We Need A Revolution In Literature!

Whoops, sorry about that Darcy. Gender noted. :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The goal of writing should not be to sell books, but to write the most innovative and exciting literature imaginable.

According to whom? Artists must pay their rent and utilities as much as anyone else.

Look at all the endless varieties of music! It almost seems that there are as many kinds of music as there are drops of water in the ocean!

What a different story when you go to the bookstore! In the literature section of the bookstore you will find only novels, short stories, and poetry.

Hmmmm... last time I went to a book store I found Novels, Short Stories, Epic Poetry, narrative Poetry, Lyrical Poetry, Philosophy, Theology, Art Criticism, Literary Criticism, Biographies, Histories, Travelogues, Romances, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Essays, Pornography, Children's Books, and I could go on and on. It seems that either your bookstore sucks or you don't know half as much about literature as you would have people think.

It’s fine to write novels, short stories, and poetry – but why not invent new forms of literature as well?

Again, it seems that you have little real experience with what varieties of literature are available. Baudelaire, Rimbaud and on through W.S. Merwin have been playing with varieties of "prose poetry". J.L. Borges made a career of blurring the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, science fiction and philosophy, the short story and literary criticism, etc... There are plenty of writers who have pushed the capabilities of the book and various literary forms, but since when has pushing the boundaries or inventing new art forms been the central goal of art and the artist?

One of the reasons literature is so limited is that it is still shackled to the major publishing conglomerates and the universities.

Oh... and the visual arts and music are not equally "shackled" by those institutions that control the flow of money? When has this never been so? When, in you fantasy world, do you imagine that artists will not be beholding to those with the money?

Publishing houses have one and only one purpose: to make money. They are hostile to innovation in literature, because publishing innovative literature involves risk.

Hmmm... and yet they continue to churn out books by Anne Carson and Geoffrey Hill and other poets who cannot begin to make money on the level of the best-sellers. They continue to publish new translations of the Shanameh and Beowulf because of the mass audience for those works?

Contemporary literature of quality needs a home – and that home is not and cannot be the publishing conglomerates – because today’s publishing conglomerates are only concerned with money.

You haven't learned the first reality of art, have you? Art follows money. Artists need money as well as anyone else and the arts have always thrived where there has been a strong financial support for the endeavors of the artists.

By a young age Picasso had assimilated the “masters” of the past – and he went on to create new brazen works of art – he departed from the past – and created wonderful CONTEMPORARY masterpieces.

And what is your point? Don't start citing Picasso unless you think you know enough about him and his artistic development to engage in a real discussion. Picasso in no way rejected the art of the past. Of all the artists of the century he was the one probably the most indebted to the existence of the modern museums. Picasso, like any talented artist, developed his own unique voice. As with many of his Modernist peers he developed a language that was quite different from his immediate predecessors. He did not do so in order to be innovative... he did so because he recognized that the time he lived in demanded a different visual language from that he had inherited from his immediate predecessors. This language, however was quite definitely built upon the achievements of his predecessors.

Mozart also mastered traditional styles of classical music – and he went on to create music that at his time was INNOVATIVE.

What are the "traditional styles of classical music"? If you know so much about classical music you will know that the composers a generation or two before Mozart were working at the height of the Baroque era. By the mid-1750's the shift was underway toward "classicism"... less display of virtuosity, a clarity of form, balance, elegance, and an avoidance of extremes of emotion. Mozart inherited a style already fully developed by J.S. Bach's sons, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Johann Christian Bach, as well as Joseph and Michael Haydn, Baldassare Galuppi, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Christoph Willibald Gluck, etc... Mozart has never been deemed as a great innovator, such as Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky, but rather as a composer who took existing forms to the highest level within the language of the classical era. Great art is not always about innovation. J.S. Bach (perhaps the most important figure in Western classical music) was not a great innovator. Neither was Johannes Brahms or Richard Strauss, and yet all remain central figures of classical music.

Hence, the truly great masters of the recent past – in music (Stravinsky, Mahler), painting (Dali, etc.), sculpture (Rodin) – produced great works that were INNOVATIVE and hence FRESH and EXCITING.

