Literary Merit

[DEAD34345]

Lord of The Rings is definitely considered to have literary merit, and Watchmen is definitely getting there too. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if in a few generations kids will be learning about that comic in school[footnote]The sad thing is they'll probably hate it too, simply because they've been forced to read it and go over it endlessly along with a bunch of other uninterested children.[/footnote], it already has a ridiculously high standing in many circles.

Really though, anything can end up being considered a literary classic, as long as it's at least somewhat old. Even Shakespeare's plays were apparently considered pulpy at the time they were created, since they weren't Latin or Greek like "proper" plays.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Whoa. Lord of the Rings is considered a classic by many.

To be honest I was blown away by the comment on that too.

Any list of "classic" novels can't possibly be considered a decent list if its not got Lord of the Rings on it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

On the definition of "classic": something of a high or superior quality whose appeal has endured the passage of time. Something needs to be of a certain age before it moves on from fad to classic. In a medium that is both 5,000 years old but has also increased production times a million (the Epic of Gilgamesh may or may not be the best work produced of its time, but it's the ONLY work that survived; same goes for the Greek plays and anything coined during the Dark Ages and before printing was mechanized), new entries have an understandable tougher time being accepted as "classics".

 

[1981]

Should there be a criteria for studying art? Yes. The details are open for debate of course. Lots of good points in this thread.

Even if Lord of the Rings, Watchmen etc. are considered masterpieces, they're fairy tales. The best thing art has to offer is perspective. You can get an idea of what life was like in another time or culture, or how others experience things. The books that I was "forced" to read in school did teach me a lot about my own culture.

 

[CeeBod]

My question is this: do you think there should be a criteria for studying "art," and if so, what should it be? Or do you think that the whole thing is subjective, and should be ignored?

I believe the late great Robin Williams answered this one rather well:

 

[rcs619]

I do find it questionable that you list "Lord of the Rings" among those things, since many would deem it to be one of the greatest works of literature in British history, crafted through years of careful research and planning. A "classic" if nothing else.

You are right, however, that "literary merit" is basically fluff with no real quantifiable definition.

Pretty much, yeah. Also trying to come up with a specific criteria for literary merit seems to imply that some forms of literature don't have merit. Even pulpy, light reading can still have merit to it though. Same with movies. Just because something is a goofy action-movie, or a low-brow comedy doesn't mean that it can't be competently made and an enjoyable way to kill some time. I think there's certainly different levels of merit, but most forms of art will have at least some.

Except Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's just poorly-written trash that starts of promising but completely disappears up its own ass in the second half. They've had *three* attempts to give that mess some sort of satisfying ending, or at least some kind of closure, and all they've done is fail miserably.

I do really like the art direction on Evangelion though. The writing may be trash, but the visual design is excellent

 

[Ogoid]

It's the usual problem with public preception being of some stupid standard that anything "meaningful" needs to fill out, so a very interesting sci fi of fantasy novel with deep ideas will be considered trash, but unreadable whiny nihilistic bullshit/SJW pandering is "high art".

Alan Moore said it best [https://archive.is/hx9xR#selection-3447.140-3447.901], in my opinion:

Over here, the literary establishment is still running, as back in the days of Jane Austen, on the novel of manners, which she more or less invented. And, of course, they're about the social intricacies of the middle class, who were also the only people at the time who could read or afford to buy the books. They were also the people who made up the book critics. And I think that, around this time, critics were so delighted by this new form of literature mirroring their own social interactions that they decided that not only was this true literature, but this was the only thing really that could be considered true literature. So all genre fiction, anything that really wasn't a novel of manners in one form or another, was excluded from that definition.

 

[Fox12]

It's the usual problem with public preception being of some stupid standard that anything "meaningful" needs to fill out, so a very interesting sci fi of fantasy novel with deep ideas will be considered trash, but unreadable whiny nihilistic bullshit/SJW pandering is "high art".

Alan Moore said it best [https://archive.is/hx9xR#selection-3447.140-3447.901], in my opinion:

Over here, the literary establishment is still running, as back in the days of Jane Austen, on the novel of manners, which she more or less invented. And, of course, they're about the social intricacies of the middle class, who were also the only people at the time who could read or afford to buy the books. They were also the people who made up the book critics. And I think that, around this time, critics were so delighted by this new form of literature mirroring their own social interactions that they decided that not only was this true literature, but this was the only thing really that could be considered true literature. So all genre fiction, anything that really wasn't a novel of manners in one form or another, was excluded from that definition.

That's one of the best quotes I've seen in years, thank you for sharing it.

I think Americas slightly different from England in that way, but I think that he hit upon something important. Namely, that critics gravitate toward literature that mirrors their own lives. There's definitely a political bent toward the literary establishment in America, I think. That's a point I'll have to consider.