Cervantes doesnt even come close to Shakespeare. no one of his contemporaries does. he's like several ages ahead in themes and expression.

>>25117086
Homer

>>25117086
Shakespeare. But Cervantes is greater than any other contemporary, even greater than Spenser and Calderon. And in the creation of character it's difficult to think of any other poet or writer who can equal them.

>>25117086
>>25117088
I've recently been thinking that Jakob Boehme is the real German counterpart to Shakespeare. There's a mystical thread in Shakespeare, expressed in his language and choice of metaphors, similes etc. Reread Romeo and Juliet, it's full of typically mystical paradoxes and involutions, trying to get at an expression of love.
And Boehme is another case of the untrained, ungroomed genius out of nowhere, as it were. S is so beyond his peers that his occurence is only conceivable as a force of nature, not some career. Similar for B, and we know his humble background with enough certainty.
And they both foreshadow their nation's future cultural developments. The Germans went hard into philosophy, and the Brits were much stronger in fiction and the dramatic arts. In fact even the latter were more theoretical with the Germans, like Faust or Brecht's stuff.

>>25117261
Luther's translation of the Bible is generally considered the German analogue to Shakespeare. I doubt Boehme influenced the German language as much as Shakespeare influenced English

>>25117086
Bill is better as a whole but Don Quixote is the best work between the two.

>>25117348
Wouldn't the German analogue to Shakespeare be Goethe and the English analogue to the Lutherbibel be the KJV?

>>25117086
Cervantes is better. Might be the best writer to ever grace the earth.

>>25117357
I respect your opinion, and I agree that he is certainly an amazing writer, one of the best. I disagree, however, with him being the best overall.

>>25117086
Cervantes, as a man and as a writer he greater than life and greater than any other mortal. Only Dante is comparable.

>>25117453
he was greater*

>>25117353
No. Goethe is the German equivalent to Byron. Luther is not quite like the KJV because the KJV was not a totally new translation by one man, it was a detailed revision of prior English translations (therefore a continuation of their influence) made by a large committee of Greek and Hebrew scholars, with alternative translations crammed in the margins originally. Luther's translation is considered a literary masterpiece (even Nietzsche said it's an exquisite work of German letters) by one man who relied on no precedent, and his translation was very influential in standardizing German the way Dante was for Italian. Likewise Shakespeare, through Johnson, became the primary authority in English usage until dictionaries shifted from prescriptive to descriptive definition.

>>25117086
>NW0 straight hairline hollow cheeks mogger vs NW7 bald coper with upper eye lid exposure
Obviously Cervantes.

I'd say they're pretty equal, Shakespeare wrote plays and Cervantes wrote novelizations for magazines of his time so it's not like you can meaningfully compare them anyway

>>25117086
Tolstoy

>>25117564
War and Peace is honestly the greatest YA ever written and objectively there is no contest

>>25117405
I came to this conclusion when I read Don Quixote, some of his novellas and I’m currently reading the travails of persiles and sigismunda. Cervantes is a master of the whole panorama of human emotion. He can write funny, serious, thoughtful, gentle and sad scenes and stories, while integrating every part where it has to be. His literary work is fundamentally oriented towards the moral goodness and virtue. He is the standard.

>>25117628
Work being moralistic has zilch to do with quality

>>25117637
that's like, your opinion man

>>25117637
cervantes is not moralistic and you know that.
My point is, that writing stories that have a genuine humanity about them, while writing them in beautiful prose is the crown of literature.

I don't think they can really be compared. They wrote in two different mediums with different purposes and goals. But I think OP just wants another nationalistic dick measuring contest.

>>25117466
>Goethe is the German equivalent to Byron
That doesn't sound right at all

>>25117691
Neither Byron nor Goethe cared about sounding right

>>25117667
>Cervantes
>beautiful prose

Compared to hacks, his prose is solid, but I wouldn't call it particularly polished or great

>>25117086
Milton

>>25117667
I mean, it’s decent prose, and I think he conveys an array of human qualities very well. But If we’re going by writing quality alone I still think Shakespeare is superlatively the greatest of his time.

Os falta lenguaje

>>25117466
Goethe is his country's greatest poet and dramatist, Byron is neither. KJV is also considered a literary masterpiece, holding pretty much the same reputation as the Lutherbibel in German in being the 'grand style' of our language par excellence. And it is also probably the single most influential book on the English language, even more so than Shakespeare.

Shakespeare feels way more modern

>>25117088
>no one of his contemporaries does
Lope de Vega

>>25117348
>>25117353
Yes, Luther and Goethe would be the usual candidates, but I think Boehme is underrated in how he parallels Shakespeare, first in his "volcanic" use of language, the mystical strain they share (not quite obvious in S but it's there), their out-of-nowhere background (at least if you're a reasonable Stratfordian) and them being sort of determinant of the cultural future of their respective nations. The Germans produced way more significant abstract philosophers than poetic followers of Goethe. The English meanwhile stuck to a more wordly kind of fiction, creating iconic characters by the dozen, just as S did.

>>25118153
Goethe definitely does not have the indisputably reputation of the greatest poet and dramatist for Germany the way Shakespeare does for England. It's just that Anglophones are not aware of a single German poem or drama except for Faust.

The King James Bible is 98% prior English Bibles. It is not a from-scratch translation. It became definitive but the language and idioms "of the King James Bible," predate the King James Bible. When Shakespeare paraphrases and references the Bible, for example, we hear the King James but it is actually a prior English translation. The King James was mostly constructed after those influences, and to give an example, the Lord's Prayer most known in English, "Forgive us our trespasses," is NOT from the King James which has, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors". The King James revised it. Nearly all of the well-known phrases from the KJV, existed in prior English Bibles.

>>25118306
>Goethe definitely does not have the indisputably reputation of the greatest poet and dramatist for Germany the way Shakespeare does for England.
I've spoken to many Germans, I've read many German evaluations of their literary history, and most of them seem very confident in determining Faust to be their greatest drama and Goethe their greatest poet. What dramatist could possibly be equal to it? Lessing, Kleist and Brecht do not make serious competition, and Schiller, great as he is, never wrote anything as great as Faust. The few poets of the language who approach Goethe in technical mastery or innovation, e.g. Heine, are necessarily much smaller in scope or less productive. I just cannot possibly imagine any other German poet being considered a serious rival to Goethe.

>The King James Bible is 98% prior English Bibles.
I know, and I don't see how it's relevant. The importance of English religious literature was a cumulative achievement, and although it cannot be entirely contained within the KJV, the BCP being the major exception, the KJV still comes out as the most influential text of the era.

>>25118343
Faust Part One is the greatest drama Germany has produced but it's almost a closet drama. In terms of drama actually performed, Schiller is the most important writer.

What sort of innovation are you ascribing to Goethe when it comes to poetry?