Yet Mahler was deeply rooted in the music of Wagner while Rodin owed much to Michelangelo, Donatello, and even Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Brahms was quite likely one of the most conservative composers of the late 19th century, firmly rooted in the music of Beethoven and rejecting all the innovations wrought by Wagner... and yet Brahms' achievements equal or surpass those of any composer of the era. Again, innovation is not the sole measure of art.

In contrast, those that worship the past tend to produce works that are stale and flat.

That's true... but only in the sense that 95%+ of all art is mediocre at best, and so the majority of those firmly rooted in tradition achieve little of any worth... but then again the majority of those iconoclasts who rush headlong into the "new" achieve little more than novelties that are soon dated and rightfully forgotten.

There are those that argue that first you must learn tradition to be a great writer. By all means I agree you should read as much “great” literature as possible – both traditional and contemporary. But then some of these same people will go on to say “learn the rules before you break them.”

Most art schools, creative writing departments, and departments of composition push contemporary works of art and contemporary ideas as much as they push the traditional... indeed, probably moreso.

Forget learning the rules unless you plan to write a conventional essay or a guide to used car repair. In creative literature go ahead and unshackle yourself from all rules! SMASH any and all rules with a sledgehammer, a wrecking ball, or better yet with a pen or a paintbrush! Works of literature, music, painting, etc, should obey no conventional rules whatsoever. If you feel the urge to have rules invent your own! Look at Schoenberg’s 12 tone scale!

You really don't understand art, do you? All of these great innovators you speak of had the greatest understanding, respects, and profound love of the achievements of their predecessors. Any art school... any creative writing department is full of sophomoric iconoclasts who can rant about revolutions is the arts with the best of them... but will never achieve the least thing of merit for the simple reason that the great innovations in the arts have never been wrought by iconoclasts ignorant and disrespectful of art, but rather by those artists with the deepest love and understanding of the artistic tradition they have inherited. Schoenberg was fully aware of the tradition of classical music... to the point that he could write the most masterful music in the Romantic style he inherited at a young age. His innovations were structured greatly upon the achievements of Wagner and Mahler and Debussy stretching the possibilities of chromaticism. He was also deeply indebted to Brahms' chamber works. Schoenberg simply took these to the logical conclusion... creating a music that conveyed the manner in which the old order was fragmenting in the same way that Cubism and T.S. Eliot's fragments conveyed such. His goal was continue the Austro-Germanic tradition of classical music... not to destroy it.

Let’s take grammar for example. Obeying the rules of grammar is fine if you’re writing a conventional essay or a manual about car repair. However, when you’re writing creative literature you should write as freely as possible – without rules.

Why? When you break the traditional rules you are forcing the audience to go outside the inherited artistic language. The question become: "To what purpose?" Breaking the rules simply for the sake of breaking the rules results in little more than meaningless novelty.

Certainly, if the reader is lazy, ignorant, or simply close-minded he may choose not to apply himself to any literature that is different than what he is used to. Such a person may be more comfortable reading an airport novel or one of the works of the past “greats”.

This has been the argument of those who have embraced the extremes of the avant-garde for nearly a century: it is all the audience's fault. They're lazy, ignorant, and stupid... unlike myself, the genius visionary artist. It makes for a great defense mechanism... if your art is rejected it is because the audience is too moronic to recognize a profound artistic prophet.

At times, such a person may have an advanced degree and consider themselves highly cultured and learned, but all those years reading literature that is conventional can make it harder for that person’s brain to concentrate on and grasp anything that’s written in a new and innovative manner.

My God! We got an answer for everything. If the masses don't like your work, it's because they are but idiots and bumpkins. If the critics, and academics, and others educated in literature don't like your writing, it's because they have become so accustomed to the "conventional" (and what exactly is the "conventional" in literature?) and so they are blind to your genius. You can't lose.

