The Future of Great Literature

[hawthorns]

AuntShecky's post got me thinking about some questions that have been stewing in my mind for some time. As we become increasingly a Facebooking/Twittering society, will interest in great literature diminish or increase? It seems logical, especially with the popularity of Kindles/ereaders/free pdfs/etc., that interest should flourish in every genre, but I'm not sure what the trends are showing. That of course brings up another question: how do the great writers of today compare with the greats of yesterday--say, the top 30 on Litnet's Top 100 Authors Post?

I've only recently become a reader (almost exclusively classics), after a lifetime of athletics. Therefore, because I have very little perspective on literature's development, I wondered what the opinions are of the more informed.

Thanks

[Der Wegwerfer]

society has changed a lot over the years, I don't really think our current time is really that different.

And yes, e-readers, ipads and the like have actually helped people read more IMO. Add to that the fact that the Classics are mostly free for such devices and you have evidence to suggest that the Classics will at least maintain their popularity.

after all, they've been popular for generations for a reason.

[cafolini]

society has changed a lot over the years, I don't really think our current time is really that different.

And yes, e-readers, ipads and the like have actually helped people read more IMO. Add to that the fact that the Classics are mostly free for such devices and you have evidence to suggest that the Classics will at least maintain their popularity.

after all, they've been popular for generations for a reason.

The classics are historical and that's it. They were powerful and the reason was that the world was cutural. But culture has been overcome and the classics will never come back to the foreground again. They are historical pieces in a museum. What matters reason? All animals think and reason. What matters today is science and marketting. The classics are cheap because they no longer carry avantgarde weight.

[mortalterror]

I think that as Asia rises our literature will incorporate more eastern influences. The academic canon is sure to incorporate classics like The Mahabharata, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Shahnameh into the curriculum along with the Iliad, The Divine Comedy, and Hamlet. Western writers will write more like eastern writers and vice versa.

The amount of good literature will increase because there are more people writing and reading than ever before but the formats will likely change. You're probably more likely to get a great novel than an epic poem, and you will probably see more great movies than great plays.

[stlukesguild]

AuntShecky's post got me thinking about some questions that have been stewing in my mind for some time. As we become increasingly a Facebooking/Twittering society, will interest in great literature diminish or increase? It seems logical, especially with the popularity of Kindles/ereaders/free pdfs/etc., that interest should flourish in every genre, but I'm not sure what the trends are showing. That of course brings up another question: how do the great writers of today compare with the greats of yesterday--say, the top 30 on Litnet's Top 100 Authors Post?

I've only recently become a reader (almost exclusively classics), after a lifetime of athletics. Therefore, because I have very little perspective on literature's development, I wondered what the opinions are of the more informed.

Well... those who spend a good deal of time reading "serious literature" have elected to invest a good deal of time and effort... and even money into something that they feel is of great importance. While the number of "literate" continues to increase, I suspect that those who are "serious" readers of "serious literature" will remain a minority. A great deal of "serious literature" is quite challenging and less than immediately accessible to the average reader. At the same time, new technology will continue to make the whole of literature ever more physically accessible. Speaking just of what I have observed over the last 20 years I will state that I am in awe of how much more accessible some works of literature are. Amazon.com and other online marketers allow us browse through a catalog of books far more inclusive than that carried by any bookstore. Various online sites(including various academic sites) offer access to endless books that have been out of publication for decades and longer.

mortalterror- I think that as Asia rises our literature will incorporate more eastern influences. The academic canon is sure to incorporate classics like The Mahabharata, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Shahnameh into the curriculum along with the Iliad, The Divine Comedy, and Hamlet. Western writers will write more like eastern writers and vice versa.

The amount of good literature will increase because there are more people writing and reading than ever before but the formats will likely change. You're probably more likely to get a great novel than an epic poem, and you will probably see more great movies than great plays.

Yes. But then again we have already seen the influx of Asian influence for some decades now... especially in the West Coast presses and among West Coast poets/writers. As China, Japan, India, and Korea grow in influence, wealth, and power their literature cannot help but become of interest to us in the West. At the same time, I suspect that the Middle-east and Latin-America (especially in the United States) will play an increasing role.

As for the forms literature will take... in the era of Twitter and Facebook and rapid soundbites, I suspect there is some validity to the question as to whether this will impact literary form. Specifically, will the long novel and epic poem become even more a thing of the past? Will poetry employ the use of recording technology and become once again an oral art form? Is the novel suited to the telling of the narrative of our time... or has this moved to film? With the increasing employment of rapid Facebook postings and "tweets" will the brief poem or the witty aphorism become the central literary form of our time?

[blazeofglory]

Today little do we want out of literature since we have so many connections and engagements. I was once an avid reader and now my time is divided between many things. Reading classics is no doubt is one of my pastimes but I watch TV, chat, use Facebook and engage in social and familial programs and the residue of my time is dedicated to literature and I rarely read big and bulky classics

[mona amon]

AuntShecky's post got me thinking about some questions that have been stewing in my mind for some time. As we become increasingly a Facebooking/Twittering society, will interest in great literature diminish or increase? It seems logical, especially with the popularity of Kindles/ereaders/free pdfs/etc., that interest should flourish in every genre, but I'm not sure what the trends are showing. That of course brings up another question: how do the great writers of today compare with the greats of yesterday--say, the top 30 on Litnet's Top 100 Authors Post?

I've only recently become a reader (almost exclusively classics), after a lifetime of athletics. Therefore, because I have very little perspective on literature's development, I wondered what the opinions are of the more informed.

Thanks

People are always going to want stories, and they're always going to want poetry. That seems to be woven into human nature, so I guess we are always going to have literature, and a small fraction of it is going to be great.


The amount of good literature will increase because there are more people writing and reading than ever before but the formats will likely change. You're probably more likely to get a great novel than an epic poem, and you will probably see more great movies than great plays.

I think you're right. Fashions do change over time.


[COLOR="DarkRed"]As for the forms literature will take... in the era of Twitter and Facebook and rapid soundbites, I suspect there is some validity to the question as to whether this will impact literary form. Specifically, will the long novel and epic poem become even more a thing of the past? Will poetry employ the use of recording technology and become once again an oral art form? Is the novel suited to the telling of the narrative of our time... or has this moved to film? With the increasing employment of rapid Facebook postings and "tweets" will the brief poem or the witty aphorism become the central literary form of our time?

I do not know about the epic poem, but I think the long novel will be there for a while. Example: Haruki Murakami's newly released IQ84 is almost 1,000 pages, I think, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at 700 pages is really long for a kids book, but that didn't put them off.

[mortalterror]

As for the forms literature will take... in the era of Twitter and Facebook and rapid soundbites, I suspect there is some validity to the question as to whether this will impact literary form. Specifically, will the long novel and epic poem become even more a thing of the past? Will poetry employ the use of recording technology and become once again an oral art form? Is the novel suited to the telling of the narrative of our time... or has this moved to film? With the increasing employment of rapid Facebook postings and "tweets" will the brief poem or the witty aphorism become the central literary form of our time?

I don't think that twitter and facebook can supplant novels or movies as a dominant artform. They are too limited to be an important form of communication. Most famous maxims, aphorisms, and epigrams wouldn't fit into the 140 character limit. You can explore small simple ideas with a tweet but you cannot address anything profound, difficult, and multifaceted. That's not a new thing. People have been complaining about the sound bite, the 30 second commercial, the 3 minute music video, and the half hour sitcom (itself broken up into 7 minute acts) for decades. They haven't been at all effective in supplanting actual books and conversation. On the contrary, podcasts have shown a move toward an older lengthier style of communication not seen since the early days of radio.


Is the novel suited to the telling of the narrative of our time... or has this moved to film?
I don't believe that any one style, genre, or medium is necessary to tell the narrative of our time. I think that all you need is a genius to wield whatever tools come to hand. After all, Michelangelo worked in stone and in fresco. Shakespeare worked in plays and sonnets. Goethe worked in plays, poems, and novels. Which of them was the right medium for the time?

[JBI]

The Asian influx has hardly begun. 90% of the Chinese canon is not readily available, and that which is translated is hit and miss.

I suspect more acknowledgement of the near East and India, but that is just me.

Also, I sense the TV mini-series/drama as an emerging form, which will gain its own merit if it hasn't already in many places.

[JCamilo]

But then, the dominant form of literature is not romance or novels, but journalism. And Twitter and facebook are pretty much taking its place, since journalism narratives is about easy access, speed and not quality.

I do not know if we are going to see a chinese flux, because this demands a interest on chinese language, translations and internet is english dominant, and I do not know if west has more interest on china than china has on us, and it is possible the western works are entering in china more than otherwise. Something like, one JBI for 100 millions NBA chinese fans.

The opening of internet does not imply better writers, we kind of are in the Gutenberg momment, Cervantes still need to come. So far the main impact is about distribution and copyrights, and this affects too little Dante and cia. I suspect politcal changes and economical will be more important than Internet - Europe and USA are moving down in the tables, its not as easy to impose cultural dominance asking money to the third world. And with a proper politic, third world countries literacy will give a jump and i am certain they will form a mass of readers that will be more interessed on modern works than past works, and this may be the impact, a bit similar as the impact caused by USA on XIX-XX century.

