What to you is serious literature?

[wallflower5]

Just wondering--what literature earns Nobel Prize?

[Seasider]

The writer earns the prize, not the Literature. Usually for a lifetime's achievement.

[dfloyd]

If you were to say classic literature, I would believe it to be that which has withstood the test of time. It is those works which are generally regarded by academia and noted critics as those which a person who wishes to read the very best in a lifetime of reading should explore. Books which are serious today may be out of print tomorrow.

[Vladimir777]

The Nobel Prize doesn't mean that much in terms of overall literary history, as far as I'm concerned (and many others). Plenty of landmark writers have not received the prize (Proust? Joyce?), whereas many mediocre ones have. I think it is mainly politics which determines the winner of the Prize.

[OrphanPip]

Not many of the Nobel laureates are mediocre writers, some are, but many of them aren't. Of course, the prize is limited in that it is awarded to living writers, so the givers don't have the virtue of hindsight we have. There's also a bias that favors Scandinavian writers. Proust wasn't that well known of a writer when he died, very little of his work was even available in translation prior to 1922. It's just silly to think that he should have got the Nobel.

People seem to forget that the Nobel Prize for literature isn't intended to award the greatest writer, on an artistic level. Nobel's will states the prize should be given to "the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." That emphasis on an ideal is what justifies the political influence on the choices.

[Vladimir777]

Not many of the Nobel laureates are mediocre writers, some are, but many of them aren't. Of course, the prize is limited in that it is awarded to living writers, so the givers don't have the virtue of hindsight we have. There's also a bias that favors Scandinavian writers. Proust wasn't that well known of a writer when he died, very little of his work was even available in translation prior to 1922. It's just silly to think that he should have got the Nobel.

People seem to forget that the Nobel Prize for literature isn't intended to award the greatest writer, on an artistic level. Nobel's will states the prize should be given to "the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." That emphasis on an ideal is what justifies the political influence on the choices.

Interesting point about Nobel's will and why certain writers win the prize. I didn't mean that the winners were mediocre-mediocre, just that a lot of the 20th century's greatest writers haven't won, while many of the winners have passed on into obscurity.

[mal4mac]

The following article is fascinating on how the selection criteria have varied:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/espmark/

[miyako73]

If nobel's will has been followed to a tee, Pramoedya Ananta Toer of Indonesia should have gotten the prize before he died. He produced an outstanding piece of literature in the worst environment and in the worst condition a writer could have.

The truth is race plays a part when it comes to literature.

[Jeremydav]

If the author writes with emotion, passion, and skill, I don't see how it cannot be taken seriously.

[blazeofglory]

Serious literature is drivel and I have read enough of them; for I have read plenty of classics, epical poetry, dramas and novels. I have read Milton, Alexander Pope, tired James Joyce' s Ulysses and Tolstoy's war and peace. They are tough books and sucked up so much of my precious time. Life is brief and we have many assignments to accomplish in our short life span and heaps of classics thrown at us dull our senses and drain our minds. I may read some classics but I do not like to read the serious type at all. Now if I enter a library or buy books from a bookshop all choose are simple classics not the serious genre. For I read books so that my nerves can relax and my mind refresh, and not to exhaust both my body and soul in point of fact.

[Pryderi Agni]

If you were to say classic literature, I would believe it to be that which has withstood the test of time. It is those works which are generally regarded by academia and noted critics as those which a person who wishes to read the very best in a lifetime of reading should explore. Books which are serious today may be out of print tomorrow.

I totally agree! :cheers2: