Re: Re: Literary durability

From: "Daniel P. B. Smith"


>> 2b. Re: Literary durability
>>     Posted by: "joseph harris" [email protected] joe9438
>>
>> [snip]
>> 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.
>
>
> Spoken like a true educational perennialist. But _has_ "The 
> Song of
> Hiawatha" endured, in any meaningful sense? Certainly copies of 
> it
> still _exist,_
.

>
> Again, does Longfellow's poem endure? I challenge any reader of 
> this
> list to tell me, _without checking:_
>
> 1) What's the opening line?

In the land of the Mudjokiwis [spelling may not be right]

>
> 2) What does the poem say in regard to Hiawatha's mittens?

Of  the skin he made him mittens - there is a superb parody of 
this also.

>
> 3) What event convinces Hiawatha that it time for him to bid a 
> sad
> final farewell to his tribe and to old Nokomis, and depart 
> forever
> "to the portals of the Sunset?"

Memory is too vague on this.


However Dan, you have in fact simply shown the point I make. 
You choose the moment now, and the opinion of Dan P Smith, as a 
measure of the 'classic' label.

What I was pointing out was
a) you have to define 'classic' or 'literature', and be sure 
there is general agreement with your definition
b) you have to describe why a particular work is, or is not, 
includedi n that.

I was suggesting that any work which endures beyond its own time 
was entitled to be considered a classic - and all classics are 
generally called literature because of that.

Shakespear, by your view, would have ceased to be literature 
because it was almost forgotten for about 80 years before being 
revived in the C19.   Yet now, four hundred years after the plays 
were written, they are more performed than it their own time.

Fashion is not the measure;  any one person's opinion is not the 
measure.   I am sure that Hiawatha, for example, will still be 
read in 100 years time, because it is great poetry and also has 
history and social history within it, but there is no guarantee, 
of course.

I have no idea whether some of the works you mention are classics 
or capable of being so;  but my ignorance of them is not the 
determinant.

Joseph Harris 


------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/