[stlukesguild]

I don't think that twitter and facebook can supplant novels or movies as a dominant artform. They are too limited to be an important form of communication. Most famous maxims, aphorisms, and epigrams wouldn't fit into the 140 character limit. You can explore small simple ideas with a tweet but you cannot address anything profound, difficult, and multifaceted. That's not a new thing. People have been complaining about the sound bite, the 30 second commercial, the 3 minute music video, and the half hour sitcom (itself broken up into 7 minute acts) for decades. They haven't been at all effective in supplanting actual books and conversation. On the contrary, podcasts have shown a move toward an older lengthier style of communication not seen since the early days of radio.

I'm not suggesting that Facebook and Twitter will become the format through which the future of literature is carried. I am suggesting, however, that the extended exposure to such may indeed impact reading (and thus writing). In other words... the tolerance for the large novels of the 18th and 19th century may have had something to do with the fact that there were few alternative forms of conveying a narrative... telling tales. People were also quite accustomed to writing long letters to friends, family, and loved ones. Here, if you or I or JBI posts a response that measures somewhere near a single type-written page, we are being overblown. We also hear the repeated complaint that this or that book has "too much description". Students today are expected (demanded) to read quite a bit less than when I was in school (not all that long ago). I simply wonder whether these trends will or will not impact future writing.

I don't believe that any one style, genre, or medium is necessary to tell the narrative of our time. I think that all you need is a genius to wield whatever tools come to hand.

Perhaps... but context plays a role. It is doubtful that Michelangelo would have had the same impact had his paintings been rendered in illuminated manuscripts or even as small canvases. It is also doubtful that they would have been as central to art history had they been painted in Norway.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Here, if you or I or JBI posts a response that measures somewhere near a single type-written page, we are being overblown. We also hear the repeated complaint that this or that book has "too much description". Students today are expected (demanded) to read quite a bit less than when I was in school (not all that long ago). I simply wonder whether these trends will or will not impact future writing.

This is quite true. Even if you consider school text books you will find very short extracts of material in comparison with books ten, or even five years ago. Exam extracts are shorter too. As for the curriculum demands of full text reading, I've already posted just how little is required reading in UK state schools in other threads. Technology in the internet/facebook/twitter and similar such things, as well as texting and computer gaming, has had a significant detrimental impact on people's ability to read and write at length and on general concentration levels as well. The fallout of such instant technologies, although fine in their own right in small doses, means that the instant gratification/"I'm bored" culture is all too apparent and will surely impact on what is being read (and not read) now and in the near future.

[Emil Miller]

This is quite true. Even if you consider school text books you will find very short extracts of material in comparison with books ten, or even five years ago. Exam extracts are shorter too. As for the curriculum demands of full text reading, I've already posted just how little is required reading in UK state schools in other threads. Technology in the internet/facebook/twitter and similar such things, as well as texting and computer gaming, has had a significant detrimental impact on people's ability to read and write at length and on general concentration levels as well. The fallout of such instant technologies, although fine in their own right in small doses, means that the instant gratification/"I'm bored" culture is all too apparent and will surely impact on what is being read (and not read) now and in the near future.

As someone at the cutting edge, you are in a better position than I to make an assessment of the impact of Information Technology on the medium, but It seems fairly obvious that a fundamental change in peoples' approach to literature is taking place. The cult of instant gratification is one facet of this but there may be others. The main reason I joined this forum was to get some insight into what people are reading nowadays as opposed to when I was younger, but the kind of books that are being discussed do not tempt me to read them. Despite the advent of texting, computer gaming etc. there are still some very long, multi-faceted novels of the 'post modernist' kind, but reading the views of those who have read them, they come across as obscurantist navel gazing, rather than novels per se, and this may be the view of others who are turning away from literature. It is worth remembering that Ernest Hemingway was also a forerunner of the minimalist style of writing even though it wasn't necessarily a reflection of people's short attention span relative to the technological advances following the First World War.

[Darcy88]

The classics are historical and that's it. They were powerful and the reason was that the world was cutural. But culture has been overcome and the classics will never come back to the foreground again. They are historical pieces in a museum. What matters reason? All animals think and reason. What matters today is science and marketting. The classics are cheap because they no longer carry avantgarde weight.

What matters today is science and marketing? The classics are museum pieces? The classics are cheap and no longer carry any weight?

Bollocks. The classics are still powerful. The writings of the Greeks are as vital today as they were when they were written. The great literature of the past will never go out of fashion and that is precisely what makes it great. The microscope and telescope are both blind to the reality of the human condition. Your world Cafolini is a moon-like desolate orb, a hunk of dead material, inanimate without the wind, water and fire, without the life, of imagination.

[christinamellow]

As stated in the quotation by C.S. Lewis, literature not only describes reality but also adds to it. Yes, literature is not merely a depiction of reality; it is rather a value-addition. Literary works are portrayals of the thinking patterns and social norms prevalent in society. They are a depiction of the different facets of common man's life. Classical literary works serve as a food for thought and a tonic for imagination and creativity. Exposing an individual to good literary works, is equivalent to providing him/her with the finest of educational opportunities. On the other hand, the lack of exposure to classic literary works is equal to depriving an individual from an opportunity to grow as an individual.

Prose, poetry, drama, essays, fiction, literary works based on philosophy, art, history, religion, and culture and also scientific and legal writings are grouped under the category of literature. Creative nonfiction of the ancient times and literary journalism also fall under literature. Certain extremely technical writings such as those on logistics and mathematics are also believed to be a part of literature.

[JCamilo]

Hemingway wasn't a forerunner of short time spam, because Poe already did it. His focus on short stories is part much of his belief people would prefer to read as fast as possible. And even so, a basic rule of short stories is minimalism, derivated from the short spam listeners have on oral storytelling.

I saw a research that showed people reading online remember less of what they read than people reading paper material. This, more than the physical effort to conect the long sentences may be the cause of the internet pleasure for short texts, you are more remarkable in Oscar Wilde style: the witty quotes of the long Dorian.

[Emil Miller]

Hemingway wasn't a forerunner of short time spam, because Poe already did it. His focus on short stories is part much of his belief people would prefer to read as fast as possible. And even so, a basic rule of short stories is minimalism, derivated from the short spam listeners have on oral storytelling.

I saw a research that showed people reading online remember less of what they read than people reading paper material. This, more than the physical effort to conect the long sentences may be the cause of the internet pleasure for short texts, you are more remarkable in Oscar Wilde style: the witty quotes of the long Dorian.

Yes you are right, but I think that great literature(as mentioned in the OP) is primarily about the novel. You make an interesting point regarding reading on line as opposed to reading from the printed page. However, does this mean that people reading from a Kindle would retain less of what they read than those who read from the printed page ?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes you are right, but I think that great literature(as mentioned in the OP) is primarily about the novel. You make an interesting point regarding reading on line as opposed to reading from the printed page. However, does this mean that people reading from a Kindle would retain less of what they read than those who read from the printed page ?

No definitely not. I don't know about the online Vs paper research (if you could dig that up JC it might be interesting) but the kindle uses e-ink which is virtually identical to normal paper ink. Reading from the kindle is not the same as reading from a web page. I couldn't read at length online because it hurts my eyes after so long, even reading/writing lengthy posts does sometimes (I'm even squinting here a little at this time of night (+ a bottle of red! - French Cab Sav)) but this is not the same experience I get when reading from the kindle, or other e-readers that use a similar e-ink technology. It is the same as reading a book.

I'm currently halfway through David Copperfield on the kindle which I also have on paper as an old Penguin copy, but I have chosen to read it on the kindle because for one it is better to read in bed and two, the practicality of the kindle is great. Though certainly, retention wise the reading experience is identical.

I don't know why you would retain less online Vs paper, though I suppose it could be due to the back light of the computer screen as mentioned maybe?

[hawthorns]

As stated in the quotation by C.S. Lewis, literature not only describes reality but also adds to it. Yes, literature is not merely a depiction of reality; it is rather a value-addition. Literary works are portrayals of the thinking patterns and social norms prevalent in society. They are a depiction of the different facets of common man's life. Classical literary works serve as a food for thought and a tonic for imagination and creativity. Exposing an individual to good literary works, is equivalent to providing him/her with the finest of educational opportunities. On the other hand, the lack of exposure to classic literary works is equal to depriving an individual from an opportunity to grow as an individual.Prose, poetry, drama, essays, fiction, literary works based on philosophy, art, history, religion, and culture and also scientific and legal writings are grouped under the category of literature. Creative nonfiction of the ancient times and literary journalism also fall under literature. Certain extremely technical writings such as those on logistics and mathematics are also believed to be a part of literature.

