Then don't engage in conversation with Mortal, that's kind of his schtick.Quote:
Originally Posted by WICKES
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Then don't engage in conversation with Mortal, that's kind of his schtick.Quote:
Originally Posted by WICKES
Or looking closer to the present, Victorian literature. Why are our classics texts dominated by Victorian literature? Britain in the 19th century was a superpower: that's why people could begin to afford better things like novels. So writers could finally earn a better living. Actually I think it was easier for a Victorian writer to earn a living compared to now, because they didn't have TV or cinema then. But why Victorian??? Why not 18th century for instance? or even modernist books? The classics everyone knows of are Dickens and the 19th century authors. I think the classic is a novel that will show a universal, timeless thought or feeling, rather than the spirit of the age. Why does Great Expectations rank higher than David Copperfield, even though DC was what Dickens considered his best work? Because the misery and ambition is universal, and the golden sunshine in DC isn't.
I wonder whether anyone has noticed that when there are fewer restraints on writing, the novel is more likely to become a classic? In the 19th century the publishers wanted long books, so you could write a lot of stuff you wanted (except the controversial bits) and extend the stories to so many characters, so you got to cover a lot of things deeply. Now my lecturer says her publisher cuts down on her words (they do that for all literary fiction), which is why modern novels can be dissatisfactory. If the author wants to explain or analyse the chracter or situation he can't because it is deemed irrelevant. But as a result it's harder to empathise with the character, which is why I feel literary fiction won't rule this age.
Has anyone considered the possibility of fantasy taking over the literary world? I know they're more plot-driven than character-based, but epics seem to be timeless for some reason. Look at LOTR and the Greek epics. His Dark Materials may be a possible candidate. I know it's set in the past, but the idea of a tyrannous establishment seems to be an old plot device. And the wicked parents. In fantasy you get to exercise the creativity and wonder you don't get to do in fiction (stupid publishers) but if it has a fault the characters are not always realistic and can be too serious. If you think about it, Gothic tales and HP Lovecraft are making a comeback too, though they weren't considered serious fiction in their lifetime.
Yeah, I'm having similar problems with poetry on my Kindle. The formatting of the poetry always looks like crap. I'm not sure how to fix it, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Ouch, I'm stung.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A
I too have the problem, It is damned annoying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Domination is hard to count.
I wouldn't go so far as to suggest artistic domination... unless its the realm of classical music in which the Germans and Austrians rule:biggrinjester: (and even there we have some very strong showing by the Italians, French, and Russians. The Italians probably dominated the Renaissance in Europe... but then at the same time the Persians were at their peak and China and Japan were no slackers.
Rather than "domination" I would suggest that the Latin-American contribution since mid-century cannot be ignored any more than that of the Americans for the 20th century as a whole.
Or looking closer to the present, Victorian literature. Why are our classics texts dominated by Victorian literature? Britain in the 19th century was a superpower: that's why people could begin to afford better things like novels. So writers could finally earn a better living. Actually I think it was easier for a Victorian writer to earn a living compared to now, because they didn't have TV or cinema then. But why Victorian??? Why not 18th century for instance?
Since when are "our" classics dominated by Victorian literature? The Three Musketeers, Les Miserables, Moby Dick, The Black and the Red, Nana, Don Quixote, Robinson Caruso, Tristram Shandy, The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, The Steppenwolf, The Magic Mountain, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Gulliver's Travels, Madame Bovary, In Search of Lost Time, Mlle de Maupin, Our Lady of the Flowers, Ulysses, The Sorrows of Young Werther, The Trial, etc... are all equally recognized as classics.
I wonder whether anyone has noticed that when there are fewer restraints on writing, the novel is more likely to become a classic?
Actually, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an essay in which he claimed the opposite was true. The British writers, he argued, labored under a censorship of all sexuality. Stevenson compared the British writers of the 19th century to "muzzled dogs" and exclaimed, "What books Dickens could have written had he been permitted! Think of Thackery as unfettered as Flaubert or Balzac!... They give us a little box of toys and say to us, 'You musn't play with anything but these!' " Artists have almost always labored under censorship of one form or another. The strongest artists always find a way around the censors and still achieve something of genius.
