Miker,
Re your comment below:
"No. It's a great analogy. Just as Einstein stands out as a
genius, much of the work of Shakespeare stands out as
literature."
No it's not, because genius isn't the point.
One could grudgingly admit that Spillane was a genius
(at least at marketing), or, slightly less grudgingly, that
Hammett and Chandler were geniuses, yet still be dismissive
of the kidn of writing on which they
"wasted" their talent.
In other words, one could recognize the genius of the
creators and still say that what they wrote fell short of
being literature.
What gives the use of the term "literature," in the exclusive
sense, so much snob appeal is precisely that it doesn't
matter how good the work being dismissed is, or how talented
the creator is, but simply that the genre, by this exclusive
definition, doesn't pass muster as "real literature."
JIM DOHERTY
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