"Come sir, your passado!"

[nikki.]

So. Actaeon and I (really, it was all Actaeon), had a conversation this evening in which we discussed which literary figure(s) from history would totally win in a straight-up scrap with other literary figures who may or may not be tag-teaming up.

 

Of course, this being Spiderweb, simply socking a fellow wordsmith in the chops is not going to be enough to win; reasoned arguments about why one particular author should beat another are necessary - we want to know why your author's craziness/literary talents/military training/extra-marital affairs make him better off in a deathmatch than ours.

 

So, again. You're allowed to pick one author/poet/playwright/essayist/etc (or one movement), and you should say why your pick could totally kick the arses of all the other guys. The winner shall be whoever presents the best argument, which, I admit upfront, is completely subjective. With that, I leave you with a few choice words:

 

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once"

 

Have at it!

[Actaeon]

I will continue backing Steinbeck, if only out of stubbornness. He got some action in WW2 (though not as much as he made out), claimed not to fear death, wrote with a straightforward powerful style that would figure in his fighting, and otherwise oozed testosterone and machismo out of every pore.

 

Plus, he'd have allies in the rest of the Lost Generation.

 

Edit: No weapons, right? Otherwise, there's a clear technology bias against the older authors.

[Randomizer]

I'll start with Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. Since he actually got to base his literary creation on his own work for the British government during WWII working in intelligence although more as Q than Bond since he work on devices to thwart the Germans. Still all that research resulted in numerous ways to kill your opponents and plenty of death dealing and defying action.

 

Too bad the movies went for more special effects over the years and later authors lost failed to live up to the original creation.

 

Edit - But, but there are all the cool gadgets.

[Necris Omega]

Hm.

 

Assuming "authors" like Sun Tzu are out...

 

I don't know if I want to go with Flemming or Hemingway. Hemingway is kinda obvious, but Flemming was more of a behind the scenes guy.

[Actaeon]

Then add a third. And let's say people who are primarily literary figures, rather than fighters or generals that wrote on the side. I don't know enough about Sun Tzu to know which he was.

[Necris Omega]

Sun Tzu wrote "The Art of War" and is herald as one of the single greatest military tacticians in all history. Really, while he was a general, his authorship was the primary thing that gets him remembered.

 

That said, seeing as Randomizer's going with Flemming, I'll take Hemingway then.

 

War veteran, athlete, hunter, generally invulnerable - survived WWI, the Spanish Civil War, WW2, a mortar wound, a car crash, a plane crash or two, brush fires, paralysis, enough alcohol to kill half of Russia... in the end, the only thing that could destroy Hemingway was Hemingway.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

We're also not sure if Sunzi actually existed. I'm not sure if that matters for this contest.

[Actaeon]

Yes, but how well can a general acquit themselves without weapons (much less an army)? We can't ALL go for Hemingway. Anyone want to back Jack London?

[Dintiradan]

Funny, I was just about to back Robert Service. Someone who drifted all over western North American before setting up in the Klondike. Though he couldn't enlist in WW1, so not as tough as I though he was. He probably wouldn't last long in a fight with those listed already. So he's just going to sit on the sidelines and make some songs and poems about the match.

 

Y'all should read The Cremation of Sam McGee out loud to yourselves if you haven't done so already.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

As long as we're on the subject of early-mid 20th Americans and Englishmen, I think George Orwell deserves a mention. He was both a police officer in Burma, and a soldier in the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. During the former tenure, he shot an elephant, about which he wrote an essay entitled "Shooting An Elephant." Rather than emphasizing his machismo (which, let's face it, is just the sort of thing Hemingway or Jack London would have done), he used it as a vehicle for criticism of both himself and the British regime, emphasizing the message "when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys."

[keira]

I'll go with Oscar Wilde. I feel like there's not enough Sheen in the current contenders.

[The Ratt]

Edit: I'll read the thread next time, but the following is still interesting.

I don't know if this counts, but it was written in 1998 and you didn't specify how historical. Just saying.

[Dintiradan]

Jackie Chan isn't primarily an "author/poet/playwright/essayist/etc", though. If we're able to pick anyone who has written an autobiography, then we're all going to change our answers to soldiers and martial artists.