There are people who look at a Jackson Pollock canvas and say, “My five year old can do a better job than that.” Of course, such people are ignorant of art. Instead of studying art (which they don’t) they take their prejudices (which are pro-representational and pro-realism) and from a position of ignorance and prejudice they proclaim everything that doesn’t conform to their ignorant and prejudiced misconceptions of art to be bad. In the world of literature it is even worse. Those who are ignorant, prejudiced, and close-minded stand in judgment of what is “good literature”.

Everyone comes to art carrying a degree of ignorance and bias. Art employs a language and a vocabulary that must be learned prior to our understanding it. The artist who intentionally breaks outside of the boundaries of the inherited artistic tradition... the inherited language and vocabulary of a given culture recognizes that this will result in making his or her work more challenging and less accessible. To do so without purpose is merely pretentious.

Should the writer create works of “literature” easily accessible to even the most ignorant and close-minded of readers? Sure, if he wants to make money or be accepted by the conservative world of academia.

But of course you are above making money... unlike virtually every artist in the whole of history.

Frankly, I am rather disappointed with English literature and have ironically found greater inspiration for my writing outside of literature in the other arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, music, modern dance, postmodern theater, etc.). Many of the past “greats” that are in the canon of English literature are not so “great” at all.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about your opinions. You have not proven yourself with regards to your critical acumen to an extent that I could take your criticism seriously, and you certainly haven't proven your own writing ability as worthy of standing alongside any of the "greats" that you are so quick to dismiss. Indeed, without getting into specifics, you are but making broad sweeping generalizations that have no value whatsoever.

Many of the “great works” of English literature in the canon were written by “gentleman” with disposable income. Not all of them were talented or had much to say. Is a writer/poet’s work “great” just because it’s included in the Norton Anthology and the professor taught it in your literature 101 class?

Again, meaningless generalizations: Many of the "great works" were written by rich guys. They can't have had anything worth saying, can they?

Of course, some “great” works of the past are better than others. Some of these gentleman of leisure in the canon had talent – in addition to the work ethic necessary to produce great literature – but not all of them.

Many... some... more meaningless generalizations. Anyone can play at this game: "The majority of modern poetry is boring". Who are the "majority"? Why are they boring... and to whom?

Literature has not even begun to reach its potential. In fact, literature will not even begin to reach its potential until all of humanity has ample food in its stomach and plenty of free time.

Spoken like a true prophet. We all eagerly await this glowing future in which poverty and hunger (and undoubtedly warfare and violence and disease) have all been eradicated and we are all basking of the glow of an infinity of artistic genius.

The seed of talent falls where it may. Most of those who have disposable income without having to work for it and thus have plenty of free time to write are inborn, have little or no work ethic, and are of mediocre abilities – like the president of my country George Bush. Besides, the outlook of the leisure class is often conservative, so it would not occur to them to write literature that is innovative.

More generalities and stereotypes. I won't even waste my time going into composers, artists, and writers who were born wealthy... let alone those who became wealthy through their own efforts and yet continued to create. But doesn't this entire thought go against your earlier notion that real art isn't the product of a desire to make money? By this standard might we not say that those rich guys who didn't need to work... and didn't need to write to make money... approached their writing from a higher ethical position?

Most people are so engaged in the struggle for survival that they do not have the time to create innovative literature. When humanity is freed from its bondage to an economic system that benefits only a privileged few than a shorter workweek for all will make it possible for more people to create great works of literature, painting, sculpture, etc.

In a different kind of economy huge amounts of money will not be wasted on maintaining a class of worthless bourgeois bums

God! What pretension! The middle-class are all but bums... unlike the artistic genius such as yourself who contributes so much to society... by... by... staring at your navel?

With more money available culture, literature, and the arts would flourish more than ever – because we could improve the quality of education – including teaching more art in the schools – and offering free higher education to all. In such a society, we could also give a modest living stipend to writers and artists. And since more diverse parts of humanity would be free to create great literature – instead of just a small privileged leisure class – literature will have more variety and innovation than ever.

I gotta find out just what you've been drinking.

Thus freed from their chains to market forces and academia writers would be free to create a new innovative literature. A general population with a reduced workweek would have more time to read a new revolutionary literature that’s constantly changing and evolving.

Yep... I really gotta find out what you've been drinking.