Has anyone considered the possibility of fantasy taking over the literary world? I know they're more plot-driven than character-based, but epics seem to be timeless for some reason. Look at LOTR and the Greek epics. His Dark Materials may be a possible candidate. I know it's set in the past, but the idea of a tyrannous establishment seems to be an old plot device. And the wicked parents. In fantasy you get to exercise the creativity and wonder you don't get to do in fiction (stupid publishers) but if it has a fault the characters are not always realistic and can be too serious. If you think about it, Gothic tales and HP Lovecraft are making a comeback too, though they weren't considered serious fiction in their lifetime.
I think that there is a constant cycle of artists struggling against an establishment that has become fossilized and these same artists eventually becoming the establishment themselves. Undoubtedly, there are any number of artists... in literature, music, and the visual arts... who are achieving something of real merit by avoiding even attempting to work within the current system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
It goes more to Europe. The discovery of latin-american poets starts with Ruben Dario, goes to Neruda and Borges and they were "discovered" by europeans, not americans (which are more influential on building). It was kind off politics: the latin-america was an alternative. Some form of counter-culture. Even the brazilians writers were europeans "discoveries" (the musicians no).
Now, I must point that saying South Americans makes as much sense as Saying europe. Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil are not the same place, same culture, same tradition, etc. Argentina has to deal with Borges, Brazil to deal with portuguese lack of translation (Portuguese hasnt been discovered yet), etc.
There is a Brazilian alive that has good chance to last, Ariano Suassuna, but likes Marquez, he is already an old name, so he kind of fighting against time already.
Perhaps I didn't explain very clearly. All those you mentioned are of course classics, but I meant the most famous classics everyone knows of, including 10-year-old children and those who don't in general like or know much about classics. For some reason the most famous ones seem to be Victorian ...Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Your take on censorship breeding creativity is interesting. Actually come to think of it, the present emphasis on sexuality seems to be causing things like the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Which can be rather boring. On the other hand, it's hard not to wonder whether the current emphasis on realism and minimalism may be breaking a lot of fiction writers. You can't write in too many fantasic Dickension characters, or even weird coincidental plots or raging Heathcliffs (for example). But a lot of plot liberties can be taken in fantasy. Do you think that's why fantasy seems to be very popular?
Just read something about Fantasy on Manners. Apparently it's a fantasy take with elements of Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. Maybe it might even become the new literature...
If you really consider Victorean period, you have great fantasy writers in the end of her domain. Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, H.G.Wells, Kipling, Tennyson, Browning, Oscar Wilde... The anti-realism take seems more a matter on Russian/french fiction than english, they quickly solved it, I would say, humor solved the matter there.
You must recall, Jane Austen was a reader of gothic novels, she kind of use elements of it there. I do not know what you mean by fantasy being popular or not, but i would say it is because realism is trully impossible, and fantasy is necessary as resource in literature. However, the emphasis in realism is an american take in, most due to conventional book market and fantasy goes as classified as children... again, market.
Well, naturalism, or realism if you will has never faded as a tradition - look at something like Cormac McCarthy's works, for instance, as a prime example. Fantasy as you define it, is dependent on a great deal of sincerity, it's hard to shake the realism, as the term Magical Realism would dictate, it pretty much brings fantastical elements and reconstructs them as metaphors since realism cannot be compromised, the difference of its bastard cousin fantasy is that the vision itself takes itself sincerely as a vision not reflecting reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
I'm gone for a couple days and look at what I miss? A gold ol' StLukes vs. JBI battle. Will catch up on it tomorrow.
Yep. Though I think StLukes was probably just playing devil's advocate to me devil's advocate. Or alcohol was clouding his sarcasm detector.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Watching them debating each other and bringing up things of which I haven't a clue makes me feel like the runt with two left feet who gets relegated to the side-lines while the tall talented kids dribble about and dunk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Perhaps I didn't explain very clearly. All those you mentioned are of course classics, but I meant the most famous classics everyone knows of, including 10-year-old children and those who don't in general like or know much about classics. For some reason the most famous ones seem to be Victorian ...
Well Dickens seems to be embraced as THE English novelist... and there are other great Victorian-era authors such as the Brontė sisters, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, Lewis Carroll, William Wilkie Collins, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and Edward Lear... but then again I think Jane Austen is nearly as popular in many circles as Dickens... and she is pre-Victorian. The same is true of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And you might also recognize that the obsession with 19th century English novels may not carry over outside of England to the same extent. Indeed, even within Britain, when you turn to poetry it is the Romantics, not the Victorians, who are the more dominant voice.
