Anthony Dauer wrote:
> That is critical theory.
> > Keith Alan Deutsch wrote:
> > > I couldn't disagree more vigorously with
Anthony Dauer's equation that a
> > > "masterpeice" must have critical acclaim.
It is unsound as logic, and as
> > > critical theory.
The term 'masterpiece' doesn't usually have anything to do
with the real literary merit. If something is considered a
masterpiece, it just means that the literary paradigms are
such that some work of literature can be taken in the
literary canon. If Melville's "Moby Dick" was considered
overwritten and strange at the time of its publishing, it was
because it couldn't fit into the literary canon of the
time.
How the canons change, that's a different question and too
long one to be considered here. I haven't seen that any
hardboiled piece of literature, be it Chandler or Richard
Stark, has been taken into the literary canon. They are still
popular literature and not masterpieces. Albert Camus and
"Outsider" are maybe the closest thing to be hardboiled (or
at least influenced by it) and masterpiece at the same time.
But if we say that "Farewell My Lovely" is a masterpiece, we
just happen to have a different literary canon which
necessarily doesn't include Homer's Iliad or Ezra Pound's
Cantos (which, I think, are masterpieces).
Juri
jurnum@utu.fi
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