How well does Spain's literature hold up in comparison to the rest of the world?

How well does Spain's literature hold up in comparison to the rest of the world?

We have the Quijote and some great playwrights, that's about it.

Quixote is all they need desu

Fuckers won't shut up about the Civil War, or the early post-war years. It gets annoying after the first 500 books.

Don Quixote is the only thing of note they have ever produced.

Quixote is all they need desu

Well, depends. Do you mean books published in Spain specifically or books just written by Spaniards?
Regardless, there is Don Quixote, and that really is one of my favorite books ever written so maybe Quality over Quantity?

Ironically enough since most Spanish teens are forced to read the Quijote when they're 16/17 they end up hating it forever.

>Do you mean books published in Spain specifically or books just written by Spaniards?
Written by Spaniards; whatever forms part of the pool of Spanish literature.

Spain's very own Javier Marias is one of the world's best living authors.

Oh, alright. Then probably too many to name, honestly.
Rosa Montero and Ildefonso Falcones have both written some good stuff as well, and as far as I know they're both still alive.

>most Spanish teens are forced to read the Quijote when they're 16/17
That's just not true. You may read passages or abridged versions but barely any schools make you read the whole thing.

They produced no authors of note between Cervantes and Garcia Lorca.

I can tell this isn't true because Don Quixote is a doorstopped to end all doorstoppers. It's fucking ~huge~ I seriously doubt that a school would make it's students read the whole fucking thing.

It's true. They make us read a teenager version of it that is over 300 pages...and we hate it or just ignore it forever. Its the same with any kind of high art: society labels it and establishes what it IS (a few words suffice) -then proceedes to venerate it without knowing why and nobody actually reads it or gives a fuck. This is just how things are.

Since we're throwing personal experiences as extrapolable facts, neither me nor anybody under 40 that I know of has been forced to read the Quijote in school.

If this is true, and I'm not going to say it is because I'll need verifiable evidence, then I say Boo to those educators who will teach something as important as Don Quixote in the vein of literature while not properly explaining why it's so long, why it's important to read most of it, or why it got so popular. I mean, de Cervantes was a really good writer, obviously, but it's popularity came from a tragic sense of irony in that it was insulting the sort of pseudo-chivalrous romance novels popular at the time, but was read by the same kinds of people. Fascinating, truly.

>Since we are (...)
Fair enough.

Bartleby y compañia
La vida es sueño
Los girasoles ciegos

Quevedo
De Vega
Lorca
Cervantes

I'd argue that Bolaño's 2666 is Spanish as it uses mostly castellano ibérico, as do many of the narrators in the second section of Savage.

Bolaño lived most of his life in Catalonia, I think this is one of the cases where "the homeland of a writer is his language". Chileans and Mexicans may not agree, but once you are as good as him you are pretty much universal.

Where should I start with him?

It doesn't

this

Just like English lit if we exclude Ireland, Scotland and the rest of the anglophone world then

>t. Has not read a single Spanish author

shut up and mow my lawn pablo

spain is by far the most intellectually bankrupt of the major european powers. outdone even by portugal, which is really pathetic when you think about it.

>Spain
>major european power
Ok that's a stretch bu
>Portugal
Ahahahahhaah

>Probably an American talking about intellectual bankruptcy

The greatest literary traditions of the globe are the Russian, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Nothing comes even close, specially not Anglo """literature""". Embarrassing art.

B-but Portugal once ruled the waves!

O salty sea, so much of whose salt
Is Portugal’s tears! All the mothers
Who had to weep for us to cross you!
All the sons who prayed in vain!
All the brides-to-be who never
Married for you to be ours, O sea!

Not too well, paco.

I would recommend you read something about Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Nobel of literature and the symbol of colombians writers.

Colombia isn't Spain

Oh shit, my bad. I thought it said spanish literature as a whole.

>Chaucer
>Spenser
>Shakespeare
>Chapman
>Milton
>Keats
>Browning
>Rowling
Yeah nah.

All shite besides Rowling who was Scottish

Gloucestershire is not Scottish you pseud.

Stop with the cultural appropriation you perfidous imperialist

this

Joyce is ours
Sterne is ours
Wilde is ours
Swift is ours
Conrad is ours
Now I'd name some good Scottish writers, but I don't know any.

Hume

Burns

>Rowling
Single-handedly redeeming all the garbage that came before her. What a genius.

this

>tfw you're from spain and school made you hate Cervantes and till today you haven't read the only masterpiece spain has ever created

Latin american lit > Spanish lit.

You're just stupid, amigo.
Olvida todo lo que te "enseñaron" (puaj) sobre él y sólo léelo, con un poco de ingenuidad.
But then again, you won't do this. Shitposting on Veeky Forums is way more rewarding, after all :_)

Alasdair Gray motherfucker

And Edwin Muir, Edwin Morgan, Hugh MacDiarmid, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, George Mackay Brown, Norman McCaig, Sorley McLean, Douglas Dunn, James Robertson, etc. Not to mention Walter Scott, who basically invented the 19th century novel, and Burns. It's not quite a tradition on the level of Ireland's, but we have plenty to be proud of for such a small country, and if you don't know them that's your own loss.

btw Rowling isn't ours, whatever she might claim. Typical English white settler appropriating "romantic" Scottish imagery while remaining aloof from the local culture. You folks are welcome to her.

