tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9518779.post587987373174576606..comments2023-07-06T04:29:27.227-05:00Comments on Reading for Writers: A Reader's Manifesto: an attack on the growing pretentiousness in American literary prose by B.R. MyersA. P. Bucakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9518779.post-28559390765048839722008-02-11T23:40:00.000-05:002008-02-11T23:40:00.000-05:00You're correct that there's lots of significant wo...You're correct that there's lots of significant works that weren't popular in their day. When I speak of cultural relevance, I'm not talking about any given work; I'm talking about aesthetic mediums.<BR/><BR/>I don't have a ready definition of cultural relevance, but here's how I see that issue as it pertains to literature. In general (and only in general), literary fiction simply isn't read by people who weren't humanities majors, especially English majors. I mean, literary fiction isn't even read by the majority of college graduates. It's the non-humanities graduates who are buying the popular fiction. In my view, if literature were culturally relevant, it would be read by the population at large and not require the reinforcement of academic institutions to "create" an audience.<BR/><BR/>As far as the visual arts are concerned (and I never studied art history), a few points. First, owning a painting by a trained artist has always been a matter of affluence. It's not something reproduced on a massive scale like books. But I think over the past two centuries there has been a similar shift in painting. That is, most aspiring painters work out of a concern for the opinions of peers in academic departments and other elite institutions. I mean, Jackson Pollock's paintings are interesting, but it's almost impossible for me to be affected by one of them in a meaningful way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9518779.post-66467162943432851562008-02-06T14:11:00.000-05:002008-02-06T14:11:00.000-05:00I certainly know the split of which you speak but ...I certainly know the split of which you speak but I don't really see that historically popularity in the time of a work's creation has had much of a correlation to its ultimate cultural relevance (certainly not in the visual arts). It depends how you are defining cultural relevance, I suppose.A. P. Bucakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06041973307279126317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9518779.post-83762482642560944552008-02-01T22:52:00.000-05:002008-02-01T22:52:00.000-05:00I haven't read Tree of Smoke nor anything by Myers...I haven't read <I>Tree of Smoke</I> nor anything by Myers, and I agree with you that he's got some narrow ideas about literature regarding style and whatnot. But as someone who studied literature at the graduate level, some of his points (as you report them) resonate with me, namely the first two. I say the first two points resonate, but that's not to say I think they're right on. <BR/><BR/>Here's what I think about the current state of literature. Some time ago, maybe fifty years, maybe more, a bifurcation developed in the literary world between what was popular and what was art. Historically, writing that was art was always meant for the masses. Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Hemingway (among many other masters) were all popular writers in their day. This split has had two effects. Popular writing is now vacuous entertainment, while literature is fundamentally an elitist enterprise. <BR/><BR/>Regarding the latter effect, I could write a great deal. But I'll limit it to a theory I have about art: once any aesthetic medium undergoes the split I just described, between the popular and the aesthetic, that medium loses its cultural relevance. Opera would be a ready example of such an example. (Cinema would be an example of a medium at the peak of its relevance.) Don't consider this an attack, but as a fellow student of literature, I'm afraid I wonder about literature's cultural relevance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com