01-22-2014, 10:06 PM
This was a comment I made on the 'literal v clarity' thread'.
How interesting! I had thought of the Caprichos before I had seen Ray's pic. It seems Spanish culture has a more powerful continuing influence than I should have thought -- Goya, Goya, Picasso and Dali!
'I wonder which non-English-speaking culture, or country, people feel most affected by, or in tune with? At one time, it was quite common for people to be acquainted with the chief writers of Europe --Heinrich Heine, Schiller, Goethe, through to Gunther Grass in Germany; and a zillion philosophers, at least in some scanty form. France, altogether too numerous -from the Pléiade, Racine Moliere and Corneille, the great novelists and poets of the 19th century, and the early 20th. Likewise, Italy had its (mad Fascist) Gabriele D'Annunzio, Alberto Moravia, the Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, as well as ..hmmm..Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto. And the Name of the Rose bloke, Umberto Eco. I am struck by French bookshops which display translations of all sorts of people like this, foreigners, and rather rue the fact that even our nice ones do not. But this should really be on another thread -apologies! Smile'
Do you feel that there has been a wane in interest in 'great' writers, who did not use English? Are we becoming parochial, more than our grand-parents? Or do we interest ourselves a bit in Asian writers eg. Which furriners have you enjoyed? None? Fair go.
How interesting! I had thought of the Caprichos before I had seen Ray's pic. It seems Spanish culture has a more powerful continuing influence than I should have thought -- Goya, Goya, Picasso and Dali!
'I wonder which non-English-speaking culture, or country, people feel most affected by, or in tune with? At one time, it was quite common for people to be acquainted with the chief writers of Europe --Heinrich Heine, Schiller, Goethe, through to Gunther Grass in Germany; and a zillion philosophers, at least in some scanty form. France, altogether too numerous -from the Pléiade, Racine Moliere and Corneille, the great novelists and poets of the 19th century, and the early 20th. Likewise, Italy had its (mad Fascist) Gabriele D'Annunzio, Alberto Moravia, the Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, as well as ..hmmm..Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto. And the Name of the Rose bloke, Umberto Eco. I am struck by French bookshops which display translations of all sorts of people like this, foreigners, and rather rue the fact that even our nice ones do not. But this should really be on another thread -apologies! Smile'
Do you feel that there has been a wane in interest in 'great' writers, who did not use English? Are we becoming parochial, more than our grand-parents? Or do we interest ourselves a bit in Asian writers eg. Which furriners have you enjoyed? None? Fair go.