What Should Literature Do?

[WolfLarsen]

What Should Literature Do?
Should literature bark like a dog, meow like a cat, or oink like a pig? Should literature be delicious? Should literature jump off the page and procreate all over the walls and fly out the window and fill the sky?

Should we be a bunch of monks writing literary fiction quietly in our cells all of our lives? Or should we jump in front of jazz bands and SCREAM literature at the audience?

Should literature be confined to the page & the theater? Or should literature free itself of these traditional boundaries?

Thinking of that and so much more, what should literature do?

May everybody have a different point of view, and may you all argue with each other, and of course the correct point of view is your own, right? Your discourse might not be polite in general, but please can we be polite to each other?

[Pope of Eruke]

Entertain, inspire, teach, provide some relief/escapsim, be delicious, be hideous, be beautiful etc. etc. etc. Whatever the writer intends it to be.

I dont agree that literature is confined to page and theatre, the Greeks put poetry to music, plenty of modern musicians have done the same, or have wrote songs based upon other types of literature. So the lines can be blurred if someone wants to.

[WolfLarsen]

Entertain, inspire, teach, provide some relief/escapsim, be delicious, be hideous, be beautiful etc. etc. etc. Whatever the writer intends it to be.

I dont agree that literature is confined to page and theatre, the Greeks put poetry to music, plenty of modern musicians have done the same, or have wrote songs based upon other types of literature. So the lines can be blurred if someone wants to.

I agree!

Wouldn't it be nice if literature could do this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-Vphrxyvo

[Pope of Eruke]

I agree!

Wouldn't it be nice if literature could do this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-Vphrxyvo

haha well I am not a big fan of free jazz, or at least not that, so I'm glad it can't! Each their own though eh? :)

[WolfLarsen]

Completely totally agree. To each his own.

Wouldn't it be cool of literature could do a Jackson Pollock, or a hurricane, or if literature could be the Milky Way galaxy?

[HCabret]

Completely totally agree. To each his own.

Wouldn't it be cool of literature could do a Jackson Pollock, or a hurricane, or if literature could be the Milky Way galaxy?
Or Andromeda! Or Triangulum! Or Martin Creed!

[Pope of Eruke]

Completely totally agree. To each his own.

Wouldn't it be cool of literature could do a Jackson Pollock, or a hurricane, or if literature could be the Milky Way galaxy?

Yeah but what do you mean by this? Sure it sounds nice, but this doesn't really mean anything it seems to me... literature has it's own things. Wouldn't it be nice if art could do a Charles Baudelaire? etc.

[Marbles]

It'd be great if literature could do my washing and cleaning! That'd be much help, certainly? But it continues to remain on the page, in theatre and in musical compositions. Hmmm.

[Pope of Eruke]

It'd be great if literature could do my washing and cleaning! That'd be much help, certainly? But it continues to remain on the page, in theatre and in musical compositions. Hmmm.

Literature is so boring isn't it? It should be able to be able to do the washing and cleaning, and make me a hot dinner by now surely!

[WolfLarsen]

At the present moment, literature is mostly a two-dimensional experience. Although I’m sure some of the better informed members of this posting board community know some exceptions.

Oh good humor by the way about literature doing the laundry, kind of reminds me of a joke I made about a month ago on this same site. But humor is always good.

But the thing is, when I first started thinking in poetry I think it was a very two-dimensional experience. Then it became a four dimensional experience. It is now a five dimensional experience. What do I mean by a five dimensional experience? That’s the best way I can describe the poetry that is in my mind. I was just looking at a rough draft of a poem of mine that runs all over the place, including the universe. And that poem doesn’t do justice to what’s in my imagination.

Often, when I think of literature these days it is a multimedia experience. Or it’s more than that.

When I was a kid we didn’t have these word processors. Now you can change your literature easily. Things are advancing quicker and quicker. Think what literature will look like in a few hundred years. The traditionalists will do everything they can to hold the development of literature back.

But there will always be others who want to move literature forward, just like there are people who wanted to move painting forward.

I think probably most people are only capable of thinking in terms of what is, what exists now. They are not capable of thinking of what literature can be.

[HCabret]

At the present moment, literature is mostly a two-dimensional experience. Although I’m sure some of the better informed members of this posting board community know some exceptions.

Oh good humor by the way about literature doing the laundry, kind of reminds me of a joke I made about a month ago on this same site. But humor is always good.

But the thing is, when I first started thinking in poetry I think it was a very two-dimensional experience. Then it became a four dimensional experience. It is now a five dimensional experience. What do I mean by a five dimensional experience? That’s the best way I can describe the poetry that is in my mind. I was just looking at a rough draft of a poem of mine that runs all over the place, including the universe. And that poem doesn’t do justice to what’s in my imagination.

Often, when I think of literature these days it is a multimedia experience. Or it’s more than that.

When I was a kid we didn’t have these word processors. Now you can change your literature easily. Things are advancing quicker and quicker. Think what literature will look like in a few hundred years. The traditionalists will do everything they can to hold the development of literature back.

But there will always be others who want to move literature forward, just like there are people who wanted to move painting forward.

I think probably most people are only capable of thinking in terms of what is, what exists now. They are not capable of thinking of what literature can be.reality is an 11 dimensional experience. 4 big ones, 7 little tiny ones.

[Marbles]

reality is an 11 dimensional experience. 4 big ones, 7 little tiny ones.

Ah see. I suspected this all along. Thanks for clearing that up :D

[HCabret]

Ah see. I suspected this all along. Thanks for clearing that up :D
Do you read? When was the last time you went to a library? Do you at least watch PBS? Did you not get my literary reference?

[free]

If I were an author, I wouldn't care much about what should my writing mean to the rest of the world (unless I wanted to earn lot of money, then I would write sweet romances to please those hungry for love, or dark fightings and horrors to please those hungry for troubles). I would only write to ask questions that I could not find answers for in any other way and expect to get them after my books were published.

[WolfLarsen]

Literature (I think) should run in 1,000,000 different directions. It should run in one million different directions to the beat of Afro-Brazilian drums, & to the rhythms of free jazz saxophones, and literature should leap & jump around with modern dance. Literature should have the frenzied energy of a Jackson Pollock canvas. Those are some of the things I want to make literature do with my words.

Your writing should do whatever you want it to do.

One thing that literature should not be: a stagnant swamp. And for the most part that’s exactly what it is.

[HCabret]

Literature (I think) should run in 1,000,000 different directions. It should run in one million different directions to the beat of Afro-Brazilian drums, & to the rhythms of free jazz saxophones, and literature should leap & jump around with modern dance. Literature should have the frenzied energy of a Jackson Pollock canvas. Those are some of the things I want to make literature do with my words.

Your writing should do whatever you want it to do.

One thing that literature should not be: a stagnant swamp. And for the most part that’s exactly what it is.do you listen to zaz? Good jazz mucisian!

[AuntShecky]

Who says literature has to "do" anything? It's wrong to demand that a work of art primarily provide moral lessons, espouse a cause, right wrongs, form the basis of a lesson plan or in any way sing for its supper. Any of those beneficial effects are merely side dishes -- creative expression FOR ITS OWN SAKE! is the main course.

[HCabret]

Who says literature has to "do" anything? It's wrong to demand that a work of art primarily provide moral lessons, espouse a cause, right wrongs, form the basis of a lesson plan or in any way sing for its supper. Any of those beneficial effects are merely side dishes -- creative expression FOR ITS OWN SAKE! is the main course. I love you auntie!!!