Were the 1920s the greatest decade in literature?

Dat pussy look tyte.
Me likey!

It's worth noting that the '20s were also the years when the cinema was elevated artistically in a very big way

She is a virgin after all.

Top 10 of the 1920s:

Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time
James Joyce - Ulysses
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
E. M. Forster - A Passage to India
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain
Franz Kafka - The Castle

Not into poetry, or just didn't think to include any? Or do you think novels from the period are just that much better?

Read Red Harvest for a class this semester. Essentially the invention of the hard-boiled detective novel but also themes that deal in labor, interwar history, marxism (hammett was a known red for a while), and language as a tactical, interrogative tool
Stein might be right. i would add hemingway to that too in the creation of american style but 20th century american lit is so varied in styles and movements

Whoops. I meant Top 10 Novels.

it's also important to note that Red Harvest is funny and hammett's prose is witty and clever. The first paragraph is full of it.

"I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better."

It's when some of the best films of Lang, Stroheim, Murnau, Dreyer, Eisenstein and Sternberg were released. Germanics pretty much ruled the silent era

More like Jews actually

Factually incorrect. You should believe less in Nazi propaganda.

Lang, Stroheim, Eisenstein and Sternberg are all of Jewish descent.

And I mean they're also some of my favorite filmmakers (Stroheim especially) so it's not like I care.

Lang was a Catholic, his mother a converted Jew. Eisenstein was an orthodox Christian with only his paternal grandfather being Jewish. I greatly appreciate what Jewish people and Jewish culture contributed to European and Germanic culture but this belief that the existence of a Jewish person in your family tree makes you a Jew is frankly disgusting.

Then I guess they're 1/2 and 1/4 Jewish respectively. Still noteworthy.

Bump

cesar vallejo published some stuff too, trilce

The only thing worse than a modernist artist is a modernist writer. Fuck all of you. Learn about something that isn't the two centuries before you were born. The renaissance, 1600s France, 1700s Germany, Augustan Rome and Post-invasion Hellas were all better than this trite resold shit.

Guys, we've been through this. The 1590s is beyond doubt the greatest decade for literature, at least English literature. Spenser, Marlowe, Lyly, Nashe, Kyd, Drayton, Campion, Southwell, Bacon, Chapman, Middleton, Jonson, etc. are all writing in this era. Sidney, who died in 1586, is published in the 1590s. Shakespeare is writing, and not just his plays, but his entire sonnet sequence was (presumably) written in the 1590s, together with his two best long poems. And even though I know full well that these names strike the Veeky Forums ear uncommonly, accustomed as it is to the modern and postmodern wankery that goes on here, most of these writers are of greater quality than those currently mentioned in this thread.

t. Renaissancefag

>if more (dead) authorities say a work is better, that means it is better
k

Come on, try harder. Which dead authorities have I invoked? None. These writers aren't better because someone -- I don't know who you have in mind -- says they're better; they're better because they are better. Veeky Forums is blinded by its preference for prose over drama and poetry, and for modern over old, but if you try leaving your 20th century prose-shaped comfort zone for a little while, you may discover Veeky Forums memes aren't the be all and end all of literary quality.

This is what you look like now. Right now.

Useless without Kafka.

>not mentioning cervantes

your post completely lacked logic, and the only thing older books have is more authority behind them. You are an idiot

The modern era is best compared to any other individual era because of the quality along with the enormous variety in style.

Literature from that era is a lot more homogeneous, and only four or five of the ones you listed are real standouts, though I'm sure they all have plenty of fine work.

I included much more poetry in the OP than I did prose. Try again, dipshit.

I even included a play, btw.

The Castle is on there

Carroll John Daly did it first and better.

Yeah, the only thing Shakespeare has behind him is authority. I'm sure Pessoa and Mann are by far the superior writers. Marlowe? Cervantes? Pure rubbish, of course. Nothing but "authority" behind them.

No, seriously, how dense are you? Have you read more than a single text from this era? If even that much? And if you think this era has so much "authority" behind it, then the question that you must answer is why this is the case? Stupid academics? Please. Even the modernists, T. S. Eliot in particular, hailed the 1590s as a golden era for literature. But I'm sure that's just empty "authority" as well, right?

>I included much more poetry in the OP than I did prose. Try again, dipshit. [...] I even included a play, btw.
I'm very pleased for you and this is to your credit, but when speaking of Veeky Forums's general sensibilities (as I was), and when responding not to you but the other user (as I was), this point is really neither here nor there. There is no denying that Veeky Forums's preferences generically tend towards prose. Browse through the catalogue if you disagree.

>Literature from that era is a lot more homogeneous, and only four or five of the ones you listed are real standouts, though I'm sure they all have plenty of fine work.
Well, whatever good opinion you had bought you have now marred; this truly does prove my point about Veeky Forums's narrow and unsophisticated sensibilities. It is not the case that literature from this era lacks variety, it is only that the modern reader is so unaccustomed to it that he cannot perceive it, and therefore finds it to be homogeneous. Some more investment and immersion from your part would dispel you of this illusion; many of the literary experiments which the modernists allegedly pioneered had, in fact, previously been done by the Renaissance writers you are disparaging.

Well, a good half of what Shakespeare has behind him is authority, at least. He might be the best poet of his time (maybe even the best up to that point in time), but he's a bit overrated in the grand scheme of things, and I'm for the most part inclined to agree with literary critic Dan Schneider on the subject: cosmoetica.com/S3-DES3.htm

>This entire thread
Am I being memed

>criticises authority
>invokes authority

So it's not that you're against authority by principle, it's that you think "my authority > your authority".

