A lot of fiction which is popular when it is contemporary is not read 200 years later, but that’s not a sign that fiction is contemporary and loses perceived value over time, it’s a corollary of Sturgeon’s Law. 90% of everything is crap, and that extends to ‘fiction which is currently popular’. No one thinks that Twilight will be popular and lasting; the penny-dreadfuls and most Victorian novels weren’t. Dickens was, though. Most of the plays of the Elizabethan era were bland and samey, and other than Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, only Shakespeare has had any lasting popularity.
What exactly will be lasting and popular from our time, I don’t know; it probably won’t include Eliezer or Harry Potter. But some things will; that’s reliably true.
Yeah, but honestly, try reading Dickens or Shakespeare today. Maybe I’m just an uncultured philistine, but it’s not what I would call good. If they weren’t so highly regarded I’d never choose to read them myself, and certainly wouldn’t recommend them to friends.
For DIckens, I’m totally with you. His style doesn’t suit modern tastes at all, and I’m unclear on why he continues to be well regarded.
Shakespeare, though, is absolutely accessible to modern audiences and still very good, when read correctly; unfortunately, grade school English teachers rarely do, and most people never have any other experience with him. The language can be a small stumbling block, but the comedies particularly have very little that actually gets in the way (also, you can assume anything you don’t understand is a sexual pun, and you’ll be right about 80% of the time). To be fair, I’m a linguistics geek and may enjoy the archaic double-entendres more than most, but Beatrice and Benedick’s snark-sniping in Much Ado About Nothing remains hilarious regardless of culture.
A lot of fiction which is popular when it is contemporary is not read 200 years later, but that’s not a sign that fiction is contemporary and loses perceived value over time, it’s a corollary of Sturgeon’s Law. 90% of everything is crap, and that extends to ‘fiction which is currently popular’. No one thinks that Twilight will be popular and lasting; the penny-dreadfuls and most Victorian novels weren’t. Dickens was, though. Most of the plays of the Elizabethan era were bland and samey, and other than Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, only Shakespeare has had any lasting popularity.
What exactly will be lasting and popular from our time, I don’t know; it probably won’t include Eliezer or Harry Potter. But some things will; that’s reliably true.
Yeah, but honestly, try reading Dickens or Shakespeare today. Maybe I’m just an uncultured philistine, but it’s not what I would call good. If they weren’t so highly regarded I’d never choose to read them myself, and certainly wouldn’t recommend them to friends.
For DIckens, I’m totally with you. His style doesn’t suit modern tastes at all, and I’m unclear on why he continues to be well regarded. Shakespeare, though, is absolutely accessible to modern audiences and still very good, when read correctly; unfortunately, grade school English teachers rarely do, and most people never have any other experience with him. The language can be a small stumbling block, but the comedies particularly have very little that actually gets in the way (also, you can assume anything you don’t understand is a sexual pun, and you’ll be right about 80% of the time). To be fair, I’m a linguistics geek and may enjoy the archaic double-entendres more than most, but Beatrice and Benedick’s snark-sniping in Much Ado About Nothing remains hilarious regardless of culture.