butterweedstrover Posted July 12, 2021 Author Share Posted July 12, 2021 On 7/11/2021 at 4:08 PM, Buckwheat said: No. Wow, I just read a translation of Gilgamesh. I wasn't really thinking about how old it was (just a flippant statement on my part). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterweedstrover Posted July 13, 2021 Author Share Posted July 13, 2021 On 7/11/2021 at 4:25 PM, Clueless Northman said: Your core mistake, or at least misunderstanding, is thinking there is one single intent of "literature". Do you actually think the people who wrote Gilgamesh, Sophocles, Petronius, Ferdowsi, Shakespeare, Goethe, Zola, Calvino and countless other writers had the same intent? That would be quite an epic "death of the author" moment. Frankly, deep down, and from personal experience from my misguided youth, I'd say the only major common element among writers is that they want to write stuff, and actually have to write, it's an inner urge. I guess music composers / songwriters have a similar urge, though the only one I had and have when it comes to music is that I want to listen to good music that I like. The intent of older epics was more complicated. The Norse Eddas, Vineland Sagas, or even the Odyssey doubled as encyclopedias for geographic reasons. The books were moral texts, documentation on peoples, navigations, and different systems of law. That is because they did not have the extensive data-base so people used narratives to relay this information. Same with Vergil or Nennius, they were history books as much as they were myths. And at the time they were thought to be well researched. The line between fiction and reality was more blurred. But modern epics that are trying to be artistic shouldn't fall into the trap of replicating reality because today that line is much more divided and in my opinion at odds with one another. Keep in mind, Tolstoy did not qualify War & Peace as a novel. Such a book that is as much a time-capsule as it is literature requires intensive skill and knowledge that the vast majority of authors lack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 @butterweedstrover Could you please explain how 'speculative fiction' relates to sci-fi and fantasy as you are using the term? I have never once in my life heard a single person before you use 'speculative fiction' to be a subset of either one, it's most widely used as an alternate way of saying "sci-fi / fantasy" and, if anything, is used to include more works like horror and supernatural. I think a little clarification here would go a long way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ants Posted July 26, 2021 Share Posted July 26, 2021 I find the premise ridiculous. It means Moby Dick is literature, 10000 leagues under the sea cannot be. To kill a mockingbird is literature, but Bareback can't be (ignoring differences in quality). If you ascribed to this theory, it would mean any story set in current times, but moved merely a decade forward with one or two inventions cannot be literature. Arguably anything set historically where god(s) actually answers/responds in any way are also not allowed to be literature either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted July 26, 2021 Share Posted July 26, 2021 Again, I feel literature is an overstated and nebulous description. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted July 27, 2021 Share Posted July 27, 2021 22 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said: Again, I feel literature is an overstated and nebulous description. Tough to figure anything out when OP won't even explain what literature is. Can writing be art of it's not literature? Other than a couple throw away expressions about analytical vs aesthetic we have absolutely no ground to have a discussion here. Which is too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLastWolf Posted July 27, 2021 Share Posted July 27, 2021 This reminds me of the Scorcese & Pure art cinema vs Marvel/DC bang bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyll.Ing. Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 By the way, if the arguments of the OP manage to sway the admins in here, will this subforum be renamed "Not Literature", or just "Literature" in quotation marks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leofric Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 Literature is simply the written or oral telling of a story, either a fictional story from the author's imagination or a nonfictional story about people, places, objects, or events, presented as prose, poetry, dialogue (plays), or spoken word (oral tradition). All of these forms of literature can range from good or great to mediocre or just bad, but they are all literature. Saying something isn't literature because it doesn't meet some vague and arbitrary benchmark of artistic merit, emotional response, and cultural influence and longevity, doesn't change that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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