Old, old literature.

[Dr. Hill]

I was thinking of how the themes of the very old (cutting off in the 1800's, I would say. Seeing as shortly after that the birth of modern literature occurred) literature is starting to become, let's say, dated. Are English classes going to start pushing for more modern works of literature? By "more modern" I mean 20th century and on. It seems only natural that classics would continue establishing themselves in this manner. And to make room for the new, out goes the old, right? What do you guys think? (I'm not advocating this, just bringing it up)

[JBI]

I was thinking of how the themes of the very old (cutting off in the 1800's, I would say. Seeing as shortly after that the birth of modern literature occurred) literature is starting to become, let's say, dated. Are English classes going to start pushing for more modern works of literature? By "more modern" I mean 20th century and on. It seems only natural that classics would continue establishing themselves in this manner. And to make room for the new, out goes the old, right? What do you guys think? (I'm not advocating this, just bringing it up)

Seems like one is using a fraction of the world to count as the whole - I think the 20th century saw an even bigger dominance of text - the question is value - certainly Innis argued that we lose our sense of value and culture when things become too textual, and things become spatially associated rather than time-bound (so for instance, a book is known over a large space, say, a whole country, but only lasts for a few years) - but to what extent - a culture like China, for instance, to me always seems to be heavily textual, yet at the same time, binds time better than the Western tradition did.

Did anything actually change - well, certainly literacy has become mainstream - that's the biggest change. But is that redetermining a Canon? I think the real problem is these new ways of publishing - they don't ferret out enough garbage, but even so, I don't see any significant change. If anything, classics are more popular, and easier to access now than they've ever been.

[prendrelemick]

There would be no point throwing out the "good" because it is old. In times past when literacy wasn't the norm, the vernacular spoken language drifred apart from the written word, eg Latin and Italian . Although this drift is still happening, books written 200 years ago are for the moment still readable by the masses, the issues and themes are relevent.

For the future though, who knows? A by product of this universal literacy is that words travel up the food chain as much as down it. English as a language has always been in constant flux, but Written English has never made so much effort to keep up as it does now. The result may be that those old classics will become too archaic in language to be anything other than oddities for study.

[mal4mac]

Harold Bloom in "The Western Canon" says about his list of modern works: "I am not as confident about this list as the first three." Looking at lists by other esteemed critics, I can see why! They all have different lists for this chaotic age. But there is a lot of agreement about older authors. They all seem to agree that Shakespeare stands above everyone, and that great literature does not age and does not become dated like, say, Aristotle's 'physics of motion'. So I doubt there will be much "out with the old and in with the new" going on.

On the other hand, Bloom also says about his first list "there are many valuable works of ancient Greek and Latin literature that are not here, but the common reader is unlikely to have time to read them. As history lengthens, the older canon necessarily narrows."

David Denby in "Great Books" gives interesting lists of books for three versions of the Columbia Literature Humanities course. In 1937-38 the newest book in the course was Goethe Faust Part 1. In 1961-62 very little had changed. Goethe was now second newest, Dostoevsky Crime & Punishment was now the latest book! In 1991-92 still little change, Dostoevsky was out and Goethe was now third oldest. Austen (P&P) and Woolf (To the Lighthouse) were in.

So it looks like one more recent novel might get admitted in 2021. Just for fun, what do you think that novel should be? Should other novels be dropped? I'd probably plump for "1984" to be added. I think P&P is a good choice. Not sure about "To the Lighthouse". I might put Dostoevsky back, but it's a bit long, a bit of a baggy monster, and I prefer Tolstoy. Maybe "The Cossacks"? It's a fantastic tale for young adults, has (very!) strong male & female characters, a great love story, and has that Islam v. Christian theme ...

[Dr. Hill]

Tolstoy writes baggier monsters than Dostoevsky, lol.

You can see with that example, though, that this is already happening. I think that newer authors like Thomas Pynchon and Marquez might certainly see some light in lit classes in my lifetime.

[Jozanny]

Tolstoy writes baggier monsters than Dostoevsky, lol.

You can see with that example, though, that this is already happening. I think that newer authors like Thomas Pynchon and Marquez might certainly see some light in lit classes in my lifetime.

Pynchon and Marquez are already taught.

[JBI]

Pynchon and Marquez are already taught.

True - Marquez has become a brand name of the academy pretty much. whether that is a good thing though...

[Drkshadow03]

Tolstoy writes baggier monsters than Dostoevsky, lol.

You can see with that example, though, that this is already happening. I think that newer authors like Thomas Pynchon and Marquez might certainly see some light in lit classes in my lifetime.

Jozanny beat me to it. Pynchon and Marquez are already taught in academia.

[Jozanny]

True - Marquez has become a brand name of the academy pretty much. whether that is a good thing though...

I can't say. Pynchon seems to only have one keynote, and of what I have read of Marquez, I wonder if mr gets in the way of his being a better writer, though I do not mean to sound harsh. My sense about their place in literature is still up in the air.

[Dark Lady]

Yep. I studied The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon at university.

As for the opening question of the thread. The thing is, when you're interested in literature - or when you're studying it - there's always the desire to see where things came from. How did this piece of literature come about? You can look at the social and political context it was written within but sooner or later you will look backwards to the texts that came before it and influenced it. And as for the 'themes' of older pieces of literature I think that often the great works are, to use a cliche, 'timeless'.

I would say the only danger for older texts is that as language progresses and evolves, as it inevitably does, it becomes harder and harder for people to understand much older texts without a translation. Look at Shakespeare. We can still read and, for the most part, understand his writing without needing a translation. It is still close enough to the language we speak now that it doesn't pose much of a problem past maybe having to figure out the odd word from context and occaisionally look something up. However, then look at Chaucer...

But I don't even know if this will necessarily be too detrimental. After all, we still read Latin texts. Most people read them in translation but they are still appreciated.

[kiki1982]

Chaucer is surprisingly comprehensible (and that comes from a non-Anglophone). I don't know about Beowulf, though.

Indeed, it becomes more difficult to understand the older the text becomes, but it is no reason to abandon the whole thing because it is too difficult. It helps one get a better concept of one's own language.

[Morden]

It helps one get a better concept of one's own language.

Indeed. With only a little effort one can read the notes, or even go beyond and read texts on the older forms of English, and then recognize the inherent voices and ideas, visible through the mists of time. It is surprising how 'current' older literature can sound. Humankind has changed not that much.

[mal4mac]

I'm reading "Moll Flanders" by Defoe at the moment and I'm surprised at how easy (and good!) a read it is. My version doesn't have any notes and in a hundred pages I've only felt the need for one - to explain what "the Mint" was - though you can make a reasonable guess from context! And its not, unfortunately for Moll, the vaults of the Royal Mint :-) Maybe I should use Google... I did, result:

"The Mint --a district outside the London city limits in which debtors could have refuge from their creditors ... coins were stamped there, hence the name."

Coins getting stamped in the main debtors hang-out? One crazy city...