Hence, human civilization is constantly evolving, and as civilization evolves so will literature. And just as human civilization has not even begun to reach its full potential, so the same is true for literature and the other arts.

Art changes as the artists respond to the world in which they live. Art does not get better or worse. Certainly there are periods and cultures... even cities that have produced more works of artistic genius than others but art is not like science in the manner that the least medical student today knows more about disease and its treatment than the greatest doctors of the 1500s. Perhaps if art never changed... if the goals and standards remained ever stagnant, then we might expect later generations to build upon the achievements of earlier... and surpass them. But such is not the reality. Art, as you suggest, is ever changing and artist will forever struggle in attempting to come to terms with the world and the artistic traditions they have inherited.

The best contemporary writers of creative literature – those who write today and will be read a hundred two hundred a thousand years from now – will not be those who copy the past but instead those who CONTRIBUTE to the DEVELOPMENT of literature. The writers who will be read a thousand years from now will be those who helped literature to advance.

Again... the goal is not the development of art. Painters don't sit about pondering how they might contribute to the development of painting. Painting... art... develops as artists respond to the world they live in. Some will dig deeper into the traditions they have inherited, others will turn the traditions on their heads in order to best convey what it is they have to express.

Traditionalists will argue that it is preferable and natural that literature remain the most backward and conservative medium of the art world. (Compare literature’s snail-like advancement to the great innovations in painting, sculpture, and the other arts since the beginning of modernism in the late 19th Century.) However, there is nothing positive about literature’s relative backwardness compared to the other arts. Even classical music in the past 120 years has left the literary world behind in innovation, boldness, and creativity! How pathetic!

Your comparison is simply sad because all it does is suggest little grasp of the very real achievements of literature, and very little grasp of just how rooted in the whole of the tradition of painting and classical music modern and contemporary painting and music remain.

Look – the reason that literature is so backward compared to the other arts can be explained by several simple reasons. The first is money. For a writer to make enough money to support himself comfortably he has to sell A LOT of books. A painter, on the other hand, needs only a few appreciative buyers to support himself.

Please! Stop now, before you make yourself look more and more foolish. What do you know of the costs incurred by a painter? What do I need to be a poet? A pencil and a notebook... perhaps a computer in the corner of a tiny apartment somewhere. How much does it cost to rent the studio space and pay for the utilities needed in order to have a place to paint? How much do canvases and stretchers coast? Of course I can get around these costs if I have a woodshop and the proper tools. But still the wood and canvas and primer add up. And how expensive is oil paint? Go price some cadmium red on the internet. And what of frames? And then all I gotta do is sell the work... but how do I meet those wealthy patrons who can afford to buy a painting... and how much do I actually need to sell in order to make anything approaching a decent income from a day job?

Thus, it is easier for the painter to paint whatever he wants. The painter may have to deal with galleries – but he doesn’t have to deal with publishing corporations.

The galleries ARE the same as the publishing houses. They are there to make money. They only show that which they believe they have an audience for. In return for connecting the artist with the buyer the galleries take between 30%-50% of the market price.

The painter doesn’t have to consider entertaining a large reading audience primarily looking for cheap entertainment like the writer does.

No... the visual artist must entertain the wealthy collector. Some are looking for something to communicate their wealth and stability. Others are looking for something that communicates their willingness to take chances. Still others are but bored and looking for something that shocks... for but a moment. A very few have a real eye for art.

Another conservatising influence (yes I probably just made up a word – good! We writers should make up words more often) – another conservatising influence on the literary world is the whole prestige game. You get your work in certain prestigious “literary” magazines, get nominated for certain prestigious “literary” awards, etc. – and suddenly you’re considered a “great” writer/poet.

How does this differ from any other art form? If I am given a one-man show at certain prestigious galleries I will certainly be taken seriously by the art press and art collectors. If I am able to demand a certain price and I can get into the museums, my reputation is certainly assured (for at least my lifetime). If the Berlin Philharmonic performs my composition, I will suddenly be in demand. If I am recorded on Deutsche Gramophone with the London Philharmonic, I will assuredly be recognized as a leading figure in music.

