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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Great Esperanto literature (was: Re: Esperanto? The EU?)
Message-ID: <donhD49B7v.14L@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3i0p01$8i8@masala.cc.uh.edu> <donhD46q0y.GKt@netcom.com> <3i629t$m7f@fido.asd.sgi.com>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 16:59:55 GMT
Lines: 35
Sender: donh@netcom3.netcom.com

livesey@solntze.engr.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3i629t$m7f@fido.asd.sgi.com>:
>In article <donhD46q0y.GKt@netcom.com>, donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>|> frenkel@ox.tcs.uh.edu (David Frenkel) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3i0p01$8i8@masala.cc.uh.edu>:
>|> >
>|> >    At some point in this or a related thread a claim was made that
>|> >    Esperanto does have poetry, literature, etc.
>|> >
>|> >    A question I have is this. Who are the Shakespears, Tolstoys,
>|> >    Cervanteses, and so on, of that language? And furthemore, are
>|> >    there any, and can there be any?
>|> >
>|> This is a sort of cleft stick to be caught in. If I said, "Shakespeare, 
>|> Tolstoy and Cervantes," would you then say that translated literature 
>|> doesn't count? And if I said, "Auld, Kalocsay, Baghy and Miyamoto," 
>|> would you then say that you'd never heard of them? (Which, since they 
>|> wrote/write in Esperanto, would not be too surprising...)
>
>That's a pretty bad argument, since there are many writers who did not
>write in English, but of whom most educated anglophones have heard
>and recognize as great writers.
>
No, it's a damned good argument, since there are even more great writers 
who did not write in English, and whom most anglophones, educated or 
otherwise, have never heard of. The exceptions that you mention, by 
the way, are mostly from previous centuries -- strangely, there were 
very few Esperanto-writing authors, great or otherwise, prior to the 
twentieth century.



-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html 
