Joon wrote: > you did claim that hemingway and faulkner are at least as important > as poe in the history of american literature. while those two are > both among my favorite writers, and i would have loved to hear > questions about their works (had anybody chose to submit any--but no > one subject can come up in every tournament, except maybe > shakespeare) i have to disagree about their importance relative to > poe's. not only is poe america's greatest lyric poet, he also > invented the genres of mystery and science fiction. he pioneered > symbolist poetry and presaged the new criticism. and there was this > whole matter of the short story, which didn't really exist before poe > and many of the finest examples of which are due to poe. basically, > if there is one american writer who can be said to be the > most "important" or "influential" it has to be edgar allan poe. so > the fact that many people chose to write about him--and that all the > things asked about him were pretty gettable--just underscores his > place in the quizbowl canon (to say nothing of the canon of > intellectual history). You can debate the "importance" of Poe vs. Faulkner or Hemingway all you want. Faulkner, for instance, contributed the American stream-of- consciousness style and practically founded Southern American literature. Not to mention the fact that in my Literary 100 book, Faulkner is ranked #14, Hemingway #46, and Poe #55. But that wasn't my original point. I'm not saying that Poe _shouldn't_ be mentioned once or even twice. I think even you'd agree that four times was excessive, especially when Hemingway and Faulkner, two important authors in the American lit canon, were not mentioned at all, IIRC. (There may have been a Hemingway bonus, but I didn't hear it, so it was either buried within a packet, or in the finals round -- not to mention that those stories are pretty tough for ACF Fall). Thus each of the three authors deserved one or two mentions in the tournament. And how do you know if no writer chose to write on Hemingway or Faulkner, if we heard only approximately 35- 40% tops of the submitted questions? -Adam > > also, unless i'm totally on crack, there was a bonus on hemingway > short stories (you see how influential poe is? :). the killers, the > short happy life of francis macomber, and hills like while elephants. > i didn't just imagine it, right? >
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