The pages of many (not all) of the most prestigious literary magazines are filled with excrement masquerading as great literature that doesn’t even qualify as mediocre – it’s just plain bad, conservative, and bland.

And...? The art galleries are filled with equally excretory works as are the concerts of contemporary classical music.

The same is true for many “literary” awards. An “avant-garde” poet received a very large monetary award recently. I won’t name him here – but his work was so conservative, so dull, so devoid of innovation, so much like a zillion other poems you see everywhere that I don’t see how his poetry could be considered “avant-garde”. I guess for the people giving out the prestigious awards and the money anything that doesn’t rhyme is considered “avant-garde”.

Again with the generalities. By not naming this poet your complaint is meaningless and comes off as nothing more or less than petty envy.

It would be a great day for literature if all writers and poets started using the pages of the prestigious literary magazines as toilet paper. We don’t need the editors of the prestigious “literary” magazines to showcase great literature because they don’t even know what literature is – let alone great literature. The same can be said of those who give out prestigious “literary” awards – but maybe I shouldn’t say that – sometimes they actually give money to people who write good poetry!

More generalities and petty envy.

With the technology print-on-demand books that are not commercial can now be made available to the general public. For the first time ever the general public can purchase and read all kinds of works of literature that were never available before.

Technology is changing the game in how literature, music, film, and art are marketed. There is no profound revelation there. Most artists recognize this and struggle with trying to come to terms with the new technologies. The notion that this represents some Utopian future in which the artist will be in complete control of his or her endeavors is naive in the least.

Something you may want to ask yourself is – why do you write? Do you write to make money? Do you write for prestige and acclaim? Do you write with the opinions of others in mind? Or do you write because you have to create?

Gee! Thanks Wolf. I don't know what we would have done without you. I mean surely none of us who create works of art of any genre had even thought to ever sit down and ask ourselves just what our goals were.

If the reason that you write is that you have to create than money, prestige, and the opinions of others are all secondary. Creating innovative works of literature is probably not going to make you money or give you prestige and acclaim anytime soon. And like many others who were creative – like Gauguin, Mahler, Rodin, etc. – you will receive endless harsh attacks.

Gauguin did? I thought he was largely ignored and ended up dying in French Polynesia of a combination of syphilis, morphine, and a weak heart. Even then he was supported by the leading Parisian dealer, Ambroise Vollard. Mahler? His own music seems to have had responses. The public seems to have quite liked his music (to the point that by his death there had been over 260 performances of his symphonies across Europe and the US), but critics and many musicians and singers were resentful of his dictatorial conducting style which insisted on the highest standards. And Rodin? He struggled early on... as most artists do, but by mid-career he was awarded endless official and private commissions as well as awards and prizes. While still alive, his studio/home was officially converted into the Musée Rodin.

Let others make all the money from their airport novels, let others receive all the prestige and acclaim for their conventional banal “poetry”. Let others receive all the applause for their conservative traditional works written in “good taste”. Their work will wither into dust over time. A hundred years from now no one will be reading their novels, poems, and plays.

Nor will they be reading 95%+ of the stuff written by those aspiring to be "serious" writers revolutionizing literature. In the mean time, the artist/writer needs to pay rent and support his or her family.

Nearly everything ever painted, sculpted, or written in “good taste” later withered and died with time. “Good taste” is nothing more than what is in fashion at the time – and as time passes what was in “good taste” centuries ago becomes trivial.

Yesterday's "good taste" is today's "avant garde" and "shock art".

Many of the masters of the past in literature, painting, sculpture, and music were nothing less than innovators and revolutionaries in their time. Their work often caused controversy because they were not enslaved to tradition. They did not care about “good taste”. They could give a damn about the opinions of others.

Neither could they care the least about manifestos proscribing what art is... including your own.

Your force of will boggles me, especially considering that it was obvious after 2-3 paragraphs how much knowledge he has about the way art works, or indeed if he really cares about the truth (as opposed to the view he seems to be set in).

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

I have a lot of knowledge of art that I don't need to use as a show of flaws of anyone.