Your take on censorship breeding creativity is interesting. Actually come to think of it, the present emphasis on sexuality seems to be causing things like the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Which can be rather boring.
The old blues and jazz and early rock n roll singers were quite often far more creative in terms of symbolic language, double entendre, etc... because they couldn't come out and use every profane word or pornographic image. The eroticism of Paul Verlaine's early poetry is exquisite in its use of delicate turns of phrase and the slightest suggestiveness. His later poems in which he no longer censors himself are vulgar, crude, and bland.
On the other hand, it's hard not to wonder whether the current emphasis on realism and minimalism may be breaking a lot of fiction writers. You can't write in too many fantasic Dickension characters, or even weird coincidental plots or raging Heathcliffs (for example). But a lot of plot liberties can be taken in fantasy. Do you think that's why fantasy seems to be very popular?
Again, I think that as usual the great innovations in the arts eventually become institutionalized and fossilized. The next generation of artists can fight against their preconceptions head on... or obliquely. If you look at the Victorian era, some of the most innovative writing is to be found in genre that many in academia and the institutions would not have taken seriously: ghost stories and horror (Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Poe, Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, Gautier etc...) "children's literature" and fantasy (Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Poe, Hans Christian Anderson, E.T. A. Hoffmann, etc...) and science fiction (H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, etc...).
In the 1950s, science fiction films became the genre through which many film-makers and writers were best able to make a social commentary about the state of political affairs at the height of McCarthyism.
It is quite possible that these "minor genre" may become or continue to be a major venue through which writers will push against the limitations presented in the more mainstream approach to "serious literature". J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, a good deal of the "Magic Realists" of Latin-America have already absorbed ideas from the more fantastic traditions of fiction. Of course mainstream fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc... have their own limitations as well.
I see an analogous situation occurring within the visual arts. After a half-century of longer dominance of the traditions of painting and sculpture by academia, a few major universities, and a slew of pretentious critics, many artists are turning their back on this "art world" and returning to what they loved as children... painting and drawing things... from "low" or "high culture"... as a result one of the most influential movements right now is the self-named "lowbrow art" movement:
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Many... myself included... suspect that there is far more innovation... sheer invention... and audacity to be found in the work of these artists who have spent their lives embracing the whole of the visual world around them... the works of the "old masters"... as well as the the works of popular culture: TV, film, photography, rock n roll, jazz, pin-ups, advertising, pornography, etc... than many of the young twits clutching Yale degrees and capable of quoting Derrida and Foucault... but lacking so much as the ability to tell which end of the brush is up. As the English art critic, Matthew Collings pointed out, there is far more sheer visual splendor to be found in architecture and even advertising than there is is a lot of what passes as the "art of our time."
Awwwww damn, StLuke's breaking out the pics. Things just got real.I've always felt that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I don't get the arguement than genre limits artistic expression. Why is this?
Just so you know, Derrida and Foucault are already a thing of the past. Theory has been dead or on its last breath for at least 5 years in the top American universities at least. The return to Aesthetics has already begun, and close reading will be making a comeback in the process.
Really the people who quote theory widely are just the least self-assure of the bunch.
Just so you know, Derrida and Foucault are already a thing of the past. Theory has been dead or on its last breath for at least 5 years in the top American universities at least. The return to Aesthetics has already begun, and close reading will be making a comeback in the process.
Really the people who quote theory widely are just the least self-assure of the bunch.
You are speaking from the POV of literary criticism. I have no idea of the approach taken in creative writing courses. In the visual arts theory and criticism have supplanted aesthetics for quite some time... probably since Clement Greenberg... who ironically was a sworn formalist... focused upon aesthetics. The shift in the visual arts owes much to the fact that academia is biased toward the word. It is far easier to ramble on for pages about theory, narrative, political and social ramifications, etc... You don't even need an eye for what looks good. There has been a shift away from the dominant theory-based criticism of the New York/Yale "Art World" as well for probably 10 years or so as well. Some of this involves a reactionary shift toward the old master traditions involving a return to the ateliers etc... frequently termed New Old Masterism. At the other end of the spectrum is Pop Surrealism or "Lowbrow Art" which embraces the visual stimuli drawn from popular sources. Some of the strongest artists draw from both end of this spectrum.
