| The GREATEST thing you'll ever LEARN, is just to LOVE- and be LOVED in RETURN. |
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The Outer Charms |
| NAME: Iphyengia Yidrych AGE: Yes and No LOCATION: Ashlings, Distopia |
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The Inner Workings
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| If you cannot be GOOD... Be CAREFUL. |
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An Empty Box? |
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
I'm DONE! I'mDONE! (it was even a little fun!) What really counts is I'm DONE!What Is Literary Merit?
There have always been classics in the literary world. The problem we are faced with is determining what that “extra something” is that gives some special written works the status of “Classic Literature”. Classics are many things, everything, yet never are they original. In each one runs a common theme of humanity no matter how many such novels one may read. Certain genres- particularly fantasy- have never been, and likely never will be, considered classic literature. However many might consider them literary classics, they will never be put on quite the same pedestal as other dramatic fiction. This “extra something” has been dubbed by the archival gnomes as “Literary Merit”, as they are fond of nouns which blandly declare themselves with importance while being as vague as possible. Such haughty airs rather remind one of a politician before an election when each word says nothing more boldly than the last.
In school we receive lists upon lists of all the classic literature. When one day we escape this tax-paid confine we will march bravely onward and pay a teacher’s wage to gives yet more lists of increasingly obscure texts. These are the stories that are immersed in the events of their period, the history before their period, and the complex entanglements of their social lives. Usually these novels contain stereotypes that are useful in the convoluted situation the author places them in to display whichever natural human truth the writer decides to present.
The literary classics are the books everyone loves. They are timeless works that generations read to their younger generations but hold no epiphanies of moral character. Not just children’s old classic standbys like the lilting and warm Winnie the Pooh but also the adventurous Hobbit. These are stories that all ages love to sit with and lose themselves in. Many of these are adventures. Some are thinly veiled statements on the state of the world, or fantastic caricatures of historical events or people, while others are epic sagas of places that have never existed.
More elusive than just any common jargon, when one is able to pin down the meaning of “literary merit” it tends to breed more dissension than clear the air. Literary Merit is defined as “superior quality or excellence in the literary field”. As is tradition in such things, a sub definition is required. What gives a piece of literature that merit is its ability to reflect a truth in human nature. There are a number of methods to construct with, different truths to use, and numerous layers of symbolism to clothe it in, but the innermost core is always the same. Portrait of a Lady takes the microcosmic natures of human interaction and uses them to display the macrocosm of cultural interaction. In this manner it is doubly assured its status and the unseen stamp of literary merit. Though well loved, the fantastic adventures of Bilbo Baggins will never display the amount of insight to the human soul that the likes of Henry James and Dovskyevsky have created.
None of the suits upstairs care how many well-worn copies of “The Hobbit” are lovingly read and re-read, or how many copies of “War and Peace” lay bound under sheets of dust and disdain. They care only for the reflection upon human nature. This same reflection we have seen countless times in countless forms, like a funhouse with distorting mirrors. The images may be interesting but eventually one realizes it’s the same portrait of humanity each time.