Agreed. I've read a fair amount in years past, but it was exposure to and study of the classics that made the biggest contribution to my reading comprehension/analysis and writing. That's why I hope the classics don't become "museum pieces" that are only read when assigned by high school english teachers and lit professors. Greater access to these works and opportunity for self-publishing is fantastic, but I wonder about our direction. Will masterful writing become less and less appreciated amidst the blurbs, tweets, and unintelligible facebook pages? Only time will tell, but when the Twilight series tops goodreads.com's Best Books Ever (and others) list, I begin to worry. I hope that the quality of future literature doesn't go the way of Hollywood and popular/radio/Justin Bieber(esque) music...

[hawthorns]

As for technology, I've never understood how anyone could stand reading an entire novel on a computer screen, Kindle, etc. If I had done Remembrance of Things Past that way I would have gone blind :crazy:.

But, I must report that I just read Metamorphosis on my new Android. Not much, I know, but a big step for this stubborn traditionalist. I might become a convert yet :smile5:

[JCamilo]

If the great literature is novel, then it is doomed, novels are far even 1/3 of great literature and the format is only present in a few countries, as dominant form.

Anyways, the study is from University of Oregon, it tested the capacity of retaining the memory and used the New York Times online and traditional format. Now, this does not means digital text of any kind provokes lose of memory, it just points the reading experience is different. Our expectations and rituals are different, the medium (as MacLurhan would say, it does matter) is another. So, all those people tested are, at best, educated to read in papper, so their incapacity may be the same as someone changing from a PC to a Mac. They werent trained to fully take advantages of the digital experience. (I expect, people to not be able to record details in 3-d movies well as they did in 2-d movies). It may tell more about the relationship with the text format, that the text itself.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Agreed. I've read a fair amount in years past, but it was exposure to and study of the classics that made the biggest contribution to my reading comprehension/analysis and writing. That's why I hope the classics don't become "museum pieces" that are only read when assigned by high school english teachers and lit professors. Greater access to these works and opportunity for self-publishing is fantastic, but I wonder about our direction. Will masterful writing become less and less appreciated amidst the blurbs, tweets, and unintelligible facebook pages? Only time will tell, but when the Twilight series tops goodreads.com's Best Books Ever (and others) list, I begin to worry. I hope that the quality of future literature doesn't go the way of Hollywood and popular/radio/Justin Bieber(esque) music...

I don't think that quality will become less and less appreciated, rather it will probably remain mostly consistant - though who knows for sure? As has been mentioned before in other threads, namely by Stlukes, the devotion to quality literature/art has always been something of niche market anyway.


As for technology, I've never understood how anyone could stand reading an entire novel on a computer screen, Kindle, etc. If I had done Remembrance of Things Past that way I would have gone blind :crazy:.

But, I must report that I just read Metamorphosis on my new Android. Not much, I know, but a big step for this stubborn traditionalist. I might become a convert yet :smile5:

Please consider my previous post in regards to the kindle. It is nothing like reading from a computer screen. Reading from the kindle is nothing like reading from a computer screen, reading from the kindle is nothing like reading from a computer screen, reading from the kindle...

Edit: Thanks JC, I'll think about that tomorrow.

[hawthorns]

I don't think that quality will become less and less appreciated, rather it will probably remain mostly consistant - though who knows for sure? As has been mentioned before in other threads, namely by Stlukes, the devotion to quality literature/art has always been something of niche market anyway.

Good Point



Please consider my previous post in regards to the kindle. It is nothing like reading from a computer screen. Reading from the kindle is nothing like reading from a computer screen, reading from the kindle is nothing like reading from a computer screen, reading from the kindle...

Edit: Thanks JC, I'll think about that tomorrow.

Yeah that was interesting. Although with my eyes, I can't tell any difference. Both are unpleasurable when compared to a book for some reason.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yeah that was interesting. Although with my eyes, I can't tell any difference. Both are unpleasurable when compared to a book for some reason.

Do you have a kindle then?

This is completely different from an android phone which is basically a smaller version of a computer screen, I think anyway (I have an ancient phone). I'm not saying that you shouldn't prefer a book over an e-reader, that's just preference, but in terms of the hurting eyes thing it is the book/e-reader Vs the computer screen, for the two are virtually identical in terms of reading from them Vs online.

Oh yes, don't worry about the quality thing overmuch, certain types of reader will always be around pretty much, I think.

Welcome to Litnet by the way, what are you reading at the moment out of interest?

Edit: I'm pretty sure (99%) that's a picture of Proust as your avatar. Did you know that Wilde once met Proust while in Paris? He was invited into his house as his guest but his parents were around and his apartment was a total mess. This upset upset Wilde so much that he sneaked out and ran off down the street!! :lol: :lol:

[hawthorns]

Do you have a kindle then?

This is completely different from an android phone which is basically a smaller version of a computer screen, I think anyway (I have an ancient phone). I'm not saying that you shouldn't prefer a book over an e-reader, that's just preference, but in terms of the hurting eyes thing it is the book/e-reader Vs the computer screen, for the two are virtually identical in terms of reading from them Vs online.

Oh yes, don't worry about the quality thing overmuch, certain types of reader will always be around pretty much, I think.

Welcome to Litnet by the way, what are you reading at the moment out of interest?

Edit: I'm pretty sure (99%) that's a picture of Proust as your avatar. Did you know that Wilde once met Proust while in Paris? He was invited into his house as his guest but his parents were around and his apartment was a total mess. This upset upset Wilde so much that he sneaked out and ran off down the street!! :lol: :lol:

I don't have a Kindle now but tried it in the past. Actually, it's more preference than eye strain for me. And yes, the Android would be brutal comparatively.

Not sure what I'm going to read next. I think I'll take a break from novels and do some more short stories and poetry.

You're correct about the painting. Jacques-Emile Blanche's portrait of a young Proust is housed in the Musee D'Orsay. I travelled to Paris last August, only to discover it had been placed in storage. Just my luck...

That's funny about Wilde! I've read several interesting stories about him (Proust), and actually stayed about 1/2 mile from his apartment on Haussmann. Ironically, we also were a stone's throw away from Wagner's apartment--my favorite composer :nopity:

[stlukesguild]

A fan of Wilde, Proust, and Wagner. We'll have to make an effort to see that you stay around. :smile5:

You might also want to check over under General Chat to the sub-forum General Movies, Music, and Television where you will find a long-running classical music thread and more than a few Wagner fans... myself included.

[hawthorns]

A fan of Wilde, Proust, and Wagner. We'll have to make an effort to see that you stay around. :smile5:

You might also want to check over under General Chat to the sub-forum General Movies, Music, and Television where you will find a long-running classical music thread and more than a few Wagner fans... myself included.


Thanks! I'll be sure to head over there. Nothing quite gives me goosebumps like Meistersinger, Parsifal, and especially, Tristan.

Neely,

In anwer to your question, I think I've decided on Les Fleurs Du Mal :smile5:

[mortalterror]

I don't believe that any one style, genre, or medium is necessary to tell the narrative of our time. I think that all you need is a genius to wield whatever tools come to hand.

Perhaps... but context plays a role. It is doubtful that Michelangelo would have had the same impact had his paintings been rendered in illuminated manuscripts or even as small canvases. It is also doubtful that they would have been as central to art history had they been painted in Norway.

Think about what you are saying though, and think about all of the exceptions to it. Think of all the composers you admire who wrote concertos, lieder, and requiems when it would have been more fashionable to write symphonies. Or what of the great artists who came almost out of nowhere to have huge effects on culture such as Neruda and Ibsen? Their cultures weren't so rich and influential.

Think about Michelangelo. He is known as much for his sculpture as for his painting. If he hadn't painted the Sistine chapel we'd still know him for his David, the Pieta, Moses, St Peters Basilica, and his sonnets. Think about all of the artists who have successfully tried their hand in a variety of mediums. If Goethe weren't known for Faust he'd be remembered for The Sorrows of Young Werther, or maybe Hermann and Dorothea.

Is Picasso important because he painted in the Cubist style, or is the cubist style important because Picasso painted in it? I choose to think the latter. A movement is not a movement without it's geniuses. Stated more simply, genius leads a movement not vice versa. Without artists of talent your so called "mediums of their age" are hollow and insignificant. I think Picasso showed that when he moved beyond cubism. It needed him more than he needed it, and he made great art in his blue period, his rose period, his classical period, and his African influenced period. Which one of those was the important style of it's time? Was fine art even the important artistic style of the era Picasso was living in? Was France the hub of the artistic world the last thirty years of Picasso's career?

How important is location really? Like I said earlier, Ibsen is from Norway, Neruda is from Chile, Dvorak is a Czech, Sibelius is from Finland.

You say that Michelangelo wouldn't have been as important if he'd painted on a smaller pallet but how big is the Mona Lisa? How big are Vermeer's paintings?

You say "It is also doubtful that [the Sistine chapel frescoes] would have been as central to art history had they been painted in Norway." But I say that once Michelangelo paints The Last Judgement and the Book of Genesis, wherever he does this becomes the center of the artistic world.

The Elizabethan age is known for it's plays. But for Shakespeare, it might just as easily be known for it's epics like The Faerie Queene, Jerusalem Delivered, and The Lusiads, or for it's sonnets by Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Ronsard, Raleigh, and Donne. How can you say that there is just one appropriate medium or style for a time?

