Great Literature that was meant for entertainment

[Mr.lucifer]

I was wondering what are the great literary works that author meant for intellectual entertainment rather than to reveal a truth about life. The only works I think of Don Quixote and Gargantua and Pantagruel. Could you chaps give me some help?

[Joely B]

Ulysses by James Joyce.

/thread

[Calidore]

Pretty much anything by Alexandre Dumas.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I think that it could be argued that any work of literature is meant for entertainment. Literature that attempts to reveal truths about life is quite entertaining to many. Still, I think I get what you're wanting.

This thread (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57134) may be helpful, even if I did get some flack for it. One does not want to conjure StLuke's wrath, :lol:.

[Mr.lucifer]

I thinking about classics that authors meant for entertainment rather than what one finds entertaining.

[Aurora]

Have you read Aristophanes - 'Wasps'? This play springs to mind for some reason whilst reading this thread.

[OrphanPip]

Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Tennyson, Wilde... etc.

I think writers creating work for entertainment far outnumber those writing for experimental or other reasons. And, ultimately, all good art should be entertaining.

[ChicagoReader]

Well I dont know if it's considered a classic, but I had a professor who interviewed Mario Puzo and he claimed he wrote The Godfather for instant success and entertainment, (claimed it was beneath his talents).

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I thinking about classics that authors meant for entertainment rather than what one finds entertaining.

Just to play devil's advocate, just because an author means for something to be entertaining doesn't mean it can't also be deep and philosophical.

[prendrelemick]

If it aint entertaining, it aint great.

[Arrowni]

Most literature is meant as an entertainment, the opposite is the exception.

[Heteronym]

All of it, I hope. I wouldn't go near the book of some pretentious ******* who wrote to reveal the truth about life.

[Arrowni]

All of it, I hope. I wouldn't go near the book of some pretentious ******* who wrote to reveal the truth about life.

Truth about life is still a minority of the authors who don't go the entertainment route, there are actually other regular reasons such as aesthetics and information, which most of the time can be entertainment but are more dependant on the reader. Just placing the responsibility of entertainment on the writer's "original propose" is misleading anyways, the writer has much more weight in average.

[OrphanPip]

All of it, I hope. I wouldn't go near the book of some pretentious ******* who wrote to reveal the truth about life.

I think there is value in other forms of literature though. Socialist agitprop, civil rights literature, protest literature, experimental literature, and such can all have their virtues. I would probably agree that the best of those kinds of literature end up as entertaining as well though. Mrs. Warren's Profession was written primarily for political reasons, but Shaw knew well enough that a good play should also be entertaining.

Gertrude Stein's Dadaist writing rubs some people the wrong way, but I find great joy in working through Tender Buttons.

I think good art is entertaining, but that entertainment doesn't necessarily have to be the primary goal of the work.

[stlukesguild]

I wouldn't say that all literature was intended to be entertaining. Writers have a vast array of intentions. Some of what eventually becomes recognized as "literature" or the "classics" was originally intended to convey political, social, theological ideas. Some was written as history. Some as biography. Some as criticism. Etc... I don't think we can imagine that Plato or the Bible or even William Blake were INTENDED as entertainment... but ultimately, it would seem that nearly any book that survives does so because it does continue to resonate with an audience... to entertain. It should be recognized that entertainment need not be thought of as something trivial or lightweight: a sitcom or a comedy. Among those who love literature there are those who find pleasure... entertainment... in unraveling a knotty text by T.S. Eliot or John Donne... just as there are those who find more pleasure in a film by Bergman or Orson Welles or Kurosawa than they do in the usual Hollywood car chases.

[Arrowni]

In my opinion you cannot say all literature is meant to entertain, but you can safetly say most is. Unless you consider, of course, secondary literature -critic, history, analysis-, then you can probably have a savant majority.

[cyberbob]

Good points all around but no one is really answering the question.

A more digestible way to put the question is to say, 'What was intended as pulp, but was of such good quality that it's considered literarature.'

Pulp is a specific area of fiction and writing intended for entertainment is not necessarily pulp. Also, literary fiction isn't just really good pulp so my example is not really accurate. Still, I think it makes the intention of the question obvious so it's a useful example.

I'd say Alice In Wonderland. Carroll started it as a story to entertain Alice Liddell so I doubt he meant for it to be anything more than a fun story.

I guess it's debatable whether Alice In Wonderland is actually "great literature", but it's certainly fascinating and a great work of imagination.

[Arrowni]

Well, if that's what you want I'd avoid difficult definitions. For starters I would try to forget the idea of "Great Literature" because it just muds the question -everyone and their mother have an idea of what good literature is, and all of the arguments are right and wrong-.

Maybe what you mean is for us to present "works of literature that were intended as popular entertainment but became something else", the concept of popular works -such as pulp, many kinds of science fiction and fantasy- is quite easier to grasp in comparision. Quixote was meant as popular entertainment, Madame Bovary wasn't. You could argue that Through the looking glass is not meant to be folk entertainment in the truest sense, but since teen and children books are also in the "lower end" of artistic expectations, I guess you could consider them. So maybe we could say you want to talk about minor genres that became staples of literature.

IF, my concept somewhat fits with your original intention, I'd agree that Alexandre Dumas is one of the known names which fit the description, to a lesser extent you could say Jules Verne would be one too. The question is still iffy because we're talking about "intention", and while I can see Gulliver's travels as a popular work, it wasn't intended as such. If we stick to the idea of minor genre there is Arthur Connor Doyle, if we stick to the popular you'd get people such as Molière and Lope de Vega.

[Calidore]

Like Dumas, Dickens wrote newspaper serials for entertainment, which were then collected into books and became hugely popular.