Re: Literary durability

From: "Daniel P. B. Smith"
>> I feel the reverse.  Great literature tends to endure.  Light 
>> fiction
>> dates within a few decades.
>
> Everything has fads and fashions... I don't think idea that 
> "great
> literature tends to endure" has any particular validity to it.
>
> I wish I could remember the title of the book that described 
> trends
> and fashions in the world of classical music. It had a lot of 
> graphs
> based on the appearance of various works in the concert 
> programs of
> symphony orchestras, and it was amazing how much things could 
> change
> in fifty years. I'm not a real classical music aficionado, but 
> I'm
> old enough to have seen this in my own lifetime.

.....
>
> Books that were not necessarily considered _great_ literature 
> but
> certainly were considered significant, important, contemporary
> literature, have vanished. In my high school, we read Dickens, 
> but we
> also read, as assigned reading, _Cimarron_ by Edna Ferber, _The
> Citadel_ by A. J. Cronin, and _The Catcher in the Rye_ by J. D.
> Salinger. Of those three, two are utterly forgotten. In fact 
> I'll bet
> there are readers of this mailing list who do not even 
> recognize the
> name A. J. Cronin.
>
> Conversely, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are not great 
> literature by
> any standards I know of, yet they endure.
>
> So does Kahlil Gibran.
>
> There's always a certain amount of personal taste involved in 
> naming
> authors as good who have not been officially anointed, but I, 
> at
> least am surprised by the fading reputation of John P. 
> Marquand. I
> don't think Sinclair Lewis' reputation is what it used to be. 
> Does
> anyone still read the novels of Nobel laureate Pearl Buck? How 
> about
> Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whom I've never read 
> because he
> was already pretty much forgotten by the time I was growing up. 
> I
> don't think any of these people would have been relegated as 
> "light
> fiction" in their day.
>
> What I really think happens is that the reputation of older 
> books is
> based on the opinions of influential tastemakers... literary 
> critics,
> academics, etc. and waxes and wanes along with their careers 
> and
> lifespans.
>
>


Wow, Dan, I sit at your feet.   That sums it all up then, and the 
profs and literature departments can all pack up and go home...

;-)   Sorry for the sarcasm, but a) this is a bit sweeping and b) 
I'm not sure it addresses the point.   You are talking of things 
being in fashion, whereas the question of great literature is 
different.

Shakespeare has also flowed in and out of fashion, but there is 
no question it is great literature, whether you like it or not. 
The King James Bible is also, whether you have  Judeo-Christian 
beliefs or not.

Hiawatha is great poetry, whether you approve of it at this 
moment or not.   The point is whether it endures, not whether 
anyone likes it at a particular moment.   And anything which is 
repeatedly turned into stage, film or television production 
undoubtedly also has a greatness - and is great literature if it 
was written before the screen existed - thus Dickens remains 
great literature, even if we prefer the story in pictures.

We have made the mistake of allowing some new works to be called 
literature because they have pretensions to style and social 
fashion;   this has confused the issue.   But, as I have always 
understood it, great literature is in any case that which 
endures.

I am not quite sure how you measure it anyway, but I don't think 
sales are very relevant.

Joseph Harris 


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