[ralfyman]

Given high oil and food prices, what is likely a permanent global recession, the threat of declining resources, and environmental damage, it is likely that mass comm will not affect the act of reading so much. However, the need to prioritize necessities will also affect the same.

[JCamilo]

But Mortal, things would be different. The extremelly unlikely present we live is a result of very unlikely combinations of occurances, which even being the same, could be completely different. All you needed is a blow of wind and we could have the entreteia and not internet and Harold Bloom would have to write about the cult to Lope de Vega. Imagine changing a little, like moving Michelangelo out of Italy, or even if Goethe didnt had Faust.

Of course, this also makes the argument by Stlukes not strong, more like: things must be as they are. But the truth is that art only happens in a medium and literature (just like visual arts) is deeply affected if society starts to use another medium. And it will happen again.

[mortalterror]

But Mortal, things would be different. The extremelly unlikely present we live is a result of very unlikely combinations of occurances, which even being the same, could be completely different. All you needed is a blow of wind and we could have the entreteia and not internet and Harold Bloom would have to write about the cult to Lope de Vega. Imagine changing a little, like moving Michelangelo out of Italy, or even if Goethe didnt had Faust.

Of course, this also makes the argument by Stlukes not strong, more like: things must be as they are. But the truth is that art only happens in a medium and literature (just like visual arts) is deeply affected if society starts to use another medium. And it will happen again.

You know, you are right, Lope de Vega should be way more well known than he is. But Calderon should be even more popular than that. Those two are both near Shakespeare's level but they get snubbed for being Spanish. Meanwhile, Cervantes writes Don Quixote and has no such problem. Explain that? Lope de Vega and Calderon are as ignored as Jean Racine, which is weird because we don't tend to snub the French tradition the same way.

I also have to commend you for cutting to the heart of the facebook/twitter issue earlier when you said that short stories didn't kill the novel or lessen it's popularity. They just added a new layer to the conversation.

[JCamilo]

It may happen. If english declines, who said guys like Racine won't move to the center because we will demand his precision and the french (or latine) writting style, because society got tired of english improvisation, fast and we will need more classical writings again? The idea of a fixed center for the canon is much faith judaico-christianism applied.

I picked Lope by chance, and even more because his poetry is nice, but could be Calderon, but Cervantes is a good example to this topic: his book is just suitable to the printing age in Europe. It was not the bible, it was an easy reading, a bit universal, a novel in chapters, so good to printed. Meaning probally Cervantes found the best-seller and Lope and Calderon the academy. Probally the same reason which explain Dickens or Poe popularity over some guys who are maybe better, they had a formula adapted to their society technical demmands.

Edit: a side note, you know, we do tend to snub French literature. How many talk about Marguerite de Navarre narratives? François Villon is not so well know, Richelieu political notes either, If I say here Moliere wrote better comedies than Shakespeare, it will cause heartattacks, when you bring Racine (and as matter of fact, Racine Drama and Moliere comedy did manage to keep Shakespeare out of France for a century) people shoke, Rabelais is rarely compared with Swift, Victor Hugo with Dickens, even the philosophers, Proust always under Joyce or Woolf shadow, got a little nod to english or german. Sure, you have some Baudelaire, Voltaire and Rousseau, but the first is almost like like the only french poet poeple talk, Voltaire is heavily underated, but then, he is fine as such and people only know like 10% of what he wrote, and Rousseau people just know he invented America. Sometimes it seems like french literature is great, but without great names, but that is hardly the truth. (not to mention, we snub Canada too. They are a little french after all)

[JBI]

But then, the dominant form of literature is not romance or novels, but journalism. And Twitter and facebook are pretty much taking its place, since journalism narratives is about easy access, speed and not quality.

I do not know if we are going to see a chinese flux, because this demands a interest on chinese language, translations and internet is english dominant, and I do not know if west has more interest on china than china has on us, and it is possible the western works are entering in china more than otherwise. Something like, one JBI for 100 millions NBA chinese fans.

The opening of internet does not imply better writers, we kind of are in the Gutenberg momment, Cervantes still need to come. So far the main impact is about distribution and copyrights, and this affects too little Dante and cia. I suspect politcal changes and economical will be more important than Internet - Europe and USA are moving down in the tables, its not as easy to impose cultural dominance asking money to the third world. And with a proper politic, third world countries literacy will give a jump and i am certain they will form a mass of readers that will be more interessed on modern works than past works, and this may be the impact, a bit similar as the impact caused by USA on XIX-XX century.

Only half true - China is not interested in the Non-Chinese world, and will never be culturally interested as long as the system of culture they have in place remains. Their government discourages learning about the world beyond its borders (and select places within its borders keep in mind), because they fear the outside world (a tradition going back to the building of a Giant Wall to keep the world out which has only intensified). Linguistically, Chinese readers do not scratch the surface of any culture that is not their own - the acceptance of Cinema (and the worst of cinema too, mind you) is perhaps the most significant, but even that is completely dubbed, and edited when it enters the borders, and only allowed in by its ability to not cause any significant response.

As for the NBA etc, well, to an extent, but I feel even that as a general trend has been ebbing in favor of their local Basketball league, which is far more televised. The NBA just allowed a self-proud racist country to brag about having a Chinese National playing in a major American League (though I hear there is a big stir with Jeremy Lin now playing for the Knicks).

The idea that Chinese people are the least bit open minded is totally ridiculous - they do not know anything beyond their own borders - they know nothing of literature or music that is not their own (or Korean and Japanese as the influence begins to affect them, though not as significantly as Taiwan, which rehashes the trends from the other two), and have no desire to. Most people in China don't even know the countries that border China, let alone their capital cities.

The internet in China, ironically, is its own contained beast. It is only half accessible in other parts of the world, and is all a Chinese citizen will ever end up reading on the internet - though one can hop the firewall, most have no reason to, and will not, and if pornography is what they are after, it is sold on the street in bootleg dvds from Japan. There is a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, of Skype, of Facebook, of Youtube, and of Blogspot. There is no major Western website that does not already have its Chinese knockoff - which is exactly the same thing, usually with the same colour scheme.

[JCamilo]

Ah, by no means I wanted to suggest China is very open, that is why I thought the NBA example, as it is less cultural, a bit economical and somehow part of a governament agenda. China is pretty much the other kind of empire, the kind that the metropolis is inacessible, distant and just high in heaven, if we compare with the American model (which is the british model, roman model, etc) which encourages trade and therefore impose culture at the sametime is modified by it.

But as USA is becoming less empire, more self-protectered, I see a tendecy of cultural protection and not so much interest on China culture and literature, while china is playing with trying to spreed influence.

I see India and Brazil of the economic new powers (I am not counting Russia) as those with a more open road of exchanges for quite a while, India also with the english language advantage.

[stlukesguild]

Think about what you are saying though, and think about all of the exceptions to it. Think of all the composers you admire who wrote concertos, lieder, and requiems when it would have been more fashionable to write symphonies. Or what of the great artists who came almost out of nowhere to have huge effects on culture such as Neruda and Ibsen? Their cultures weren't so rich and influential.

How many know Schubert primarily for his 8th and 9th Symphonies, his late quartets, his "trout" quintet, his late piano sonatas and impromptus, and the choral arrangement of Ave Maria as opposed to his lieder? How many bring up the lieder when discussing Faure? Why is Schumann relatively ignored in contrast to Brahms or even Dvorak?

Michelangelo, as you well know, was corralled against his will into the Sistine frescoes by Bramante, the architect of St. Peters who hoped to take Michelangelo away from work of Poe Julius tomb sculpture (that was eating up too much money in his opinion). The further intent was to embarrass Michelangelo, due to his lack of experience with fresco, thus allowing Bramante to recommend his young relative, Raphael for the job. Michelangelo initially spent his evenings writing rants against this commission and even attempting to employ various powerful connections to get him out of the job. For a period of time he even walked away from the work. But with time, he recognized the value of this commission... a giant canvas unlike that which almost any other artist had ever been given in the Pope's private chapel. This was the equivalent for the artist to the Superbowl Halftime Show. Perhaps his achievements may have been just as wonderful had he been employed in Norway or been commissioned to produce a book of hours instead of paint a ceiling. But then again... how many artists from Norway can you name? How many artists from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Britain, etc... made the pilgrimage to Florence and Rome vs Norway? Arguably, the Limbourg Brothers magnificent Tres Riches Heurs is in no was artistically inferior to the Sistine... but how many artists did it impact? How many casual art lovers have even heard of it?

Is Picasso important because he painted in the Cubist style, or is the cubist style important because Picasso painted in it? I choose to think the latter.

I have asked that question... or variants myself. To my eye, Picasso was already a brilliant artist by the time Rose Period kicked in. He had produced any number of "masterpieces" prior to Cubism. But had he continued in the manner of The Family of Saltimbanques would he be considered as central a figure to Modernism... and thus 20th century art as a whole. There have been critics that have pointed out that Matisse was the more innovative artist early on... and by most standards is a clear rival to Picasso... so why did Picasso become the dominant figure? A good part of this reason may have simply been that a great deal of Matisse' finest paintings were sold to Russian collectors, and disappeared after the revolution, whereas a majority of Picasso's finest paintings ended up in American and French collections where he could become the central figure of MoMA.