Well, you're not here for the purpose of not arguing, are you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

A man does not need a lot of knowledge of art to argue against a petition for postmodern art.

Yes, you're entitled to free speech, an opinion, blah blah. Unfortunately, opinions from "men with no knowledge of art" need not count for much to those who do. Such a petition is hardly likely to be taken seriously when it's so poorly informed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

And the man doesn't know that this is a world for the common man, who has little concern for things of the past or canons of the past.

Nah, not really. It's a world where distinction comes from abnormality. In any case, whilst you may have to contribute to "common society", I can't see why any such contribution needs to be made outside of the currently accepted types of language.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

Marketting is the fine arts of today and it doesn't attend to any elite or aristocracy that led to the situations prior to 1945.

So first you argue against marketing and then you try to argue for it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

Wolflarsen is only a little shortsighted

You must be having a laugh. :skep:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

as to the fact that the revolution he asks for has already happened and that modernism is already in a museum to never come back as canon. Not even the NeoThis or Neothat are coming back. Rennaissant modernism kicked the bucket.

Well, that kind of "revolution" happens all the time. Literature is dynamic. That doesn't quite conform to what WolfLarsen is asking for, i.e. a complete breakdown (rather than out-branching) of the structure of literature.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

The only danger in Wolflarsen words is that he praises individualism while it is no longer possible.

Nah, there's no danger to WolfLarsen's words. They're perfectly harmless, as nothing will ever come of them. Though I agree with this particular sentiment: individualism in the sense WolfLarsen calls for it cannot exist, and never could.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cafolini

The current is going more and more toward teamwork in every sphere.
Shakespeare to Venice, to cry nostalgia.

Actually, I don't understand your last line. It seems slightly irrelevant, especially when you include "Venice" in there. And no, whatever "the current" is doing in the financial world, art is still, and I cannot concieve any other situation, an individual sphere, but for the artists, not for the various commoners with grand ideas about how they could "deliver something new". Because people really don't like these new things. They like to see the old ones, furthered.

I can remember that in the dark ages of literature before the Internet you'd go to the bookstore and there would be a lot of commercial crap and also a lot of stuff in the canon that you had already read in high school and college and there would also be the prestigious literary magazines which really weren't very good. There wasn't much there in the sense of exciting innovative literature. It was certainly hard to find anyway. Sometimes there would be something exciting and innovative in one of these prestigious literary magazines, but most of the time it was just the same old conventional stuff.

So then I started looking at the less prestigious literary magazines, and frankly one of the best literary magazines I came across was something called **** Diary - I kid you not -that was the title! The writing in **** Diary was far more innovative and far better overall than the writing in the prestigious literary magazines, which of course I guess doesn't say much. But I was always overjoyed when a copy of **** Diary arrived in my mailbox. I love innovative literature!

And now we have the Internet. I think some of the other posters are right, the revolution has already started. We just might be entering the best period of literature in the history of man, at least up until now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WolfLarsen

I can remember that in the dark ages of literature before the Internet you'd go to the bookstore and there would be a lot of commercial crap and also a lot of stuff in the canon that you had already read in high school and college and there would also be the prestigious literary magazines which really weren't very good. There wasn't much there in the sense of exciting innovative literature. It was certainly hard to find anyway. Sometimes there would be something exciting and innovative in one of these prestigious literary magazines, but most of the time it was just the same old conventional stuff.

So then I started looking at the less prestigious literary magazines, and frankly one of the best literary magazines I came across was something called **** Diary - I kid you not -that was the title! The writing in **** Diary was far more innovative and far better overall than the writing in the prestigious literary magazines, which of course I guess doesn't say much. But I was always overjoyed when a copy of **** Diary arrived in my mailbox. I love innovative literature!

And now we have the Internet. I think some of the other posters are right, the revolution has already started. We just might be entering the best period of literature in the history of man, at least up until now.

Maybe. But that has nothing to do with your "revolution", but rather, to do with cross-cultural divides being dissolved away (leading to more people with the necessary mindset to become great literary figures). These people will not write "innovative" literature, but rather further the current type of literature in its own right. As for your idea that the writing in the aforementioned "**** Diary" was far more "innovative" than that of prestigious literary magazines, that's an opinion you can back up because you're using your own definition of "innovative", but to say that it's "far better writing" merely shows lack of good taste.