[Enraged Slith]

Uwe Boll

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Uwe Boll

true story for those who don't know: he literally beat up several internet personalities in boxing matches after they criticised his work

on the other hand i do not think he quite counts as a literary figure

[Slawbug]

I'm guessing Miyamoto Musashi won't count.

 

In that case I'll take Alberto Bayo. Ambrose Bierce was a nice runner-up.

[Actaeon]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Y'all should read The Cremation of Sam McGee out loud to yourselves if you haven't done so already.

I got a whole collection of Robert Service from my aunt as a child, but I never really appreciated that poem until I heard it read aloud by my crazy Alaskan history teacher. This was a man who'd tussled with bears and traced old pioneer routes for fun in the summer, with the perfect voice and emphasis, putting on a performance for a bunch of Colorado eighth graders.

(Can I also propose my alternative system? Authors arranged it teams of three, ideally by style or movement. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Cassady vs. Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Move on to composers and you can have Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms vs. Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. Painters? Dalí, Picasso, and Magritte vs. Renior, Monet, and Degas.)

[Alorael at Large]

For single combat, I'll back Pushkin. The man was a dueling machine. Yes, the fact that he also died of a duel does put a damper on it, but still. That's a 28:1 record!

 

—Alorael, who also gets a two for one deal. Pushkin was a lover and a fighter at the same time! Often for very similar reasons!

[Slawbug]

Did you just snipe yourself?

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Also, submitted for your approval, China Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station, The Scar, King Rat, etc.:

 

http://couldtheybeatupchinamieville.wordpress.com/

 

Spoiler alert: generally, they cannot.

[Sarachim]

I'm shocked that nobody has nominated Byron. Consider:

 

-he's mad, bad, and dangerous to know (presumably, he is also dangerous to fight)

-he knows that the secret to winning a dogfight is to bring a bear

-he single-handedly defeated the Ottoman Empire and won the Greek War of Independence

-he's described by wikipedia as "a competent boxer"

-he probably fought a duel at some point, I guess. That seems like the sort of thing he'd be good at

[nikki.]

Byron was somebody I named that started the original discussion. That and the Shelleys tag-teaming. I can't really decide who I want my final choice to be for single combat, but if we're choosing groups I call the Romantic poets.

[Rowen]

I choose Stephenie Meyer because I simply do not like her writing. In this case her defeat is better than any victory could ever be.

[Dantius]

Christopher Marlowe. Dude was like the James Bond of the 16th Century, but spying on Catholics instead of SPECTRE*. I mean, you'd have to be a pretty good spy to be able to get the Queen's Privy Council to order universities around on your behalf, so he was probably more than competent at the whole cloak-and-dagger stuff.

[Slawbug]

Will the Shelley tag-team also involve Harriet, I hope?

[Alorael at Large]

While the details of his service are a little spottier, as best I know, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra also showed guts, if nothing else, in continuing in combat after being shot three times. He'd definitely be at a disadvantage late in life with paralysis, but since these guys are all dead one way or another, I figure a younger, two-armed Cervantes can do his thing.

 

—Alorael, who feels the need to point out that Socrates was a superlative soldier and could kill all of these authors without breaking a sweat. If he were a superhero, he would be Virtuous Man, and he would defeat all evildoers... moderately.

[Actaeon]

I think we can assume peak physical condition, yeah.

 

I was about to comment on the traditional perception of Socrates as less than robust, when I remembered I once saw him portrayed by the high school football coach.

 

Then, I started wondering why this thread kept making me think of old teachers. Then, I remembered it was about literature.

 

True story.

[Lilith]

Tolkien fought in the Somme and lived to tell about it, which is pretty impressive even after you take into account the fact that he spent a lot of time away from the front lines due to ill health.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Lilith: As did C.S. Lewis. Given that he and Tolkien were friends in real life, perhaps they could partner up for the tag team match.

 

@Actaeon & Alorael: What about Plato? He was a wrestler before he philosophized. One of the major historians of the time (Diogenes Laertius) claims that his original name was "Aristocles," and he was nicknames Plato ("broad") because of the breadth of his shoulders.

[Actaeon]

The Inklings absolutely deserve a spot. Not sure who'd be their third, but this is hardly a science.

 

In all honesty, I get more enjoyment out of imagining a duel between effeminate poets than actual tough guys.

 

Edit: Further research on my original examples shows how many poets, philosophers, and artists actually WERE tough guys. Who knew?