What are we to make of Diego Rivera. Rivera was working in Paris with Juan Gris at the start of Cubism. When the war broke out he traveled to Italy where he was stunned by the large frescoes from the Renaissance and developed the idea of creating a similar visual narrative history of Mexico... which by most standards, he achieved... brilliantly. And yet today he is largely recognized as the husband of Fridah Kahlo and an inspiration to the American Abstract Expressionists. Why? Partially because his greatest achievements exist in Mexico as opposed to Europe or the US... and partially because the visual language in which he chose to work became thought of as "outdated" and reactionary.

A movement is not a movement without it's geniuses. Stated more simply, genius leads a movement not vice versa.

Perhaps... but it is rare that an artist rises to a great level of influence working in an art form outside the major art forms of the time.

How important is location really? Like I said earlier, Ibsen is from Norway, Neruda is from Chile, Dvorak is a Czech, Sibelius is from Finland.

Neruda is from Chile... and wrote in Spanish at the moment when Spanish literature (in Spain and Latin-America) was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Nevertheless, as you yourself have been forced to recognize, Lope de Vega and Calderon are quite underrated... and quite likely would have been far more central figures had they written in English... or even French. Sibelius? Dvorak? How many composers from Norway or Finland can you name before the late Romantic era and the rise of "nationalism"?

You say that Michelangelo wouldn't have been as important if he'd painted on a smaller pallet but how big is the Mona Lisa? How big are Vermeer's paintings?

You do know that Vermeer was largely forgotten until the Impressionists (especially Manet) rediscovered him? Such an example doesn't seem to say much for your argument that scale/form don't matter. Again, I'm not saying that one cannot create the greatest of art in the most obscure art forms... but whether others will pick up upon your achievements is questionable.

You say "It is also doubtful that [the Sistine chapel frescoes] would have been as central to art history had they been painted in Norway." But I say that once Michelangelo paints The Last Judgement and the Book of Genesis, wherever he does this becomes the center of the artistic world.

That's but wishful thinking. Picasso recognized this well enough and left provincial Spain for Paris.

The Elizabethan age is known for it's plays. But for Shakespeare, it might just as easily be known for it's epics like The Faerie Queene, Jerusalem Delivered, and The Lusiads, or for it's sonnets by Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Ronsard, Raleigh, and Donne. How can you say that there is just one appropriate medium or style for a time?

I wouldn't suggest something as simple as a single dominant art form for a given period of time. As you noted, the short-story did not spell the end of the novel... but merely offered one more possibility. But the same can be said of the novel. Initially it was but one more possibility. By the late 19th century it was the dominant mode of narrative literature. If aspects of today's society challenge the novel or offer up new possibilities, I doubt that they will replace the novel any time soon.

[JBI]

I thought the Lieder were just lesser known outside of the German world.

As for the Renaissance being known for drama - which Renaissance. The great decade of the 1590s in English was known mostly for its Sonnets at the time, as the dominant force. Petrarch, its king, granted, was known for a good 200 years prior primarily for his Latin work. The Romances, as were mentioned, were quite dominant, as everyone rushed to read Ariosto. Look at Cervantes! He clearly is writing on a tradition immersed in the Romance primarily, and the Drama secondarily.

Most of this talk of movements and forms is just wrong. The actual movements tend to be named after the artists finish what they are doing. Most just belonged to societies, as that was how to get commissioned, or published back in the day. The place of presses and scenes is also important as that ensures a circulation.

As for size mattering, well, that depends where and which medium. Ornate small things have always captured certain audiences, especially since they are collectable - China exported 100s of millions of pieces of porcelain mind you, and it was all the rave around town - Japanese woodblock prints have been dominant as a form for the past 150 years despite people usually being unable to name specific artists.

As for replacing the novel, well, what we did was just redefine it. The generic tropes have been so altered that nothing is the same as it once was. We call it novel out of convenience, but The Satanic Verses is definitely not the same genre as Pamela.

My understanding of things will be to combine genres and mix and match - prose poems, or poetic novels, or comic-novels (graphic novels) or illustrated books and the like. We are on the dawn of a new romanticism of sorts (a return to sincerity), so it will be interesting to see what the poets cook up, and how old poets are "discovered" again (Wordsworth will be the bard ones again, even if he has been less popular than Wallace Stevens).

[mortalterror]

Perhaps his achievements may have been just as wonderful had he been employed in Norway or been commissioned to produce a book of hours instead of paint a ceiling. But then again... how many artists from Norway can you name?

Edvard Munch is the only Norwegian painter I can name, though I'm not sure what that proves. It's a very small country.


How many artists from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Britain, etc... made the pilgrimage to Florence and Rome vs Norway?

If Michelangelo's frescoes and statues were all in Norway, there would be a lot more.


Arguably, the Limbourg Brothers magnificent Tres Riches Heurs is in no way artistically inferior to the Sistine... but how many artists did it impact? How many casual art lovers have even heard of it?

It's in every art textbook isn't it? I must confess I'm not as informed about where the Tres Riches Heurs was kept all these years, whether artists had access to study it, and who it might have influenced. Likewise, I am not sure just how influential other masterpieces of book arts such as the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp fared in other countries when compared with Italian frescoes.


I have asked that question... or variants myself. To my eye, Picasso was already a brilliant artist by the time Rose Period kicked in. He had produced any number of "masterpieces" prior to Cubism. But had he continued in the manner of The Family of Saltimbanques would he be considered as central a figure to Modernism... and thus 20th century art as a whole. There have been critics that have pointed out that Matisse was the more innovative artist early on... and by most standards is a clear rival to Picasso... so why did Picasso become the dominant figure? A good part of this reason may have simply been that a great deal of Matisse' finest paintings were sold to Russian collectors, and disappeared after the revolution, whereas a majority of Picasso's finest paintings ended up in American and French collections where he could become the central figure of MoMA.

So you think that Picasso painting in a cubist style and Matisse being a practitioner of Fauvism had more to do with their respective positions within the canon than their actual talent levels?


Nevertheless, as you yourself have been forced to recognize, Lope de Vega and Calderon are quite underrated... and quite likely would have been far more central figures had they written in English... or even French.

As I told JCamilo, location isn't the only factor. Cervantes is huge though Lope is little known outside of Spain. And as I said earlier, Jean Racine wrote in French and we ignore him too! Think about it. England is generally considered a cultural hub of Europe, but when it comes to fine art and music it is a pigmy compared to some of it's neighbors. What's that about? If it's so rich and politically important, and that's all that matters, then why don't we have a culture structured around English painting and music?


Sibelius? Dvorak? How many composers from Norway or Finland can you name before the late Romantic era and the rise of "nationalism"?

Composers, none. Most countries in Europe seem to have had a golden age in the 19th century for one reason or another. Norway is a really bad example to compare to places like England, France, Germany, Italy, or Spain because they had no nobility, national culture, sovereignty, or language for about 450 years prior to that time. Even if they weren't 1/10th the population size of their neighbors, any talent of theirs in that time would be brain drained to foreign courts. Seriously, they went through a dark age. A lot of these little European countries, were little more than satellites of other bigger nations until that time and shouldn't be compared to the larger wealthier nations with their own native cultures and traditions. A lot of them didn't speak their own language or have their own schools. Criticizing them for not having more composers in the sixteenth century is about the same as doing that to the USA. It's not a fair comparison.


You do know that Vermeer was largely forgotten until the Impressionists (especially Manet) rediscovered him? Such an example doesn't seem to say much for your argument that scale/form don't matter. Again, I'm not saying that one cannot create the greatest of art in the most obscure art forms... but whether others will pick up upon your achievements is questionable.

Again, what about the Mona Lisa? Small painting, big impact.


That's but wishful thinking. Picasso recognized this well enough and left provincial Spain for Paris.

Goya didn't. Velazquez didn't. It was good enough for El Greco. Another compelling reason why Picasso left Spain is because he didn't like the Franco regime.

[Darcy88]

This conversation is way, way, way beyond my depth, but I have to say that Racine is far more well known than Lope De Vega or Calderon. I see Racine every time I walk into a used book store but hardly do I ever come across those masters of Spain. Maybe Corneille would work as a better example but even he seems more popular than Lope De Vega or Calderon.

[mortalterror]

This conversation is way, way, way beyond my depth, but I have to say that Racine is far more well known than Lope De Vega or Calderon. I see Racine every time I walk into a used book store but hardly do I ever come across those masters of Spain. Maybe Corneille would work as a better example but even he seems more popular than Lope De Vega or Calderon.

I see Racine too if I go looking for him. Most stores have 1 copy of Phaedra. That's it. If you have more than that, it's probably because you are in Canada with it's dual French-English heritage. But I own copies of Calderon and Lope de Vega too. You can find most anything these days, but the point is they don't circulate, they don't fly off the shelves, they don't get taught in the curriculum. When you converse with other literary people there is a better than average chance that they will not have read books by those authors.