Well, I would say realism can be used as two different approaches on literature, even if very similar. One is the aesthetical movement lead by guys like Flaubert and Tchekhov, which had a bit of social critic on them. Like all aesthetical movement it was never true enough to end or have a real begining, as Ortega y Gasset would point the extreme realism of Dom Quixote.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Then you have realism, as you say, style. And I think for example, this is not genre. Science Fiction norms is usually very realistic, Tolkien, J.K.Rowling, Stephen King or Robert Howard are fantasy writers that were very realistic approach.
On the first realism, you have the influence of journalism, which demands the audience to read in conformity with their daily work. The author would not bound the rules to change anything and this is the realism most usual on editoral market, it is a basic rulle of average. The audience does not want to be surprised by cowboy who crosses the mexican-texan border and sundenly goes flying. It is ok if he thinks he can comunicated with a wolf, because it is normal, people dailly think they can comunicated with animals. This is very american, as american novels were born like this (Hawthorne, Melville, Twain) and it favour "historical fiction", "biographies', etc.
Fantasy in other hand has suffered a lot with this realism, where mundane, normal occurences were norms and fantasy styles were developed to respect te scientifism of XIX century. The "genres" are but this. Science Fiction, Horror, Political, etc. borrowed the genre to produce a realistic acceptable "fantasy'. And the traditional fantasy entered in the faery tale label, with pedagogical use and move to children field. No wonder it is almost a minor genre such as short story where Borges had to break the magical realism, he would hardly have this freedom on novels, that when they are fantastic, are major experimental works like Finnegans Wake or "south-sea adventures" like Conrad, Stevenson... Language itself have to became fantasy, the supernatural is doubtful like in Thomas Mann Doktor Faust or Guimaraes Rosa The Devil to pay in the backlands which are basically the old devil buy your soul stories, disguised by an unrealiable narrator or gimmicks of language to mimicry orality.
But truthlly fantasy was never at risk, the idea of showing only the daily life of novels lost its strength, no more Balzacs to carry it on, it is mostly a editorial genre now. Guys like MacCarty will use the narrative, even if realistic, to scape from journalism and we never had a literature period when the fantasy was not countering it, even Dickens, Flaubert, James, Tolstoy, etc have fantastic stories.
As Literary Criticism i would say it is dead simple because as literary genre they were minor, not inotivative and limited. As pretencious scientifism they failled to add anything beyond the what the writers already showed in their essays. It is a minor genre, perhaps even minor than pulp-fiction.
What evidence do you have for that?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
As far as I know there are plenty of new books being published about Foucault and Derrida. I just checked the courses being offered at three Ivy Leagues (Harvard, Yale, and Stanford). Only Harvard lacked any identifiable theory course. Meanwhile, both Yale and Stanford had a handful of theory courses they were offering.
Just a general trend I had been noticing. That these authors are still studied does not prove anything - as of now, they are moving toward Museumification. We still study Dickens, but his genre of novel has since expired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
The theoretical textual tradition seems to have dried up. Even that annoying brat Terry Eagleton has admitted as much, and published on it. The gimmick may still be discussed, but the glory days are long past, in current academic thought other traditions seem to be taking over.
Namely, the environment is beginning to be a topic of discussion, likewise, things like Darwinism, new aesthetics, and various other subshoots. The whole Post-Modernity thing, and with it the theoretical tradition seems to be out of the cutting line, despite having resonance. Ph. D.s looking for tenure track positions will be reliant on new skills for a new environment.
My friends who study politics have interestingly reported an upsurge of what they call Modernist theory and scholarship that has come in to replace much of the traditional post-modern theoretical crap they were forced to read.
I do not mean that theory is ever going to fade - Deconstruction is one of the better forms of close reading that can be done - I merely meant the heavy theoretical stuff, all that French post-structuralist mumbo jumbo is now being pushed into a background and hushed up. Paul de Mann is no longer the God he once was in the academy, regardless of his Nazi bit. Even Derrida, though still resonant, is probably not going to be read much at all. The French heavy theorists? Perhaps a little, but we seem to have moved beyond them to new ways of reading texts, besides all that weird language of cyborg transvestites with leaking bodies.