[VCH]

I'll go with William Shatner (look him up on google books).

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: VCH

I'll go with William Shatner (look him up on google books).

Shatner or his ghost writers?

[Slawbug]

William Shatner is not primarily a literary figure.

[Soul of Wit]

As a writer, Shatner makes a fine singer.

 

Ouch my brainz!

[Rowen]

What exactly is or makes a "classical" author? Is it age, popularity, cultural influence? Are all classical authors dead? Is Stephenie Meyer a classical author? Why or why not? Can she become one? How?

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Rowen: Does this relate to the question at hand, or is it a tangent? I don't object in the latter case, I just want to know so I know how to respond.

 

I would say a classic* author has to stand the test of time to some degree. So, yeah, dead or at least very old. The newest authors I'd call classic would be Faulkner, Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Kafka, etc. Early-mid twentieth century. If people still read Stephenie Meyer on a regular basis fifty years from now, then I'd be willing to call her work classic. Contemporary success is one measure of a classic, but not the only one, or probably the most important. Very few people read, say, Kafka or Nietzsche during their lifetimes.

 

* "Classical" refers to ancient Greco-Roman culture, works in the Greco-Roman style, or certain types of music. So no, Stephenie Meyer could not be considered a classical author.

[Actaeon]

My definition tends to be more along the lines of "frequently taught in schools" or, like the historic film registry, "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". I'd venture to call "Catch 22" or "1984" a classic, and they're both far more recent. They have both, however, proved popular with more than one generation, which may be the key.

 

(Also, many cultures have a so called "classical" period. But I don't know that this is ours.)

[Randomizer]

"Ah, the classics." - Spock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

 

Referring to popular trash literature of the 1970s from the point of view of the future.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Rowen

Is Stephenie Meyer a classical author?

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the book series involved in this case is not that.

[Alorael at Large]

Classical started out as referring to the Greco-Roman period of Western civilization. From that meaning, it has extended out to other eras held to be golden ages in various cultures. Classical music is something of a misnomer, because it's used to lump together centuries of styles, including that of the Classical period. (Why Classical? Because the arts at the time were strongly influenced, albeit at several removes, by classical antiquity.)

 

A classic isn't quite the same, although again in springs from the same source. Classics are epitomes or archetypal embodiments of their form. A classic novel or poem is one considered to have high, enduring merit. That's much easier to evaluate with hindsight; it's hard to tell if today's bestseller is tomorrow's flash in the pan, or which works overlooked now will in the future be recognized as masterpieces. And the whole thing is full of literary elitism, of course.

 

But those are the standards we have. It seems likely that Twilight will be of interest for a long time as a cultural phenomenon, but I think its literary merits won't hold up so well.

 

—Alorael, who hates to say that he knows great literature when he sees it. First of all, that's a cop-out answer. Secondly, some apparently brilliant writers (Jonathan Franzen!) strike him as merely competent. That's not the same as disliking; he can like trash novels while recognizing their lack of merit and be unable to stand something whose literary merit he can see. Sometimes those merits aren't obvious to the uninitiated.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

@Actaeon: Do I correctly take your "far more recent" to refer to my statement? Because 1984 was published in 1949, and Catch-22 in 1961, which isn't all that far from what I said. If I had to set an arbitrary year as a dividing line for the (present) definition of classic, I'd go for about 1950. I really like Ken Kesey and Umberto Eco (they are probably my two favorite authors), but I think we should have the benefit of a bit more hindsight before we judge them "classics."

 

@Dintiradan: We'll make a supreme court justice of you yet.

[Actaeon]

Most of the authors you cited published their most influential work before, say, 1930. I was attempting to extend that by forty years, so I thought I better cite some examples. Again, I feel that the term "classic" refers, to some extent, to a piece that resonates across generations (as opposed to one with impact only within the social circumstances that created it). Perhaps thorough testing would require more than two generations (or perhaps historical periods is more apt) to prove that, in which case I still think you could probably include the Beats (widening the field to, say, February 1962). Some pieces might have obvious staying power after less than 50 years, while those on the fence could take much longer.

[Rowen]

Turns out I meant classic and not classical. Seems that to be a classic it has to stand a test of some time (never a set length) and carry a popularity (most people have heard of it if not read it).