Who has the same level of mastery of language as James Joyce and Shakespeare?

Junot Diaz

Rapper Aesop Rock

What about Spenser?

this but less ironically

Borges in Spanish
And maybe Luis Rafael Sanchez

Nabokov comes close

>plenty of poets surpass him
Joyce's poetry is more solid than his prose, tbph. Not a Joyce fan, but Chamber Music is inspired.

I'd go with Milton to be honest. Also, unironically, without joking, without sarcasm or a hint of a smile on my face, Updike. Updike was a fucking prodigy when it came to mastery of language, a verbal-intelligence freak.

>Borges
Stop this meme right now.

Allow me to recite some Joyce, anons.
This is from his letters.
'At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.'

>Mastery of language

Lol.

And _English_ language, if you don't mind.

>an author's private life should discredit their art
No wonder you post on Veeky Forums. You're fucking retarded and most likely a women who makes up #MeToo tweets about famous celebrities.

No-one combines Shakespeare's mastery of language with ability to create character.

But lots of people can equal or surpass him in other ways:

Purely sensuous, beautiful prose:-
> Updike, Nabokov Walter Pater, De Quincy, Fitzerald

Evocative, forceful, funny, inventive prose:
> Joyce, Pynchon (maybe)

Poetry-as-sound:
> Dylan Thomas (no-one close IMO)

Ability to build enormous structures from blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter):
> Milton

Good post I always fucking forget Updike

Joseph Conrad, for whom English was like his fifth language.

And William Faulkner.

Borges is not the best only because Cervantes existed, otherwise he would be the best spanish-speaking writer in history.

Which poets are you thinking of?

Rupi Kaur
Charles Bukowski
Just to name two

Donne is better than Shakespeare

Racine in French imo is better than either

BRAP BRAP BRAP
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>create character

At best he created good archetypes, but his plays were also larded with a ton of stereotypes and flimsy personalities.

>English language
>mastery
Yes, I too was able to master the triangle in music class.

What in the hell..

This.

Updick couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. Pseuds. If he's on the level of Shakespeare why isn't he taught in high schools or even most colleges? OP, to answer your question: F. Scott Fitzgerald, unequivocally.

>F. Scott Fitzgerald
>AKA "I'm not like the other girls" starter pack
Sure buddy, sure.

>top of his ESL class

Because he writes about the same stuff over and over again --- American suburban middle-class middle-aged white horny patriarchs (I sound like a Tumblrina or Redditor saying that, but it's pretty much the best way to put it) --- but, nevertheless, his prose style itself is beautiful.

Do you speak spanish, bro?

...

>American suburban middle-class middle-aged white horny patriarchs

So normal people?

Reccs on his best book?

Yep. This is just an aside between me and you, but I really feel today's heavily liberal culture, especially in academia, has unfairly thrown Updike under the bus.

The Rabbit Tetralogy, The Centaur, Roger's Version, and Couples are my suggestions.

If I had to pick one, I'd say Roger's Version.

>implying you've ever said anything even a 16th as good let alone actually had the balls to say something like that to a woman in real life and the funny thing is, if you did, you'd probably have a girlfriend

Takes balls for a man to use his flea ridden bed to seduce a bitch. Balls don't make him better than Willy Shakespeare tho.

Shakejoyce

you're right, but his incredible poetry does.

I cannot believe how erudite Anthony Burgess was. Overwhelming

Conrad wrote his novels in French, then translated them (himself) into English to be then published.

I'd say Paz, Góngora or Ercilla regarding Spanish