Edit: a side note, you know, we do tend to snub French literature.

I don't know about that. At least in the Anglo sphere of influence it appears to be the only language on an equal footing with English literature.


How many talk about Marguerite de Navarre narratives?

That's just one writer. I think that authors like Rabelais, Moliere, Voltaire, Hugo, Flaubert, Rimbaud, Balzac, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Zola, De Maupassant, Sartre, and Camus are some of the most famous names in all of literature.


François Villon is not so well know, Richelieu political notes either,

I think Villon is not unknown, and we don't have as much cause to know Richelieu's political notes. We prize things like Montaigne's Essays but asking everyone outside of the French speaking world to care about Bossuet, Bouleau, and Sainte-Beuve is going a bridge too far. This is starting to sound like JBI's constant harping that we don't have 100% of what China wrote. We don't need every minor 16th century poet, or fifteenth century letter writer. Not everything in one nation's canon belongs in a regional or world canon. I love Thoreau, Nathanael West, and Thomas Love Peacock but they just won't make the cut.



If I say here Moliere wrote better comedies than Shakespeare, it will cause heartattacks,

I think most people would be fine with that. Comedy was Moliere's specialty, and Shakespeare's tragedies were better than his comedies anyway. I think that Gargantua and Pantagruel is a better comedic novel than Don Quixote and Catch-22 is funnier than either, but that would probably give people heart attacks.


when you bring Racine (and as matter of fact, Racine Drama and Moliere comedy did manage to keep Shakespeare out of France for a century) people shoke, Rabelais is rarely compared with Swift, Victor Hugo with Dickens, even the philosophers, Proust always under Joyce or Woolf shadow, got a little nod to english or german.

I've always thought the conventional wisdom was that Rabelais was better than Swift and Hugo and Dickens were more or less a tie, though my personal preference is for Hugo.


(not to mention, we snub Canada too. They are a little french after all)

I don't think we snub Canada at all. I think they are still a small young country that never produced much worth reading. If you divided the literature of the United States into ten sections, representing roughly the same population size as Canada, those sections wouldn't be much to look at either.


There is a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, of Skype, of Facebook, of Youtube, and of Blogspot. There is no major Western website that does not already have its Chinese knockoff - which is exactly the same thing, usually with the same colour scheme.

You can't really get mad at the Chinese for knocking off Youtube with Tudou and Youku when American's knocked it off with Vimeo, and the French with Dailymotion. Blogspot itself is just a Livejournal clone, and Facebook ripped off Myspace, which in turn ripped off Friendster. Jonathan Abrams should have been Time's Man of the Year not Mark Zuckerberg, and the Social Network should have been his story, except American's don't celebrate failure. It's all just big fish eating little fish, the snake eating it's own tail. There is no originality. These corporations all steal each other's ideas and then lecture consumers about copyright infringement.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE]The idea that Chinese people are the least bit open minded is totally ridiculous - they do not know anything beyond their own borders - they know nothing of literature or music that is not their own (or Korean and Japanese as the influence begins to affect them, though not as significantly as Taiwan, which rehashes the trends from the other two), and have no desire to. Most people in China don't even know the countries that border China, let alone their capital cities.

This is probably true with the exception of those in government who are quite aware of what the west is about and conduct China's affairs accordingly.
There is a tendency in the west to imagine that by watching China we will be able to detect weaknesses that we can exploit, without realising that the Chinese are watching us to ensure that we don't.
But it is not correct to say the Chinese know nothing about music that is not their own, as witness the incredible demand for western classical music and the multiplicity of Chinese performers on the world concert circuit. However, I would agree that this interest has not become a facet of Chinese culture itself.
It is more like some fascinating toy that they have come across and continue to play with increasing dexterity without assimilating the cultural context within it.



The internet in China, ironically, is its own contained beast. It is only half accessible in other parts of the world, and is all a Chinese citizen will ever end up reading on the internet - though one can hop the firewall, most have no reason to, and will not, and if pornography is what they are after, it is sold on the street in bootleg dvds from Japan. There is a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, of Skype, of Facebook, of Youtube, and of Blogspot. There is no major Western website that does not already have its Chinese knockoff - which is exactly the same thing, usually with the same colour scheme.

This is true. There has been some comment in the UK and French press about the US wanting to engage with China on a more 'positive' footing but this runs parallel to articles about Chinese 'paranoia' over the west using the Internet to undermine Chinese government control. The Chinese are not being paranoid, because that is exactly what is happening, and any increased 'co-operation' with the west will be carried out with that in mind.
If the Chinese want to see what a disastrous effect the implantation of a foreign culture can have on an indiginous one, they need only look to their own history or across the East China Sea to Japan.

[JBI]

Well, China may like Western Music as you say (in Shanghai maybe), but they still always jump at specifically the Chinese pianists - Yundi Li is almost a god there, despite being one of the driest, one of the most generic and boring concert pianists around, who can no longer sell seats in the west. Long Long is not a bad player either, but I want to hear him play Tchaikovsy, not some third rate Chinese composition like the Yellow River Concerto, which is basically a mediocre knockoff of better works, yet is a required piece of any Chinese concert repertoire. The actual act of learning the Piano now is more like this: you are some rich kid in Beijing, whose neighbours all learn how to play the piano at age 4 because their parents bought a book that teaches them how to parent you for Harvard, so you need to learn piano as all harvard graduates are proficient at piano, and therefore your friends parents will not be allowed to play with you unless you know piano too. It is not even about playing well or not well, or making progress, it is about the act of playing the piano itself, showing that you are richer than the kids who cannot play - and you are in a school environment that thrives on its public private nature, where the rich kids always end up somehow in better classes, and with positions of authority over their classes, despite the profession of free education (which ends at the beginning of what they call high school).

My comment on the knockoff was not that I think knocking off is bad, as I am a strong supporter of internet freedom etc, it was that, having something completely isolated allows the Chinese web-user the ability to actually never interact with the Global world on the internet - the one great thing of Facebook is it is international (well, not China tsk tsk, where it is fully blocked). My point was our websites have knockoffs, and then they block the original, ensuring the website that does not move well at all in the West is forever the only website in China.



In this world, the hardest thing anybody will need to learn is how to laugh at themselves. Some countries do a better job than others I would wager, but some countries yell at every insult, and are obsessed with their own image and propaganda. If people want to talk about literature mixing in the world, and cultures being exchanged, first people need to understand that this is a new phenomenon, and has been a failure almost everywhere it was attempted. I am a big fan of the notion that art has no borders, but I am constantly dissuaded and led to believe that art is part of the scheme that creates borders. The comfort zone, as I call it, for culture extends to everything - the British mentality of hop in a carriage and don't stop until arriving in Italy and bipassing everything on the way still rings true to how most places interact culturally - we have an excepted group of tropes, and we just don't bother with the rest. Racine is not translated into English, and not widely available because Racine is not liked by the English, who have never liked French poetics at all, regardless of whether or not they realize that their poetic tradition has felt French influence far more heavily than any other outside force (Chaucer was reading French, which developed earlier, the early Renaissance authors were reading French as well, which developed there before England, and the court of Charles the 2nd were writing in modes taken straight from the French lands they were exiled to, and ironically in the mode if not directly from the classicist Racine).

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE]Well, China may like Western Music as you say (in Shanghai maybe), but they still always jump at specifically the Chinese pianists - Yundi Li is almost a god there, despite being one of the driest, one of the most generic and boring concert pianists around, who can no longer sell seats in the west. Long Long is not a bad player either, but I want to hear him play Tchaikovsky, not some third rate Chinese composition like the Yellow River Concerto, which is basically a mediocre knockoff of better works, yet is a required piece of any Chinese concert repertoire. The actual act of learning the Piano now is more like this: you are some rich kid in Beijing, whose neighbours all learn how to play the piano at age 4 because their parents bought a book that teaches them how to parent you for Harvard, so you need to learn piano as all harvard graduates are proficient at piano, and therefore your friends parents will not be allowed to play with you unless you know piano too. It is not even about playing well or not well, or making progress, it is about the act of playing the piano itself, showing that you are richer than the kids who cannot play - and you are in a school environment that thrives on its public private nature, where the rich kids always end up somehow in better classes, and with positions of authority over their classes, despite the profession of free education (which ends at the beginning of what they call high school).

Well what we think of individual performers is subjective. I happen to think that Yundi Li is an excellent pianist and you can hear Lang Lang playing the Tchaikovsky on Youtube. The Yellow River concerto is frequently played in China but it's merely a reflection of Chinese national identity in the same manner as the Pomp and Circumstance marches of Elgar. I recently went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London to get a ticket for a recital by Yuja Wang and they were practically sold out two months in advance. She's also appearing at another London concert hall during that week but as it's the ghastly Bartok 2nd, I will have to give it a miss. I'm aware of the cachet attached to playing the piano for the parents of Chinese children but I don't think that was a factor for the professor of music who organised some concerts that I attended in Shanghai for his very young students of both piano and violin .


