This is the last round before we move onto the 32.

Byron, of course. It has to be Byron. I mean, he's good at all sorts of writing, from serious stuff like Manfred to more lighthearted stuff like Don Juan. True, Don Juan can't quite rival the Aeneid in terms of epicness, but it does have the added bonus of comedic value. Plus, it's in a language I can actually read, which seals the deal.

Byron

Byron

Upper class twit? Lol. Upper class I am not. Privileged, yes. But coming from the smug Briton, I find that a bit rich

Byron: 6
Vergil: 2

Aaaaaand it looks like the two authors that started this, Vergil and Shakespeare, could BOTH be eliminated in the first round...

...while a dozen schlock sci fi writers move on.

TRULY WE ARE A GROUP OF REFINED AND CULTURED TASTES!

:p

And while I'm tempted to say "smug Briton" is as redundant as "stupid Yankee" or "rude Frenchmen" in terms of national stereotypes--

Well, you go to a good university, Thucy...U of Austin, yes?

Maybe that's a better place than he got to go to?

(Better than me...I'd still rather take a Cal State and anything California over anything Texas any day, but still, objectively, your school's probably better.)

Really,Thucy? What is your class background, then? Tell me you were state educated, that you were in the first generation of your family that went to University, that you were eligible for government grants at uni due to low family income, that your grandparents started work at 14 etc etc. Do so and I will apologise for assuming you are upper class. You don't have to tick all the boxes to qualify... just a few.

Sorry, obi. I won't derail the thread with a prolonged argument ;)

I don't even know why Vergil is still in the first round. He beat the Bard, and then got dumped back into the 64?

Those are all true except my dad went to college. Yes I went to the university of Texas but I was accepted under a legislative mandate and received state assistance.

Again, I don't mean to suggest that my family is poor. They aren't, at all. But upper class? Lol. I guess actually enjoying classic literature makes you an ultra-privileged dilettante these days

Vergil. Jesus people.

Just let Virgil die bro

I'm gonna have to join #votefortheworst if that happens.

NO!

#vergil2014

I think that was a vote.

Byron: 6
Vergil: 4

I blame 2WL

You should, I'm just rooting for the underdog.

#votefortheworst

Virgil = Sanjaya

Vergil.

Byron's a great poet, but I can't sit down and read him like Vergil.

Byron: 6
Vergil: 5

"Byron's a great poet, but I can't sit down and read him like Vergil."

OK, seriously?

I need someone to explain the Vergil Adoration here, I really do...

The man was a GREAT poet, Top 10 all-time, no question--

But you can sit down and read him EASIER than you can Lord Byron?

Byron's short Romantic poems, or Shakespeare's sonnets--

That's difficult reading compared to...hexameter of Latin origin? O.o

Again, quality isn't being questioned here, but EASE.

So...it's easier for you to sit down and read Vergil than it is for you to do so with Byron?

Explain, Vergil-ites, explain! :p Vergil's a good read, but he's also an undertaking...

Which isn't bad at all--in fact, I'm tempted to say it's a good thing, it's GOOD to read works so good and complex that you need to set aside special time for them, and it's likewise good to be the kind of author that commands that level of respect--just saying...I don't know if Byron or Vergil could really count as simply "pick up and read" poets, but if I had to choose one...

I'd choose the guy who wrote "She walks in beauty," not the one who wrote one the epic poem that capped a trilogy of ancient epics, successfully did what might have been potentially seen as the impossible and essentially flipped the epics by the greatest epic poet to that time on their head, told the story from the loser's perspective, AND did so all while creating a unique national epic that is to Ancient Rome what the Iliad is to Ancient Greece or the Henriad was to that audience.

And yes, Byron wrote an epic, "Don Juan," but still--chances are, most who read Byron will be reading his shorter works, and most who read Vergil will read "The Aeneid"...so how is Vergil the take it easy, "sit down and read" pick here?

People who only read Byron's shorter works are missing out. Don Juan is great, and also (in my opinion) fairly easy to just pick up and read bits at a time. After all, it's definitely meant to be light reading - Byron himself described it as "a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped", and said his only intention was "to giggle and make giggle".

I suspect that how easy Virgil is to pick up and read has a lot to do with the translation.

Obi, Vergil's poetry is beautiful even when you don't understand the Latin, and there are plenty of smaller segments that could easily be poems in their own right. Sure the Aeneid as a whole is an undertaking, but as you said, that's a good thing. He also wrote other, shorter works that are quite easy to just pick up and read.

I'm just saying, Vergil seems more like an "evening with a book" kind of writer than a "let me just enjoy a quick bit of culture while I wait" poet.

"Obi, Vergil's poetry is beautiful even when you don't understand the Latin, "

Eh... I don't know if I would call anything I can't read beautiful. Unless you mean using translations.

Well, it's certainly possible for something you can't understand, or even something that no one can understand (because it's utter nonsense) to be beautiful. Consider, for example, the first stanza of "Jabberwocky". Even without all the explanation given in Through the Looking-Glass, it still sounds pretty neat.

However, if someone can't read Latin, they probably can't pronounce it entirely properly either, so I find it unlikely that they could really appreciate it in its intended form. Specifically, the difference between long and short vowels is pretty important to Latin prosody, and I suspect that a non-speaker wouldn't really be able to appreciate the metre at all. Plus, obviously, the absence of understandable meaning is a pretty big problem on a higher level, though it doesn't necessarily affect the beauty of the sounds themselves.

Yes, actually. I can sit down and read one of Virgil's epic poems in one sitting and then I'm done. I can also read one of Byron's short poems and then be done. But I can't sit down and read two Byron poems in one sitting. Maybe because I started reading Virgil, Beowulf, and the like when I was young and acquired a small taste for it, whereas I was force fed English poets in high school. really hideous poems, nothing that a teenager would like. There are English poems I like; I have one on the wall in my home office, but just the choice of poems was the most pedantic ones possible that turned me off.

But, as Fishstudios said, I may be missing out because I haven't read Byron's longer works. Maybe, thanks to him, I'll pick it up some day.

Alright people, Vergil needs some votes.

Up next should be whoever wrote hunger games vs. Shakespeare so we can make him lose again

Oh hell--

I'll withdraw my vote for Byron...not going to vote for Vergil, either...if it IS on enjoyment, I'd vote for Lord Rock Star, but still, Vergil at least deserves a fighting chance, and as much as I WAS voting on preference, 1. I still don't think that's the most important factor in this voting (or shouldn't be) and 2. Vergil shouldn't lose because of a vote like that.

So:

Vergil: 5
Byron: 5

Let someone else decide who wins that battle.