ecl@hocsj.UUCP (11/10/84)
Reference: <4049@decwrl.UUCP> <>, <1840@nsc.UUCP>, <989@druri.UUCP> > You should have your reader's license suspended for reading while indoctrinated > if you can even utter Ellison's name in the same *day* as Kafka, Dante, and > Cervantes! Just because he's written some good stuff (I do agree with you > there - he's come through a few times, but...) does not qualify him as an > artist, nor does it qualify his work as literature. Ask any English teacher. And what the hell would an *English* teacher know about *any* of the authors mentioned? Kafka wrote in German, Dante in Italian, and Cervantes in Spanish. I don't claim Ellison is as good as any of the above, but far too many people in this country (USA) think that everyone wrote in English. In the current discussion of Borges's "Library of Babel," for example, the question of exact meaning can be resolved only by looking at the original Spanish. You can enjoy the works in translation, of course, but *English* teachers are not the ones to go to for a discussion of their merit. BTW, Kafka and Dante are great fantasy! (So is Milton--and he did write in English!) The daughter of a Spanish professor, hence somewhat biased, Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!hocsj!ecl