[Glice]

A cursory glance, and I couldn't think of a single answer, except Joyce for literature. That's likely because I don't read much 20th Century literature. If it includes poetry and theatre, I'd again not be able to decide - WB Yeats, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, Sarah Kane or Sammy Beckett? Nightmare.

I mean, anyone from the 90s should be discounted, because we're too close. On the other hand, if you say Shoenberg or Stravinsky, do you then have to consider whether you should include Messiaen, Shostokovich, Feldman, Cage, Ligeti (etc etc)? They're all doing their own thing, and it's massively important and great, but I couldn't single out a single character, not even in terms of which one I like most. Wittgenstein is probably a perfect choice if you're inclined towards those who followed the linguistic turn, but the 20th century was also dominated by hermeneutics (Heidegger), existentialism (Sartre), psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan), structuralism (Levi-Strauss), that strange neo-analytic tradition (fucking MacIntyre), post-structuralism (Derrida), film theory (Barthes, Deleuze, Debord), post-modernism (Baudriallard) and those brilliant characters who've yet to sit in a tradition (Zizeck, Lyotard, Badiou). You see? Impossible. You could even argue (if you're prickishly inclined) that Lyotard belongs to PM, or Deleuze to post-structuralism (etc etc).

Impossible.