Perhaps you would be on the right lines concerning literary analysis. I don't like the way it's done in the modern world. But as for the literature itself, I can find nothing to criticize and I think by definition that there can be nothing to criticize.

Good evening Mr./Mrs. Aspirational.

Good taste should be smashed into pieces with a wrecking ball.

Innovation, creativity, and imagination! That's what we need more of in literature! The very problem with literature in the past is that there have been too many works of good taste. Good taste is usually conforming to the stale swamp of the status quo.

Today the Impressionists are considered to be artists of good taste, but back in their day the critics said otherwise. Pablo Picasso, particularly his revolutionary work The Women of Avignon, was criticized as being especially vulgar. Vulgar can be good! WE NEED MORE VULGAR IN LITERATURE!

Oh, did I use incorrect English?

I'm sorry, I just don't give an immaculate conception.

(Nothing personal.)

Oh, and happy new year Mr./Mrs. Aspirational!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by WolfLarsen

Good taste should be smashed into pieces with a wrecking ball...

...Oh, did I use incorrect English?
I'm sorry, I just don't give an immaculate conception.

This seems to sum up your mindset, Wolf. You're not really aiming to be innovative - you just want to rub our faces in the sh1t whilst pretending you're some pioneering spirit sent to save us all.

I will always defend your right to express your opinions and to write in any way you wish.
'Incorrect English' - did I miss something?
But that doesn't mean we have to agree that it's excellent writing when it's plainly not.

Happy 2012 to you also.

H

Plus, the story only shows the problem is how to search, not the absence of options. He just had to look somewhere else (as far it still show the prejudice, as hundred of stabilished canons are extremely inovatives when they came out, as far as libraries do not represent the canon...)...

And of course, the excess of information of internet probally only make things worst. But such is life.

Hilwalker's latest comment appears to try and skillfully turn the discussion away from a debate on literature to a personal attack on a fellow poster. It's interesting how his quote leaves out what I said about the Impressionists being considered crude by the critics of their day. Of course TODAY'S critics on the other hand would say that these works are in good taste. In other words "good taste" is merely the conservative bias of the status quo. And that is exactly why "good taste" does not matter. It is far more important to be creative and innovative. We need more creative and innovative literature! The more the better!

Notice how camilo brings the subject back to one of his major concerns: that we're arguing too much about the canon. Although he disagrees with me he does not attack me personally. Maybe some people can learn from him.

Oh, and best wishes for the new year too Hillwalker.

I'm not attacking you, Wolf. I'm attacking your methodology - poor taste isn't innovative when it's all been done before. Rabelais anyone - writing in the 16th century???

If what you are promoting was truly original then I'd applaud your attempts, but it isn't. Shock jocks tend to mask their lack of imagination by outrageous behaviour and language. I think you have more intelligence than to take such a dead-end path.

H

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R e m i n d e r

Please discuss the topic at hand, not each other.

Posts containing personal and/or inflammatory comments will be removed without further notice.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by hillwalker

I'm not attacking you, Wolf. I'm attacking your methodology - poor taste isn't innovative when it's all been done before. Rabelais anyone - writing in the 16th century???

If what you are promoting was truly original then I'd applaud your attempts, but it isn't. Shock jocks tend to mask their lack of imagination by outrageous behaviour and language. I think you have more intelligence than to take such a dead-end path.

H

Hill here the topic is not about innovativeness. It is all about resilience and variety. Wolf’s appeal is to take literature on a revolutionary track whereas you have chosen the old classic path. Maybe posterity wants something different. Today’s world is rather different and today’s world does not choose the language of Shakespeare and Milton. They are text-messaging and their style of writing will not pedantic which you may expect of them. What is more Literature comes from migrants and colonial countries too and now your sense of purism has gone awry and the center cannot hold. I mean the old dictums of Britain and America cannot satisfy us. English literature comes from Africa and India and that is why you must be ready to give it a certain degree of liberty. Think twice H

Might I be permitted to attach below a poem by Dylan Thomas, which one might consider to be relevant to the way this thread is evolving. There is always an element of frustration in any writer, seriously trying to break through onto new terrain. The reading of existing authors can only take you so far. Then you either clone, adapt other people's modes into your own, or aim for a "breakthrough !"

