Piggybacking on Kerry:
"So, I'm suggesting that historically, by and large,
successful artists created works to suit the taste of
established, wealthy patrons- mostly the church and
royalty."
Which is why there was a major shift in subject matter with
the renaissance, from religion to private, as the bourgeiosie
gathered enough money to want to show off their wealth
through the ownership of art. This is why there were so many
landscapes and flattering portraits that showed ownership of
the same.
"Anyway, part of my point was going to be that public
literacy is a relatively new thing, and that a popular, or
pulp, or dime-novel publishing form, where average folks read
words from the page (as opposed to having words read to them,
as in the case of Shakespeare's plays) was exceptional, . .
."
Which is why the novel form was initially railed against for
diluting literature. Asserting the consequent, it was
reasoned that it the masses liked it, it couldn't possibly be
art, it must be pandering. This is where the popular
becomeing high class literature argument does work well, with
works by Stern, Trollope, Austen, the Brontes, etc.
". . . and short, and was eclipsed when technology brought
performance into the home."
So we're in a post-literate age, now? And we're all Luddites
here for continuing to turn pages? Maybe.
"Not that book=literature, but did Melville have a popular
audience of, say ordinary farm workers, or even stevedores
and whalers? How many of them could read in Melville's
time?"
As I recall from long ago lit classes, I think Melville was
somewhat popular for his "whaling tales," but nowhere near a
Stevenson, for example.
"If a bit of art is here in the present, however it got to be
here, then I guess it has to be better than whatever art is
not here in the present and so cannot be evaluated at all,
making Miker right, sort of."
But better by what standards? By contemporary standards. The
works are judged by how they relate to current standards. So
it is quite possible that during shifts of aesthetics and the
ideologies with which they are allied (ideologies in the big
sense, not specific political parties sense), all sorts of
great (along with the not so great) works have drifted off,
never to be read again, for failing to fit in with the times,
failing to continue to move and/or entertain readers. And
they remain lost, even if times may have or may in the future
shift to a more sympathetic mindset.
So I am perfectly willing to believe that what survives is
some of the best of the past, but I have trouble believing
it's all of the best. I always wonder about the masterpieces
that are lost forever, either because no one later checked
out a book that fell out of favor (no, I'm not volunteering
to do the literary dumpster diving to find these) or because
it was never published because it, to quote Brian Wilson,
"just wasn't made for these times."
Luckily, there are still far more good books than I will ever
get a chance to read, relegating all of the above to a
tangential academic argument. I really have little reason to
complain.
Mark
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