In article <Pine.BSF.4.02A.9809230627430.28199-100000 at dillinger.io.com>, MA Lloyd <malloy00 at io.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>>>>FWIW the most popular work playing this game is probably Michael H Hart's
>>>The 100. His ordering can of course be debated, but it isn't too bad; I
>>>doubt you can make a decent case for anybody he hasn't put in the top 25.
>>>His entries in the top 25 that fall into this millenium are Newton,
>>>Gutenberg, Columbus, Einstein, Pasteur, Galileo, Darwin, Copernicus,
>>>Lavoisier, Watt, Faraday, Maxwell, and Luther.
>>>>>>>What about Shakespeare??? That list is ridiculously biased toward
>>scientists.
>>He's much further down the list. That makes sense really, science has
>had more impact on society than literature.
But you can't say that if he didn't do it, nobody else would have -
unlike the scientists. Furthermore, I am not convinced that a society
without literature wold resemble ours more than a society without
science.
>And even if they were of
>equal significance, while Shakespeare is probably the most important
>figure in modern English literature, English isn't the only important
>language. I'd put the great composers higher, and even the major visual
>artists, though the latter are less universal.
>
Hasn't he been translated?
As for composers / visual artists, can you honestly say that if one
such was obliterated from history, he (she???) would leave a hole in
the common culture as big as the disappearance of Shakespeare would?
- Gerry
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gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
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