Literature has no more value than Mills & Boon

Excellent and impassioned arguments both from JBI and JCamilo, but maybe we should keep an eye on needlessly raising our blood pressure. Atheist may have a big heart, indeed, I thought he and I would get along even though he made some errors about what I do as a freelance writer. I let these things glide, as, after all, not every poster can understand the intricacies of actually publishing, but it seems obvious to me that Atheist is indifferent to literature and fine arts, and his indifference is thereby a springboard for his imposition, nay, insistence, that discrimination in this area is meaningless, and no amount of knowledge or training, or example on our part will change that. To me it is a foolhardy, and in some ways, extremely sad position to hold, and is contradicted even in his enthusiasm for Orwell's works, as his love of Orwell is not valueless to him, else he wouldn't participate in the Orwell thread. Orwell's work, therefore, is more important than Orwell's forgotten contemporaries. I do not see how he gets around that argument, nor any others you and JBI countered.

To add somewhat more force here, it is perfectly fine to be indifferent. I am indifferent to some individual artists, as any of us may be. I fail to see the enthusiasm for boxing, but I respect the experts who treat it and discuss it as a sport, with both ancient and modern traditions. I am puzzled as to why fans riot at soccer matches--but I do not beat my chest and say that sports have no intrinsic value.

Ridiculous is right.

I have no personal feelings towards Atheist, polemics are polemics and that is fine. I just think he see no poetry on language, as you put, and thus his view. A Mistake, but I not enough to to bring weapons for a duel instead of food and good wine.

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Please remember that we are here to discuss various opinions and comments, not the members themselves and refrain from personalising your comments.
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Originally Posted by JBI

What, because someone gets payed, they are wrong? OK, so don't trust your mechanic, or your Doctor - he gets paid to diagnose.

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Same mistake again. Doctors and mechanics are a poor analogy for your case, because the things they learn are physical and demonstrable. A mechanic is trained to know that if you put water in the oil filler, you will destroy your motor, just as a doctor knows not to prescribe aspirin to haemophiliacs.

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Originally Posted by Jozanny

....and is contradicted even in his enthusiasm for Orwell's works, as his love of Orwell is not valueless to him, else he wouldn't participate in the Orwell thread. Orwell's work, therefore, is more important than Orwell's forgotten contemporaries.

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Glad you raised this point again, as I have now made it numerous times - that I'm quite happy to subjectively make my own list of worthwhile literature, but that's as it applies to me. Why on earth does this point keep getting missed?

No matter, as JBI said, it's not a subject worth swords at dawn.

Pencils at midday, maybe? First to complete a page? I'll choose dirty limericks as my method.

:D

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Glad you raised this point again, as I have now made it numerous times - that I'm quite happy to subjectively make my own list of worthwhile literature, but that's as it applies to me. Why on earth does this point keep getting missed?

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It isn't all that subjective if Orwell has the degree of recognition that he does for the power of his ideas. I don't get your argument, and don't really believe you're making a sound one. All I hear coming out of this is that you are indifferent to meritocracy. Is this the case? And if it is, what then?

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Same mistake again. Doctors and mechanics are a poor analogy for your case, because the things they learn are physical and demonstrable. A mechanic is trained to know that if you put water in the oil filler, you will destroy your motor, just as a doctor knows not to prescribe aspirin to haemophiliacs.

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JBI claimed that a well-read reader with strong literary training will be able to notice (and therefore) enjoy things in literature that others might miss. These "things" are real and physical. A sprung rhythm in Hopkins, the use of Terza rima in Dante as a reflection of the Trinity - these are very real, tangible effects that can be discussed and looked at. A reader with strong literary training has something else to enjoy in Hamlet's soliloquy's than just the pathos of his speech - we can look at allusion, metre, recurring metaphor, etc. all of these being physical things.

So aside from the "utilitarian" effects - how does a doctor examining and diagnosing tuberculous differ from a literary critic examining and analyzing a spondee in a line of blank verse?

Oh. Meritocracy is applicable to the hard sciences, but not to the humanities or aesthetics. It doesn't hold up.

Have fun with this all. I stop here.

Honestly, it's quite simple. Shakespeare was learned in the rhetorical schemes and tropes of Quintillian, therefore one who wants to understand Shakespeare in depth must be somewhat familiar with them as well. I see no problem suggesting that people more familiar with something, and are used to taking things apart can tell you something more about the whole then some kid who just read Harry Potter, the first actual novel he has read, as is going crazy.

A bit of what you suggest can be found in Umberto Eco categories of readers. There is intertextual complexity.
But I would also point that poetry language is not finding the most straightfoward way to tell something - as it is journalism - so there is already an addition of textual complexity.
Also, there is Dante four levels of meaning, when the writer add complexity of significance.
Plus, there is costume. People do not write epics like Homer, we are not going to find in the best seller lists anyone trying it (or even among high level intelectuals, when it happens it is under a diguise, or something similar to Nabokov Pale fire - not exactly like homer anyways. I may be wrong but I am certain that Chesterton pun about the contents of his pockets and the age of epic poetry being long gone to be correct) to use the formula (because it is a formula). We have the best-seller formula, a plot, split in chapters, a final twist, linearity, etc, this means the public is used with a system of organization - to meet many poetic formulas or even a dramatic text - is a factor of difficulty. Even some prose workers, that end with normal chronology such as Faulkner will be harder than a sequencial plot.
Finally we have guys using a highly complicated vocabulary, such as Joyce's Finnegans and Guimarães Rosa's Grande Sertoes. Anyone remotely suggesting it is a easy to read those guys as reading Agatha Christie is a genius.(Not in ironic way, a genius while cracking up codes and dealing with idioms)

Meritocracy? Elitism? It's absurd to think all texts have equal value. But it doesn't matter much that they don't. Lots of my friends (Most of them actually) do not read at all, read only religious texts or have read no significant literature since school. That takes nothing away from the superiority of "Moby Dick" to "Litle Nell's Adventures in Hollywood"

Mills and Boon novels are written solely for money, to support hacks trying to write proper books. Not all literature is like that.

Writing solely for money is not a criticism. I've built walls, built scaffolding, ploughed fields, made lobster creels etc etc solely for money and feel no shame. But then me, I'm shameless.