Tbh, Derrida and Foucault were never dominant, and this for guys who try to approach with a scientific theory of shorts, will lead to museumfication. You can imagine somehow the return of lefty- marxism in politics may give them some new readings. They kind off did their effect and of course, in social sciences, mummies are like hollywood movies... they have several retuns.
Pardon me for saying this, but I think the Harry Potter series has definite makings of a classic. Other than that, we have The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Memory-Keeper's Daughter, and The Time-Traveler's Wife.
Oh, and pretty much every work of scifi.
Sorry but can you please explain to me what is so great about that book? I read it and thought it was OK but I would never say it would be a classic in years to come. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything just wondering why you think that.Quote:
Originally Posted by AjaxAscendant
Have you seen the book Tablet and Pen? http://www.amazon.com/Tablet-Pen-Lit.../dp/0393065855 Or did you have something different in mind?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Can you call my university and tell them and all my professors about this, because they seem to be under the impression that theory and authors from almost all theoretical periods deserve to be read and discussed. I'm sure once they hear you called, their re-work the whole curriculum. We are, after all, just a bunch of backward, theory quoting philistines.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Why does this not prove anything? I can't really think of anything that shows the contrary to your assertions than that they're still being studied.*Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Despite it still being widely studied, right?Quote:
The theoretical textual tradition seems to have dried up.
There are some things beyond pardon.Quote:
Originally Posted by AjaxAscendant
2666 it's a masterpiece I think students will study in universities in the future.
Haha, then you'll feel even worse once I tell you that JBI is only twenty years old.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
And after he's called your University, he can call the U.S. government leaders, European government leaders, Asian government leaders, etc., and oh-let's not forget Cuba, and tell them that in fact China is no longer a communist country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Plus I have a facebook pal who graduated with her Ph. D. that actually wrote her dissertation on cyborg transvestites with leaking bodies last year and now has a tenured position teaching literature. Granted it is a community college and not an Ivy League, but still . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Really, JBI you are but one year older than me ? Wow, I am impressed with the range of your literary reading is such a case.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
I didn't see it, and it didn't pop up. Now that I have seen it, I am very pleased, and will no doubt look for it in my library tomorrow. This is pleasing, oh so pleasing, though what is included?Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
As for ancient works though? what substantial editions should I turn to, particularly for poetry, with good commentary mind you. The books I found on the shelves are hit and miss, and though the collection seems large, the university's departments seem lacking in research and information as to what to read.
Could you perhaps point me in a direction in private message or on here if you do not mind?
Nearly 22 actually but that is inconsequential. It's the size of the ego not the age of the ego that counts.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
That wasn't my point. My point was not that these texts were being read still, the same way Northrop Frye is still read, it is just that the tradition has moved into museum, and the age of theory is dead.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
The debates and issues of theory are no longer the foreground on the field, other issues beyond the post-structuralist deconstructionist issues of hermeneutics and implications are foreground. That isn't to say that they have died, but merely look at the publication date of most of the major works of theoretical writing. How many are new, current, innovative and original? I bet most of the textual tradition is from 20-30 years ago, and perhaps influenced by works older than them. Even the theory writers to an extent have changed in style.
I mean Eagleton himself published After Theory in 2003, we are going on 9 years and what has changed since then? I think the fact that theory is taught the way it is a great sign of its current death and movement into a genre for study. The use of it is still present, if a little bit flamboyant in delivery (it is hard to be taken seriously while taking intensely theoretical stuff too seriously and trying to apply it after all) but the tradition of theory itself seems to have evaporated in favor of other concerns.
:lol: Well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Honestly, I take solace in the age of JBI. Sometimes I forget he's younger than me when starts on about something, and then I feel silly for making smartass comments to a youngin.
In such a case this is essentialy a forum for pensioners.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I didn't know you were a pensioner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
I agree. His short story collection Last Evenings on Earth left me in awe as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregory Samsa
You kill comedy by explaining it, but I must it appearsQuote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
JBI said, it is not the age which counts but the size of the ego, sarcasticaly
Therefore if the size of the ego detrmines the age, we all have big egos and thus the wisdom of pensioners I said sarcasticaly
Haruki Murakami with novels like Norwegian Wood and After Dark. They are very cosmopolitan in content, and have a creeping but sure cultish following.
I do not read alot of fiction, but he stands out.