My comment on the knockoff was not that I think knocking off is bad, as I am a strong supporter of internet freedom etc, it was that, having something completely isolated allows the Chinese web-user the ability to actually never interact with the Global world on the internet - the one great thing of Facebook is it is international (well, not China tsk tsk, where it is fully blocked). My point was our websites have knockoffs, and then they block the original, ensuring the website that does not move well at all in the West is forever the only website in China.

Given the propensity for propaganda, something the Chinese know a lot about, becoming a major disruptive force, I don't think we will be seeing a great deal of change in the current situation vis-a-vis Chinese government control of the Internet and social networking sites.

[JCamilo]

Mortal:

I think you misundertood me, I do not mean we ignore french literature, but it is often something with dust or I seems as a little brother of england. Just think, you are basically the only Racine's champion around, and people will say it is just your clacissim talking because Racine apparently is just a imitador of Classical literature. And it is not just in the forum, a bit world wide. I have more than once mentioned Moliere among the great writers and I got some very "eh", "just vulgar humor", etc reactions.

I recall the surprise when we mentioned Victor Hugo poetry, and yes, if you talk with a few, Hugo is easily as good as Dickens or the russians, but it is true overall? It is a bit funny people love the witty of Oscar Wilde and quote him in epigrams, as if he wrote them as such, and French do have a real good tradition in epigrams, so maybe they will have some golden twitter age...

Anyways, I do get the impression french are well know, but it is really something like: Genius in English, in france power in numbers reaction here.

[Alexander III]

Mortal:

I think you misundertood me, I do not mean we ignore french literature, but it is often something with dust or I seems as a little brother of england. Just think, you are basically the only Racine's champion around, and people will say it is just your clacissim talking because Racine apparently is just a imitador of Classical literature. And it is not just in the forum, a bit world wide. I have more than once mentioned Moliere among the great writers and I got some very "eh", "just vulgar humor", etc reactions.

I recall the surprise when we mentioned Victor Hugo poetry, and yes, if you talk with a few, Hugo is easily as good as Dickens or the russians, but it is true overall? It is a bit funny people love the witty of Oscar Wilde and quote him in epigrams, as if he wrote them as such, and French do have a real good tradition in epigrams, so maybe they will have some golden twitter age...

Anyways, I do get the impression french are well know, but it is really something like: Genius in English, in france power in numbers reaction here.

I know my opinon does not matter much, but I would take Racine and Moliere over Shakespere any day. Shakespeare is master of the charcter, but for pure poetry Racine is the greatest dramaturg, maybe only aeschylu can surpass him.

[JCamilo]

Which would lead you to a Joan D'Arc destiny, as apparently, Shakespeare invented drama and introspection.

[Darcy88]

I know my opinon does not matter much, but I would take Racine and Moliere over Shakespere any day. Shakespeare is master of the charcter, but for pure poetry Racine is the greatest dramaturg, maybe only aeschylu can surpass him.

Its funny, I've always enjoyed Racine more than Shakespeare too, though I've only read him in translation.

[Paulclem]

I watched an interview with an author on the BBC the other day. She was on because she had written a digital book with 11 different endings. She's a previously published and successful author, and so it's not a gimmick in a launch sense, but it does exploit a possibility that digital books have. The link below is to an article by the Independant about it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9085713/Digital-novel-lets-readers-choose-the-ending.html

The way it works is through questions posed by the book and reader responses - which is an interesting idea. It also points to a kind of democritisation of reading in the sense that the reader can dictate their "reading journey", rather than be led by an author through the static medium of a book.

I've also seen the term - a few years ago - authoring your own reading in relation to the internet whereby a person can follow up interesting aspects of whatever they are reading.

If you include these possibilities within a novel, then you could have a reading experience that could satisfy different levels of reading, and supplement it with other related experiences. For example with War and Peace, there could be links to expand the history of the conflict in Russia, or links to related dramas and films to compare. If this was done with modern literature, then it might suggest that a piece could be writen in collaboration with IT people, historians and biographers.

Of course the great literature will still have to be written, but with digital publishing becoming easier, it may well just be a case of finding and recognising it. The 11 ending book ight just be a fad, or become a method with all the other methods employed, and that wil be employed, in writing literature.

[JBI]

I have found novels these days to trend more toward cohesive endings in favor of post-modern aporia.

[Emil Miller]

I have found novels these days to trend more toward cohesive endings in favor of post-modern aporia.

So have I but don't ask me why.

[JBI]

So have I but don't ask me why.

I think post-modern pessimism is out of fashion, and we want a return to sincerity and coherence in our lives. Just look at how religion has evolved in the past 30 years, literature naturally will seek to fill the search for meaning in the contemporary world, instead of create a lack of coherency (whether gimmick or reflexive of a reality) as seen in the works starting really from the 60s. Themes of healing and of rebirth ultimately will take over from themes of destruction and decline. We don't want to be told how awful the world is anymore, we want to be told how it is great despite how awful it can be.

That's just my two cents worth as to why, anyway, other people will probably agree, and this holds more to American novels than others.

[JCamilo]

I watched an interview with an author on the BBC the other day. She was on because she had written a digital book with 11 different endings. She's a previously published and successful author, and so it's not a gimmick in a launch sense, but it does exploit a possibility that digital books have. The link below is to an article by the Independant about it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/9085713/Digital-novel-lets-readers-choose-the-ending.html

The way it works is through questions posed by the book and reader responses - which is an interesting idea. It also points to a kind of democritisation of reading in the sense that the reader can dictate their "reading journey", rather than be led by an author through the static medium of a book.

I've also seen the term - a few years ago - authoring your own reading in relation to the internet whereby a person can follow up interesting aspects of whatever they are reading.

If you include these possibilities within a novel, then you could have a reading experience that could satisfy different levels of reading, and supplement it with other related experiences. For example with War and Peace, there could be links to expand the history of the conflict in Russia, or links to related dramas and films to compare. If this was done with modern literature, then it might suggest that a piece could be writen in collaboration with IT people, historians and biographers.

Of course the great literature will still have to be written, but with digital publishing becoming easier, it may well just be a case of finding and recognising it. The 11 ending book ight just be a fad, or become a method with all the other methods employed, and that wil be employed, in writing literature.


TBH, this happened in writen works too. I have seen people choosing the pages juvenile books and Cortazar Hopscorth has 2 different reading orders.

[hawthorns]

This conversation is way, way, way beyond my depth

That about sums it up for me. Very, very insightful and informed commentary that has been fun to read.

Thanks much!

[stlukesguild]

SLG-... how many artists from Norway can you name?

MortalTerror- Edvard Munch is the only Norwegian painter I can name, though I'm not sure what that proves. It's a very small country.

So is Holland.

SLG- How many artists from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Britain, etc... made the pilgrimage to Florence and Rome vs Norway?

If Michelangelo's frescoes and statues were all in Norway, there would be a lot more.

That's debatable. What I am suggesting is that the context has a major impact upon the reputation of a work of art. The 4 greatest painters of the later Baroque era are Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Velazquez. Only Rubens had an immediate impact upon the whole of European art... and this was unquestionably due to his connections with Imperial and aristocratic courts across Europe. Rembrandt faded in popularity until he was virtually unknown at his death. He was only revived by the English Romantics. Vermeer remained a virtual unknown (It is now theorized that he had a single collector) until the late 19th century, and only became the subject of serious study after the Second World War. Velazquez was a major figure in Spain... but Spain quickly became the provincial backwater of Europe and almost none of Velazquez works could be found outside of Spain. No one in 1700 was likely to be making pilgrimages to Holland or Spain to see all the Rembrandts, Vermeers, or Velazquez because they were in no way seen as central to art until much later.

SLG- Arguably, the Limbourg Brothers magnificent Tres Riches Heurs is in no way artistically inferior to the Sistine... but how many artists did it impact? How many casual art lovers have even heard of it?

It's in every art textbook isn't it? I must confess I'm not as informed about where the Tres Riches Heurs was kept all these years, whether artists had access to study it, and who it might have influenced.

I know that access now is limited... but how open was access to the Sistine? It became a site that every artist needed to visit... and certainly the church promoted this.

Likewise, I am not sure just how influential other masterpieces of book arts such as the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp fared in other countries when compared with Italian frescoes.

But isn't this what I have already said concerning certain art forms? The grand-scaled epic fresco and sculptural cycles are very public art forms... meant to address a large audience as opposed to the illuminated manuscript and other more "intimate" art forms.

I have asked that question... or variants myself. To my eye, Picasso was already a brilliant artist by the time Rose Period kicked in. He had produced any number of "masterpieces" prior to Cubism. But had he continued in the manner of The Family of Saltimbanques would he be considered as central a figure to Modernism... and thus 20th century art as a whole. There have been critics that have pointed out that Matisse was the more innovative artist early on... and by most standards is a clear rival to Picasso... so why did Picasso become the dominant figure? A good part of this reason may have simply been that a great deal of Matisse' finest paintings were sold to Russian collectors, and disappeared after the revolution, whereas a majority of Picasso's finest paintings ended up in American and French collections where he could become the central figure of MoMA.

So you think that Picasso painting in a cubist style and Matisse being a practitioner of Fauvism had more to do with their respective positions within the canon than their actual talent levels?

