Was W.B. Yeats or T.S. Eliot the best poet of the 20th century?

Yeats according to Bloom.

Poets that matter yeah

this

Anglos don't matter in anything, to be desu

So Eliot is the best you have? Lol no wonder britbongs are cucks.

Yeah why don't you go on one of the booming non-Anglo forums then Pablo

>implying the majority here are engcucks

Lmao we just use your language because is objectively easier than Esperanto.

rilke

Neither. It was Chesterton.

>Was W.B. Yeats or T.S. Eliot the best poet of the 20th century?
The answer is no.

>anglo poets

LMAO find a better banter m8.

E Z R A P O U N D

neither of them was really British either

Ammons

Degenerate

Eh Eliot is the man. One of the best modernists in my opinion. Bridged the gap between the early Modern and Modern periods while looking forward to the post modern and eventual post secular. If you don't like his poetry at least admire his criticism.

One of my faves along with Eliot.

But he wasn't. If you want degeneracy you should stick with Joyce.

Kek I meant the poster was a degenerate. I love Eliot.

lot of obscure literary reference

>Veeky Forums in charge of understanding irony

I love how this board always get it wrong lol. And they think they can handle the big books...

After google nothing is obscure anymore kiddo.

shut the fuck up. just cause you know the name of something doesn't mean you understand it

You can literally just type two words and read the amazing work a literary critic who spent his entire life studying it.

B-but sure user, you're damn right!

Who are their non-Anglo competitors, by your accounting?

Pound.

This is EXACTLY the logic of pseuds. Wow.

Perse... Rilke... Montale... Celan... Seferis... Char...

And so on and so forth.

I'm less familiar with Eliot, but, for me, Yeats' only competition in the 20th is Ashbery.

Still, the touching, humble honesty one finds in Eliot is nourishing.

Any particular favorites from any of them?

bwahaha

How is that funny?

Do you not appreciate Ashbery, or do you find Eliot proud?

I'll stick with frenchmen. Perse is up there, then Char and Valéry.

i have a marked preference for the unadorned /b/eatitude of Ernest Christopher Dowson, thank you.

Does he even count as a 20th century poet?

Either way, nothing I've read by Dowson has been anymore than prescription for the love-addict's needs.

What does he have which could compare to Yeats' or Eliot's depth and scope?

>What does he have which could compare to Yeats' or Eliot's depth and scope?

little girls?

I'm vitually unread in any 20th century, non-Anglo poet.

Would you say their translations are fair, or are you unfamiliar with the translations?

I welcome the suggestions you've provided, though I am skeptical so many would rival Yeats - much less that the list could sincerely contain an, "and so on and so forth."

you're all wrong, only one man accurately caught the shitty winds of depression, borderline schizoid syndrome, wincest, incelitude, and all-round proto-4channishness:

pic related

Georg Trakl btw

I just read it.

I like it, and it is different from anything by Dowson I had previously read (though not by much), but it is not anywhere near the scope of Yeats' themes (or Ashbery's), or the complexity and uniqueness of voice one can find in Eliot or Yeats (again, or Ashbery).

*blocks your ass*

the correct answer here is Rilke, but it's excusable to not say Rilke if you don't speak German because you don't know any better

Rilke is the most significant poet of the 20th century, rivaling Joyce in early 20th writers

I'd accept your answer if Rilke wasn't starkly bound by the first two decades of the 20th century. This isn't a temporal argument or anything like that, but Rilke reads like a turn of the century poet rather than a fully 20th century poet. So in the mean time, if we're talking pure invention, Yeats has it by a long shot. Eliot is too inconsistent. But even Yeats pales in comparison to the poetic innovations in prose. In fact, I'd argue the 20th century was the century of prose development rather than poetics. Poetry doesn't really vary past an expected level of modernism (Ashbery perhaps beings the last development on that frontier) or what I can only call confessionalism (think Frost and all the spin-off disciples).

>ashbery

what is it with that old queen and Veeky Forums?

Why are you answering as if you were me? I'd never put Perse anywhere near that list. Btw you list is awful. Seferis instead of Cavafy, Montale instead of Ungaretti..

It should go like this:
>Rilke
>Celan
>Pessoa
>Ungaretti
>Cavafy
>Akhmatova
>Herberto Helder

One tier below:
>Vallejo
>Zbigniew Herbert
>Szymborska
>Lorca
>Char
>Tsvetáyeva
>Mayakovsky
>Borges (yes, Borges is criminally underrated as a poet)
>Gottfried Benn
>Drummond
>Nicanor Parra

That's the ones I can recall. I'm not sure if I'd put Valery, since his mind is clearly from the 19th century.

...

Seconded.

>arguments: 0
>shitposts: 1

Oh, typical Veeky Forums..

naturally you've read all those poets in the original, haven't you?

it would hardly be some list you pulled out of the arse end of the Grauniad, perchance now would it?

shitposting>preciosity

PS: Your list's shit: Apollinaire's not on it.

Most of them, yes. Akhmatova, Cavafy, Herbert, Szymborska, Tsvetáyeva and Mayakovsky I read only in translations. Since I can read several languages, I can compare different translations in different languages. But for them is not really a problem, since their poetry are very straightforward, apart from some poems of the last two.

>Apollinaire's not on it.
Hm are you seriously shitting on a PERSONAL list because of a single non-inclusion? Dear god, pls kill me if so.

He's not good enough to be in that list. And yes, I read him in french, mademoiselle. Personally, I like Ponge and Ghérasim Luca more, but then again, it's just a matter of personal taste.

It seems as if we are the only ones with true taste, user.

>tfw poetry in translation

ok big guy, you just called the other user's list awful, problem with your own medicine?

Ponge, Luca? Doesn't do it for me, sorry. But that's fine, I gave up on muh taste ages ago.

Protip: Try Pierre-Jean Jouve's poetry instead (now neglected as a novelist, but always underrated as a poet).

Eliot was more influential whereas Yeats was very pure.

You guys are so catty.
Even for a poetry thread.

Yes

Late reminder that you're replying to a personal list made for a special require of the first user who quoted me. I mean, don't be that obnoxious m8.

And about Jouve, I have a book of him in my wishlist for ages, maybe I'll give a try. Could you care to post some good poem by him?

yeah, yeah, ok, i need some sleep. but anyways, have a poem by PJJ:

Les soleils disparus sont des mots éternels
Dont la phrase arrondie à cette forme : extase
De terre musicienne et de verdure et d'or
De village pendu au balcon le plus rare
De prairie et de roc glaciaire entremêlés ;
Ô beauté de là-bas, songe de l'extrême heure,
Un furieux brasier d'Automne se formait
Aux vallées par-dessous les herbes potagères,
La descente faisait l'amour à la chaleur
Les masures de bois tourmentaient la lumière
Et la noblesse était défunte aux châtaigniers,
Et partant l'on sentait la perte d'espérance
Par gravitation de désirs insensés.

>Seferis instead of Cavafy
Any day of the week lol.

Ungaretti is great, don't know why you feel the need to insult me though. Also, Perse is superior to 75% of the poets you just posted. The hardest to translate, though, which may explain your confusion.

Yeats is a lot closer than Eliot.