I'm not defending the language used in the case which has been made for the prosecution, but look behind the facade and ask yourself whether the essential objective of the aim is commendable.

On Lit Net we are all expected to fight our corners, but it's not as if we are maidens of impeccable virtue going out on a blind date with Rod Stewart.

Regards
** * * * * * * * M.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,*
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Osho and Manichaean both make some excellent points. Manichaean picked out an excellent poem that is very relevant to the topic at hand, and it's interesting that his choice of poem would appeal to both those want innovation literature, as well as to those who celebrate tradition. After all, here is a poet from the canon urging us to continue our struggle. Both sides would like this poem.

I find it rather ironic that here I am arguing for endless innovation in literature when at the moment I'm writing in a traditional style. I believe that conventional writing can be useful under certain circumstances. I want to write about the real world for a change, and simple realism seems to me the best way to write about the real world. However, I still love to see innovative writing, particularly when it's not dull.

I want to relate something about family dinners when I was a child. Half of my family are immigrants. During my childhood I loved these family dinners. We didn’t eat turkey like most Americans on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we ate something else from my mother's country which I thought was far tastier. But more importantly everybody at these family get-togethers seemed to have their own opinion about everything. But even though these family get-togethers were rather loud it was a very loud kind of fun. Everybody disagreed on everything but everybody was in their own way respectful of everybody else. Everybody laughed a lot. And everybody enjoyed their wine. It was kind of like a fun debate society where everybody got their say and everybody had lots of fun and nobody got mad at each other and everybody even though kind of loud still managed to be relatively polite, although certainly we didn't kiss each other's asses either. People could be rather blunt, but not in a rude sort of way.

Osho ‘s post makes a lot of sense about the contributions to English literature from people who are not of an Anglo-Saxon background. For better or worse our primary language might be English, which in some cases is the language of our conquerors. In other cases writers may choose English because it is (unfortunately) the most important language of the world.

We all need to express ourselves as writers. We all want to use words to create wonderful things. You have to make use with what you have. What I have is English. I speak some other languages but I don't dominate them to the extent that I dominate English, so I write in English. But then again even if the international language was different, perhaps we'd still be screwed. An earlier comment I made about what a shame it is that French is no longer the international language could be off the mark, as there are some Parisians who seem to think that nobody outside Paris knows how to speak French. Regardless of language snobbery is everywhere.

Anyway, I'll stop there before I get too long-winded. But I like what Osho said about English literature becoming more international and cosmopolitan than it already is. The more international and cosmopolitan English literature becomes the better it will be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by osho

Hill here the topic is not about innovativeness. It is all about resilience and variety. Wolf’s appeal is to take literature on a revolutionary track whereas you have chosen the old classic path. Maybe posterity wants something different. Today’s world is rather different and today’s world does not choose the language of Shakespeare and Milton.

I don’t recall going on record saying that I object to innovation (or indeed a revolutionary track) in literature – but I'll admit I'm guilty of confusing the two. I certainly don’t consider myself old-school - I'm not a fan of classic literature in particular. My objection was to the premise that variety can only flourish if good taste and standards of quality in writing are treated with contempt. Bad is the new good.

But since this thread seems to be heading towards a vituperative argument about individual opinions I’ll say no more on the matter. Live and let live.

H

Literature, past and present, is rife with innovation AND with the vulgarity you call for Wolf. You are arguing against the wind. I really think your thesis says more about your own writing than it does about literature in general. Sounds like you want no standard whatsoever. Its the only conclusion I can arrive at considering that ANYTHING of quality, even if its vulgar and grammatically unorthodox, is accepted by the readers who have what you disdainfully call "taste."

I'm late for work. So late I'll have to run. I'll be back later to expose more of your errors.