At 07:52 PM 28/08/2006 -0400, you wrote:
>And, of course, there's entertainment. It's awfully
puritanical to
>claim literature must give a moral lesson.
I don't think the question is whether literature should give
a moral lesson so much as that it does and unavoidably
so.
Literature is produced within a culture and one way or
another it addresses the values of that culture, often by
assumption, as it must to be taken as
"real" or "meaningful" or even "entertaining" by its
consumers.
Culture defines reality or truth for its members. Morals are
the guidelines for dealing with those realities. These truths
and morals vary from culture to culture, and in large,
complex cultures, there is room for variation within as well.
Specific morals may prove to be wrong and the culture carry
on, but in the long run, any culture without sufficient
values and morals to support its survival will disappear,
along with its literature. Individuals that leave their
culture, never to return, are dead to that culture. If they
do return and write about their experiences, they've returned
to the debate about cultural values.
Among the prime values of western civilization are those that
support communication. The culture of communications has
grown so large and complex it supports increasing numbers of
competing truths, values, morals. By understanding that its
content is composed of these "competing truths" or, if you
prefer, lies, fiction becomes the only truthful literary
form.
my two cents and welcome to it, Kerry
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