Spanish Scholar Claims Anglophone Literature Doesn't Exist

The Day Shakespeare Was Decreed Not Literature

A university professor claims that literature written in Iberian languages vastly surpasses Anglophone works. He does not qualify his statement. According to the discussion, he asserts that no literature exists in the strict sense in English-speaking countries. The provocation, backed by a tweet rejecting "Anglo-Saxon nomenclatures," has ignited a debate lasting over seven months with 130 contributions. Curiously, half of the responses partially agree.

The name behind this thesis is Jesús González Maestro, a philologist and author known for being controversial, described as an admirer of Elvira Roca Barea. This reference is not accidental: the author of Imperiofobia built her work on the idea of an anti-Spanish black legend sustained by Anglo-Saxon historiography. Translated to the literary field, the thesis becomes more ambitious: it suggests not just comparative grievance, but that the Anglo-Saxon canon is a propaganda construct.

From Shakespeare to Orwell: The Canon Questioned

The first target is the Stratford playwright. One participant dismisses him with a sports analogy: the best English-language theater author wouldn't measure up to a mediocre writer from the Spanish Golden Age. Another adds that much of English literature is Shakespeare, a sonneteer and dramatist "whom nobody reads," whose presence in the canon is due to patriotic curricula. The implicit conclusion: the last two centuries' Anglo-Saxon cultural hegemony fabricated an Olympus tailored to its size.

The argument has more depth than it appears. It is recalled that great 17th-century French theater imitated Spanish, not English, suggesting Shakespeare's current primacy responds more to cultural power dynamics than intrinsic superiority. A jab is launched with names: a highly acclaimed comedy by Briton Noël Coward would be a proven plagiarism of a work by Jardiel Poncela, whom almost no one remembers.

Consensus breaks down on modern literature. Here, the professor's thesis meets skepticism from those who argue Spain has produced little of global interest for a century. It is mentioned that Spanish Nobel laureates are barely read outside classrooms, post-war novels are forgettable, and subsequent ones dispensable. The response comes with names: Cela, Blasco Ibáñez, Lorca. And an uncomfortable question: how much should we care about foreign tastes?

Why Does Russian Literature Always Enter the Equation?

Because the counterexample dismantles the debate's axis. If the issue were Iberia versus the world, Russia enters through the main door: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Pushkin, Turgenev, Gorky, Leskov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn. The list unfolds like an arsenal. The conclusion drawn is that Russian literature imposes itself on Anglophone literature without needing cultural empire backing, weakening the argument that everything is propaganda.

The American flank receives friendly fire. It is conceded there are readable authors—Twain, Whitman, Salinger, Bradbury, Harper Lee, Auster, Pynchon—and critics are accused of inflating others through pure propaganda: Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Dos Passos, Philip Roth. The anecdote closing the circle is John Kennedy Toole, who took his own life after the editorial rejection of A Confederacy of Dunces. A case that, for some, demonstrates the industry's poor nose.

Language as Criterion: The Subjunctive as League

The discussion drifts toward comparative linguistics. It is argued that Romance languages influenced Germanic ones far more than vice versa, that the cultured vocabulary of English, German, and even Scandinavian is riddled with Latinisms. And the most debatable and cited thesis is launched: a language without a subjunctive mood that doesn't distinguish between 'to be' (ser) and 'to be' (estar) should play in a lower league. The bon mot draws applause and some corrections.

The underlying problem, which no one resolves, is methodological. How is the superiority of a literature measured? By readers, impact, influence, originality, or simple taste? Without criteria, comparison is a parlor game. With criteria, likely an uncomfortable tie would emerge.

The Canon Is Written by Those Who Have the Fleet

The most solid explanation emerging is structural: the dominant empire imposes its canon. Spain did so in the 17th century, when it could claim Don Quixote was universal. Decadent late-19th-century Spain couldn't defend that La Regenta was superior to Madame Bovary, even if it was. Today it is English's turn, tomorrow another's.

With this framework, the professor's thesis ceases to be a bon mot and becomes a warning about how prestige is constructed. What it doesn't resolve is the essential point: that the greatness of a text doesn't depend on the fleet backing it. Cervantes wrote without an empire advertising him. And he remains.