IMO
Literature (storytelling because that is what it is)is to entertain, enlighten, or evoke the emotion of an audience. If someone writes a book, and 10 million people lay their money down to buy and enjoy it, then it is great, even if someone with a degree does not like it.
If ever literary critic in the world lines up behind a novel declaring it to be the best thing ever written, but noone else enjoys it, then it is garbage.
Art for the sake of art, is art for nothing.
Literature (storytelling because that is what it is)is to entertain, enlighten, or evoke the emotion of an audience. If someone writes a book, and 10 million people lay their money down to buy and enjoy it, then it is great, even if someone with a degree does not like it.
If ever literary critic in the world lines up behind a novel declaring it to be the best thing ever written, but noone else enjoys it, then it is garbage.
Art for the sake of art, is art for nothing.
Literature literally (punnage!) is the written corpus of a society. What you define is a consumerist view that values mass entertainment at the expense of any perceived quality. Something tells me you aren't going to be lauding The Backstreet Boys for moving more volumes of CDs than 99% of other musical groups, or is it likely that you would praise The Titanic for being the highest-grossing movie for over a decade, or praise Dianetics for having tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of books in print.
Your argument really does not hold water when the inverse is shown. I'll leave aside for the moment the other claims embedded within your statement.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
1961 Nobel Finalists: J.R.R. Tolkien
- 19/01/2012 09:27:46 AM
1107 Views
It's difficult to assess Tolkien's relative merits then 51 years later.
- 19/01/2012 02:41:52 PM
738 Views
Yes, Edwardian prose does not thrill me
- 19/01/2012 02:58:00 PM
705 Views
Tolkein is an excellent example why I usually dismiss literary critics/critiques
- 23/01/2012 05:57:51 PM
805 Views
Tolkien. Please. You're doing your entire argument a disservice there. *NM*
- 23/01/2012 06:42:12 PM
218 Views
You can't dismiss his impact, even if you do not like his storytelling.
- 23/01/2012 07:40:19 PM
729 Views
That's an odd argument
- 23/01/2012 07:51:49 PM
746 Views
Not really
- 23/01/2012 10:35:39 PM
593 Views
Depends on what you see as the point of literature.
- 24/01/2012 08:14:07 AM
580 Views