Top Ten American Literary Genii
2) Emily Dickinson
3) Ralph Waldo Emerson
4) Henry Miller
5) William Faulkner
6) Thornton Wilder
7) Herman Melville
8) Neil Simon
9) E. E. Cummings
Okay, I know I'm forgetting someone...
Memory in reverse is Imagination.”
—The Magical Dog Who Never Sleeps
About Stephen
Stephen Evans is a playwright and author who came to Maryland for the waters. He was not misinformed.
Connections
Causes Stephen Evans Supports
Best Friends Animal Society (http://www.bestfriends.org)
Realism/Naturalism
Stephen,
Interesting list, reflecting, I presume, your personal preferences. Or am I being presumptuous?
Devotees (including Hemingway) of seminal realists such as Mark Twain and naturalists such as Stephen Crane will feel slighted (though you included Melville and Faulkner to console them).
Another presumption: You've placed the consumate non-American cosmopolitan genie at the top of your list because of how unreservedly both American literati and their "camp" followers have "adopted" him as one of their own???
P.S To respond to your post, I've had to "brush up" on irregular forms (glitterati, literati, etc).
Geniosity
The list is based on my (personal no doubt!) evaluation of literary genius, different from literary accomplishment, which might argue for the inclusion of Hemingway, Whitman, Thoreau, or Hawthorne.
Good point on Twain, though for the nonfiction more than the fiction.
Shakespeare I included because of my contention that he didn't retire to Stratford but instead emigrated in 1616 to a town in Virginia, which was subsequently named after him. It was originally called Shaksperville, but they couldn't agree on the spelling, so they changed it to Williamsburg.
Steve, you can't go nicking our Will!
The Comedy of Errors about Williamsburg is Much Ado About Diddly-Squat. A Midsummer Night's Dream! It's a shame your literary heritage is not As You Like It, but you've got Waldo and Wilder and Cummings and that guy who wrote The Marriage of True Minds, or was it Two Minds? - really must get new specs - so All's Well That Ends Well.
Trade Relations
How about if I trade you T.S Eliot and Henry James for Will? And I'll throw in David Beckham.
Your generosity is boundless
Golden Boughs, Bowls and... maybe I'll dump alliteration's artful aid and just say 'orbs'.
But the Bard's not for sale.
Well
I guess that opens up another slot. Mark will be so pleased.
I was hoping that would be
I was hoping that would be me. :(
Oh well...maybe next year. :)
As the Poet Said
Hope springs with feathers. Or some such.
...though I must concede, Steve,
...Will is universal. He does rightly belong to The Globe.
But it should never be forgotten that he was born on our soil, on St George's Day, the day I was supposed to have been born...in a different year, that is, lest there be any doubt.
Thus leaving the vast American Continent wide open to that guy who wrote...what was it?...The Barrage of Two Kinds, if memory serves.
The veteran memory, alas, whilst it is spot-on as to substance, can sometimes be a little hazy regarding the facts.
OKay
I have amended my list - but I'm still leaving the 10th slot open:
1) Emily Dickinson
2) Ralph Waldo Emerson
3) Henry Miller
4) William Faulkner
5) Mark Twain
6) Thornton Wilder
7) Herman Melville
8) Neil Simon
9) E. E. Cummings