Would you like to share your opinion of who the greatest poet, or dramatist, or overall writer might be, if it is not Shakespeare?

Pretty sure they were only making an argument of English literature.

I'm inclined to be on your side here, but can't really say I've read much 1920's American lit, which seems like the biggest chunk in the other category. Perhaps you could refine to "Best American Period" and "Best British Period"? You do lose Ulysses though, if you go with that.

I posted that not because of his authority, but because I think some of his arguments are correct (esp. in reference to the Founder Syndrome and Babe Ruth Syndrome. I'd recommend scrolling down to those paragraphs and reading them). He also makes a good case that Wallace Stevens is the better poet for his consistency, and offers thoughtful analyses of poems from both Shakespeare and Stevens.

Okay, well, that's me done; I'm not conducting an argument with someone who legitimately believes Wallace Stevens is a better writer than Shakespeare. Your opinion is indistinguishable from trolling. I will, however, take the time to read the paper you've linked.

>Okay, well, that's me done; I'm not conducting an argument with someone who legitimately believes Wallace Stevens is a better writer than Shakespeare. Your opinion is indistinguishable from trolling.
There are people who actually think like this

oh... I think OP was referring to the best of all literature, not just English

>Wasteland

That user was mainly talking about English literature, but I, the OP, am referring to literature in general.

you need to look up what a strawman is, you are arguing against sentiments you see on the board Veeky Forums not sentiments presented by me and the op

>the only thing Shakespeare has behind him is authority.
the only thing shakespeare has over john gould fletcher or robert penn warren, two people who I consider his equals, is authority, yes

>I'm sure Pessoa and Mann are by far the superior writers.
look up straw man

>Have you read more than a single text from this era? If even that much?
I could ask the same of you about modernists

>Even the modernists, T. S. Eliot in particular, hailed the 1590s as a golden era for literature.
empty appeal to authority yet again

Ah yes I meant that user, I just said OP by habit. My mistake.

If you had to recommend three works from the 20's, to someone who as only read Faulkner from that era, what three would it be? I'm looking for some books to read at the moment.

The Trial, To the Lighthouse and Yeats' collected poems

>Yeats collected poems
>1920s

Surprised no one here mentioned John Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer. amazing work published in the mid-20's.

good catch, have you read his other works?

nope. read Manhattan Transfer a month ago and currently reading some Faulkner. will get around to the trilogy soon. any recs?

naw, i was just about to ask you for recs, lol

though i have read some of his travel writings and letters, published by the library of america and i really liked them, learned a lot from them too

Which faulkner? I'm trying to become more knowledgeable in american prose myself, I pretty much have the poetry down.

you can't go wrong with the ones everyone always posts about here: As I Lay Dying, Light In August, Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom! i would leave Absalom for last simply because the style is slightly more jarring. however, i think it's his best work.

The trilogy is amazing. It's truly innovative, but far more accessible than Joyce-level prose. Dos Passos is underrated.

Eh, I tend to think in more general terms. I'm something of a Bloomian in that I think the individuals who really matter in literature are the monumental geniuses who strike fear into the hearts of their successors. The 1590s were defined by Shakespeare and his orbitals (not to say that these other writers thought themselves to be orbitals at the time, but historical hindsight shows this to be the case). The 1920s were defined by Joyce and his orbitals, who were somewhat more conscious of their status. I think that, in time, Joyce may prove to be of the same stature as Shakespeare. Therefore I don't think it's obvious that the 1590s were superior, regardless of how many relatively minor names you can drop.

I agree with this if you only include English-language writers and poets as Joyce's "orbitals"

>shitsby in a top 10 of any type

No thanks

It's one of the best novels of the 20's.

You can't deny Fitzgerald was a great prose stylist.

There's a reason the final sentence is the most famous in American literature.

OP here. Just realized I forgot to include Beyond the Pleasure Principle, even though I intended to. Nonfic is the one thing I was missing

Yes, OP.

In fact, the 1920's was the pinnacle of western art in general. It was the sweet spot where modernism was fresh and everything new seemed possible but before modernism then became stale and got carried away with tiself.

Now we're stuck with postmodernism. OH well.

Imagine this: the Apocalypse began with earnest, then, providence grants you a day of rest before utter annihilation. You frantically create in madness.. genius.. terror... knowing the trumpets will sound again to usher in a final age of total devastation.

That's a good description.

All of those except Dreyer are overrated but I guess historically noteworthy and influential.

Stroheim is fucking brilliant you shit, and he would've been the greatest filmmaker of all time if the studios just let him make what he wanted

Also Lang, Murnau, Eistenstein and Sternberg all have fantastic silent films that hold up to this day

no kafka, no proust

just kill yourself now and make the world a better place

1880s should be in the running imo.

>Brothers K
>Death of Ivan Ilych
>Kreutzer Sonata
>Huck Finn
>Jekyll & Hyde
>Zarathustra, etc.
>Flatland
>A Rebours
>Bouvard & Pecuchet
>Ghosts
>Tess of the d'Urbervilles

>no kafka
look hard, pleb

What are some good poems from the 1880's?

Nothing?

Whitman, early Yeats, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne, Browning, Tennyson, Verlaine, Mallarme

>Whitman, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne, Browning, Tennyson
Their best work came earlier.
>Yeats
His best work came later.
>Verlaine, Mallarme
I believe their most famous works came earlier

He didn't say better writer, he said better poet; and even then, he only said the argument was "interesting", not that he agreed with it.

Work on your reading comprehension.

Could you rec some secondary lit on English Renaissance Drama and Poetry?

Also interested in this.

Bump

Another bump for this

I don't think that one user further up in the thread has an actual recommendation. Almost like they don't know shit about English renaissance literature