I'm Spanish and I totally agree

European lit>Latin American lit

Compare continents with continents, not with countries.

Spanish lit > Any individual latin american country lit

See?

Argentinean lit > Spanish lit.

In your dreams maybe
>b-but muh Borges

>Spanish up there with the other GOATs

nah bro. Even Italy is stretching it

Borges is a titan; but I'm just being silly, I dislike any notion of nationalism or regionalism.

I consider Italy, Germany and Spain on the same level actually

Maybe the next summer I'll try to overcome my disgust and read him, pero no prometo nada.

The narration is too tedious for me, and the "Spanish humor" is not really my cup of tea despite being a Spaniard myself. Which is a pity, because I think the idea behind the story is fucking genius.

>"Spanish humor"
What do you mean?

Like Torrente and that shit

How is the Quixote anything like Torrente

I've read literature from America, France, Russia, etc... And it's easy to tell most countries have their own brand of humor. Spanish humors tends to be too obvious and relies on stereotypes, screaming, sex innuendos (which aren't even that clever or subtle) and in-jokes only people from small communities can get. Not for me. I don't want to sound like a pretentious jackass who likes "the fine and subtle English humor", but Spanish doesn't do it for me.

"Tomorrow in the battle think on me" and "Heart so white".

Marías is a fucking hack. If you can get through more than a hundred pages of Corazón tan blanco, hats off to you but that's time spent wasted.

The anglo literature is very good. They have Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Blake and others.

Unamuno is goat.

Yes but we're taking the piss out of them here
Also you read Woolf if you haven't already

Senpai you need to see brazillian humor we see a clip of a dude screaming "AAAAAAAH I'MMMMM CUMMMING IMMA THROW MY DICK AT YOU" and we call it the apex of humor.

Sorry *Austen. Not Dickinson.

My condolences, Brazilian user.

what aren't there more good spainish authors. they have all the things they need for a great literary tradition.
>unique cultural values
>unique religious views
>educated class of people
>lots of theologians
>lots of cultural shift of ideas
i was learning Spanish but now i might want to try something else. i love fantastic,wonderful and mystical literature like Borges and a lot of Chinese literature. i thought Spanish culture would have lots of that sort of thing. what is a good language to learn for that kind of literature?

Greece: Homer, Sophocles
Rome/Italy: Virgil, Dante
Germany/Austria: Kafka
UK: Joyce, Woolf
US: Faulkner, Melville
South Africa: Coetzee

Idk, you say.

Oh, and Canada: Alice Munro

muh corn and muh whales mufugga

They're too social to have a great literary tradition. That's the only thing holding them back.

Yes we're too social. I fucking hate that.

Seriously, what makes the Quixote such a masterpiece? I don't see what the fuss is about, aside from being one of the first novels ever.

>Germany/Austria: Kafka
>not Nietzsche and Goethe

Gooby pls.

Ramón J. Sender is pretty good, especially his later works

Spaniards don't know how to write. The only good thing they've ever done was the Quixote and it was only good because it made fun of all their other books.
It's a country of illiterate idiots.

well what would be a good language to learn for my interests

whats some good lit from 20th century Spain?
Anything about Basques?

bumping again for answers please help

please don't die thread i want to believe that Spanish made beautiful things to

please don't die thread please

it is starting to look desperate boys

No such thing, Franco killed or forced to exile the 20th century intellectuals. This is one of the major flaws of Spanish literature: No 20th century literature (the turning point for modernism and arguably one of the most important centuries for lit).

The constraints imposed on Victor Erice enabled him to create some of the finest films of the century. Why couldn't authors do the same?

You should still learn Spanish. Spain might not have produced the kinds of works you're looking for, but Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico have.

not sure if Basque counts but Eli Tolaretxipi is a great poet. for fans of Plath and Hughes.

Different media. It is easier to pass the censorship in film because cinematographic language is easier to misinterpret or for it to go over your head. The most you could do being subtle in literature with such heavy censorship is something like the ending of La Colmena.

Also, Erice filmed El espíritu de la colmena when francoism was virtually over. He couldn't have done such a film in the 50s.

>First novel ever
>Invent every single literary resource/technique

Superior Iberian literary tradition coming through

In the same vein, Espriu is GOAT catalan lt. Of course he had to write from exile, but Tereseta-que-baixava-les-escales is one of the best short stories I have ever read in any language

Just like, no

I would add Alaistair MacLeod in addition to Alice Munro. They arethe climax of Canadian lit for me. Except maybe, Clark Blaise.

you mean just like america wont shut up about ww2, the great depression and the cold war? Nothing needs meaning to be made from it more urgently than suffering

>I dislike any notion of nationalism or regionalism
thank god i thought i was the only one left on this fucking site

Name 5 civil war novels without googlin it up

Wrong, fuckers won't shut up about the Spanish Golden Age of literature, the spanish Renaissance and Baroque period. And I totally understand they don't. Quevedo, Góngora, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Cervantes... some really interestic Mysticism writers too, if you're into it. And lots of poetry. Spanish strong lit is it's poetry imo

I had to read the full Don Quixote when i was like 15. Of course 90% of the class looked for summaries and they all end up hating it. Im from Chile