What do the public really think of literature?

[Flip McWho]

Language only needs to get the message across, everything else is padding.

[Herra Gautason]

Ask these people what they thought of the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter. Are they not literature too?

No, they're books

Literature
Illiterature

[duke o' york]

How do you decide between what is, and isn't, literature?

Are there universally-recognised signs that one work is of literary merit, and another not?

I'm sure that once you try to establish criteria upon which works are claimed as literature, then it will be very easy for anyone to call you on them, and suggest alternatives that might fit your criteria but are not recognised as literature.

Please try this!

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
How would you see the correct version there?

"How are you?"
"Fine, and how are you?"

I'd say that in such greeting rituals, grammar is not important, as the function of the ritual is not to exchange information but cordiality.

This works fine for me:

"Alright?"
"Yeah, alright?"

But that's just a shortened version of:

"Are you all right?"
"Yeah, are you all right?", and not:

"Are you all right?"
"Yeah, and is yourself all right?"

"Yourself" is the object of a reflexive verb, not a direct object as it is so often used today. But that's evolution of the language for you, and yes, we can't do a great deal about it, but can agree that some people are more dumb than others.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by duke o' york
How do you decide between what is, and isn't, literature?

Are there universally-recognised signs that one work is of literary merit, and another not?

I'm sure that once you try to establish criteria upon which works are claimed as literature, then it will be very easy for anyone to call you on them, and suggest alternatives that might fit your criteria but are not recognised as literature.

Please try this!

I'd start by suggesting that Literature doesn't have to be highbrow, it can be comic too.

Now, I know I'm a a literary barbarian compared to of lot of people round here, but it seems to me that comic writing of the highest order (Wodehouse, Adams, Pratchett) is traditionally sneered at by the guardians of literary quality, but their genius with words and the abillity to fire the intense emotion of laughter makes their writing as good as anybody's. These guys are not just storytellers, at their best they're satirical, philosophical, and sharp observers of the human condition.

[Jon Miller]

Note, some comic is considered literature. Such as Catch-22. And I have heard a few people suggest that Pratchett and Adams might be literature (I would suggest that myself for a couple of Pratchett's works.. he has gotten pretty formulaic recently though).

Lit. is something that has depth, can be analyzed, etc. A lot of what people generally read, and are rightly not considered Lit. are very formulaic, have poor writing, have 1-D characters, etc. Really, though, Lit. is like history. It is what people are reading/etc later.

Now I agree that there are some types which aren't traditionally favored by Lit. Crits. Among these are the Comic (as you stated) and the Myth (Tolkien/etc).

JM

[Drogue]

Re: What do the public really think of literature?

Originally posted by Zoid
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:

Son of Sammy wrote: "i just read this book. everybody like always talks about how great it is and everything. but i don't think so. like, it's been done before, right?? soooo cliched. omg."

That made my day.

[Dauphin]

Re: Re: What do the public really think of literature?

Originally posted by Drogue

That made my day.

He's right. He wasn't even the first to do a cover of the story. Chaucer had done it before aswell.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

I'd start by suggesting that Literature doesn't have to be highbrow, it can be comic too.

Ever read Chaucer? Or Wilde? You'd be hard-pressed to find a "literary" critic who didn't think they had some worth, whether they like them or not.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Lit. is something that has depth, can be analyzed, etc. A lot of what people generally read, and are rightly not considered Lit. are very formulaic, have poor writing, have 1-D characters, etc. Really, though, Lit. is like history. It is what people are reading/etc later.

Now I agree that there are some types which aren't traditionally favored by Lit. Crits. Among these are the Comic (as you stated) and the Myth (Tolkien/etc).

JM

Well you'll find that even those genres are studied in literature classes in universities across the world.

Depth is indefensible as a criterion for literature. You can analyse the choice of words on the average billboard until the cows come home, but people still won't accept them as literature.

I'll be honest - it's impossible to give criteria with which something is literature or not. The term is meaningless, and as far as university courses are concerned, it can be reduced to "the study of written texts", no matter how long or short, or the subject matter.
With such a nebulous term, then The Da Vinci Code has as much literary worth as Othello, even though it was written by a ****wit, and the plot is for ****.
The Bible is a literary text (and a must-read for any half-serious Shakespeare student) just as much as Wealth of Nations or The Fairie Queen or The Hobbit.
As far as populist literature not being considered "literary", then has anyone read Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy's first novel? Now he's one of my favourite (British) authors, but his first work is unashamedly populist, absolutely godawful, and yet this is the man who created such wonders as Jude the Obscure and Far from the Madding Crowd (another divisive text that I enjoy but many don't).