of his films once he started directing. * Play Misty for Me * Breezy * Unforgiven * A Perfect World * The Bridges of Madison County * Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil * Mystic River * Million Dollar Baby * Changeling * G…

Clint Eastwood didn't write any of those. He's an actor, director and producer of other people's work.

Actor and Director and Producer would be more than enough for everybody. Especially combined with several Oscar wins as director and producer, and even Oscar nominations as actor (on top of iconic roles).

But he has also been an OST composer for some films.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#212

Post by [deleted] »

Erem wrote: post #110
paxys wrote: post #85

"America's Homer" isn't someone you pick by committee. The fact that you have to debate means that this person does not exist. The American literary tradition is far too new for someone to have the kind of impact as others on the list. We are talking about people who, through their writing, created and evolved language itself. No single author has defined how America speaks and writes the way Dante did for Italian or…

Or Shakespeare for English

[deleted]

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#213

Post by joenot443 »

ColdStream wrote: post #158
brudgers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ergo, Matt Groening.

It has been argued that Sam Simons was the one that really honed in the characters of The Simpsons. Groening would throw out all kinds of weird ideas, like Marge was secretly a rabbit (thus the high hair), but Simons kept grounding the characters back into a form of reality.

Sam was a pretty awesome guy. There’s a real sincerity and earnestness to early Simpsons which came from the vision you’re describing.

He left the show after only 4 seasons, but I like to think his influence on the writing was a big contributor to the shows golden years.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#216

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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…

Brandon Sanderson writes forgettable stories for pubescent children. His characters fill very specific plot roles and those plots don't really deviate in any interesting way. Saying he's Temu Terry Pratchett is doing a giant disservice to Pratchett.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#217

Post by Tangurena2 »

paxys wrote: post #85

"America's Homer" isn't someone you pick by committee. The fact that you have to debate means that this person does not exist. The American literary tradition is far too new for someone to have the kind of impact as others on the list. We are talking about people who, through their writing, created and evolved language itself. No single author has defined how America speaks and writes the way Dante did for Italian or…

> No single author has defined how America speaks and writes the way Dante did for Italian

No English language version of the Bible - prior to the King James Version - contained descriptions of Hell. At best, modern American conceptions/beliefs about Hell is fan-fiction based on Dante's Inferno.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#218

Post by Fricken »

Homer is a voice from antiquity. How many American stories and storytellers will be remembered and widely known in a millennium or 3? It will take a long time before we have a definitive answer.

Such a person may not have been born yet. Maybe we need to go back to the stone age and rebuild civilization before a bard as reputable as Homer appears in what we currently call America.

Re: Who Is America's Homer?

#219

Post by Tangurena2 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #129
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

Would anyone go out of their way to read any of Twain if it wasn’t required high school reading? Also the American Homer is/was Garrison Keillor. Homer’s delivery was oral and radio is surely closer to oratory than books.

Plato (who came long after Homer) complained about "kids these days" not memorizing poetry (like the old farts did) and using that new fangled technology called "writing".
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