So are you assuming that Picasso's cubist paintings are clearly greater works of art than the finest paintings of Matisse? By most critical standards Matisse' early paintings are far more innovative than Picasso's works of the Blue and the Rose period. Are the Cubist works that much better that they immediately assured Picasso of his stature above Matisse? Or was Cubism more central to the development of Modernism toward abstraction?

Nevertheless, as you yourself have been forced to recognize, Lope de Vega and Calderon are quite underrated... and quite likely would have been far more central figures had they written in English... or even French.

As I told JCamilo, location isn't the only factor. Cervantes is huge though Lope is little known outside of Spain. And as I said earlier, Jean Racine wrote in French and we ignore him too! Think about it. England is generally considered a cultural hub of Europe, but when it comes to fine art and music it is a pigmy compared to some of it's neighbors. What's that about? If it's so rich and politically important, and that's all that matters, then why don't we have a culture structured around English painting and music?

The English recognized that music and art were something that could be imported... language not being an issue. Any number of artists (Holbein, Van Dyck, Fuseli, etc...) and composers (Handel, Haydn, Johann Adolf Hasse, Nicolo Porpora, etc...) worked in England, while endless other compositions and paintings from outside England were bought by English collectors. By the period of Romanticism the British had some of the best orchestras and choirs in Europe, and they quite likely would have seen English painting (Gainsborough, Romney, Raeburn, Fuseli, Hogarth, Constable, Turner) as the leading painters of the day.

But you are forgetting that France was just as central (if not more-so) to European culture and the French opera, ballet, and museums (and artists) were surely among the finest in the world.

But let's turn to the Austro-German musical scene. For whatever reason, the courts in the German states and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (especially in Vienna and Prague) were incredibly supportive of music. Austrian and German composers dominate music from the Baroque to the early 20th century. One of the leading figures of the so-called "classical era" was Josef Haydn. Haydn spent much of his career isolated from the rest of the world and working for the Hungarian Esterhazy court. Let's look at his greatest breakthroughs: His string quartets rise to an unheard of level following the influence of Mozart. It is trips to Paris and London that inspire his greatest symphonies and his greatest choral works.

What you are arguing is that the genius toiling away in some provincial hinterland has no less chance of impacting the world through his or her art than the artist working center stage in one of the major cultural centers or the world. Emerson would probably agree with you... arguing that there is a greater nobility of achievement to be the artist who is there at the foundation of an artistic tradition. But then again... Voltaire and Goethe were surely far more influential than Emerson.

Sibelius? Dvorak? How many composers from Norway or Finland can you name before the late Romantic era and the rise of "nationalism"?
Composers, none. Most countries in Europe seem to have had a golden age in the 19th century for one reason or another. Norway is a really bad example to compare to places like England, France, Germany, Italy, or Spain because they had no nobility, national culture, sovereignty, or language for about 450 years prior to that time. Even if they weren't 1/10th the population size of their neighbors, any talent of theirs in that time would be brain drained to foreign courts. Seriously, they went through a dark age. A lot of these little European countries, were little more than satellites of other bigger nations until that time and shouldn't be compared to the larger wealthier nations with their own native cultures and traditions. A lot of them didn't speak their own language or have their own schools. Criticizing them for not having more composers in the sixteenth century is about the same as doing that to the USA. It's not a fair comparison.

Again: Holland. Holland was but a small collection of Protestant states within the Netherlands. They were wedged between the German states and France and were under the control of the Hapsburgs and Spanish. One might argue that it was the incredible wealth wrought by trade with China that placed Holland upon the map. Yes, Vermeer is great... but Vilhelm Hammershøi ain't half bad. If he isn't as great as Vermeer, why isn't he even as well-known as Bierstadt, Sargent, Whistler, Renoir, etc...?

Goya didn't.

How much impact did Goya have upon the development of art outside of Spain until the 20th century?

Velazquez didn't.

Velazquez remained even less known.

It was good enough for El Greco.

Again, Manet was among the first artists to actually recognize an merit in El Greco's works as they almost all remained in Spanish collections. And you don't suppose El Greco went to Spain voluntarily? He fled Italy after several death threats following his negative comments in regard to Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes.

Another compelling reason why Picasso left Spain is because he didn't like the Franco regime.

Picasso left well before Franco. He was in Paris from 1900.

[Paulclem]

TBH, this happened in writen works too. I have seen people choosing the pages juvenile books and Cortazar Hopscorth has 2 different reading orders.

I know it's not a new idea, but digital books offer greater flexibility in this as opposed to a paper medium. I think the most interesting thing is the ability to drill down through references = perhaps in future provided as options by the author - to read related ideas - articles, history, additions made by the author about aspects of the book. With the increase in digital readers, that can access the internet as well, it would widen out the concept of a novel. You could have the central text with branches that can be pursued by readers who could then return to the central text.

[JCamilo]

Not really, Paul,in this case (the article), it offers the same flexibitly, does not matter if I flip the pages to get to my favored end or if i click buttons to get there, it is in the end the same act, principle and experience.

And yes, digital texts allow multi-reference easily, but it is also something possible on paper. My question however if we found a format where the agile multi-reference (or multi-media too) is used to allow a great reading experience. Even if we get authors that are masters of references like Borges or Joyce, their texts are not build to be break in every second after a reference. It goes in fact against them (Joyce demands a rythim, Borges demands a certain vagueness of information). I think in all those new worlds, we are just using old clothes and there is a certain false path that the great difference on digital world is interactivity, something quite present before on many medias, and not so original. Lets see what will happen with english language when all barbarism from world wide use of english be a nice aesthetic idea...

[Paulclem]

Not really, Paul,in this case (the article), it offers the same flexibitly, does not matter if I flip the pages to get to my favored end or if i click buttons to get there, it is in the end the same act, principle and experience.

And yes, digital texts allow multi-reference easily, but it is also something possible on paper. My question however if we found a format where the agile multi-reference (or multi-media too) is used to allow a great reading experience. Even if we get authors that are masters of references like Borges or Joyce, their texts are not build to be break in every second after a reference. It goes in fact against them (Joyce demands a rythim, Borges demands a certain vagueness of information). I think in all those new worlds, we are just using old clothes and there is a certain false path that the great difference on digital world is interactivity, something quite present before on many medias, and not so original. Lets see what will happen with english language when all barbarism from world wide use of english be a nice aesthetic idea...

I'm not sure that a text would be read in that way - breaking off to follow up references, though the option would still be there should something take the reader's fancy. That woud probably follow a reflection upon the text, and could enhance the readers' understanding and widen their perspective. It would also provide a further critical aspect on the author and what they are getting at, because you would not only just have to follow the notes and references left by the author - such as Eliot's wasteland - but would also have easy access to different attitudes and theories.

I think it will take imagination to make the most of the opportunities , and not just see it as a gimmick.

It would have been interesting to see what Joyce made of multimedia and how he crfted his books.

[mona amon]

TBH, this happened in writen works too. I have seen people choosing the pages juvenile books and Cortazar Hopscorth has 2 different reading orders.

Gosh, yes. When my son was little, he was crazy about G.I.Joes and there were these "choose your own adventure" G I Joe books, and being a self-sacrificing mom I had to read them out to him. Felt martyred and brain-dead at the end of each session. :svengo: Anyway he liked them because they were about Sgt. Slaughter, Snake Eyes etc, not because of the gimmick.

Gimmicky things when done by a great artist, will be admired and accepted as innovations. but I do not believe interest in great literature is going to increase because of new technology (E-books, audio books) or diminish because of facebook/twitter etc.


It would have been interesting to see what Joyce made of multimedia and how he crfted his books.

I can see him making his own Ulysses audio book, but can't imagine him using multi media gimmicks somehow.

[JCamilo]

I'm not sure that a text would be read in that way - breaking off to follow up references, though the option would still be there should something take the reader's fancy. That woud probably follow a reflection upon the text, and could enhance the readers' understanding and widen their perspective. It would also provide a further critical aspect on the author and what they are getting at, because you would not only just have to follow the notes and references left by the author - such as Eliot's wasteland - but would also have easy access to different attitudes and theories.

You are making it almost a study, I would like to imagine we can find an author, which is able to split the stories on the footnotes, a kind of 1001 nights of relations, which make the text break a rule, not because you need information, but because it is a new experience. Dunno.


I think it will take imagination to make the most of the opportunities , and not just see it as a gimmick.

I do not mind much gimmick, I think most of literature is gimmick (or we could reduce to it. Rhyming?Gimmick? Dialogues? Gimmick? Prose?etc). Which leads to...


It would have been interesting to see what Joyce made of multimedia and how he crfted his books.

I think we can replace Joyce for a writer which format domain is well developed and he can use it to transforma and exercise language like Joyce did and I agree, we haven't see a Joyce, a Cervantes, a Flaubert, etc for Digital literature yet.

[Paulclem]

Agreed.

It's all new, but as e-readers and screens become easier to access - who knows, perhaps we'll end up with comfortably sized personal computers that we carry with us as we do phones - then more exploration could begin.