[Aiwendil]

Hey Thingol, you stole most of my rant!

Just to raise a few more points:

I was addressing the argument that (apparently) LotR was supremely influential in terms of form and style - ie. that it had a level of cultural and linguistic impact, and was therefore Great Literature.

Well, then I can't really disagree with you here, never having made that particular argument. Or can I? LotR certainly has been influential; it's merely been influential in genres and media that the literary establishment writes off as pop-culture and trash. LotR spawned the entire modern fantasy genre; granted, no work in this genre has ever approached the level of LotR, but it is a large genre nonetheless. The book is also largely responsible for the birth of the role-playing game (which, I insist, is as valid an art form as literature), and this influence has crossed over into video games, miniatures games, and collectible card games. So while there's certainly no deep political/philosophical influence, there is influence of another sort.

You raise an interesting point. Is LotR hated by the 'literary establishment'?

Yes.

And is LotR hated because it is popular?

Well, yes and no. I think literary critics (who naturally tend to consider themselves superior to the masses) tend to view popular acclaim as the mark of low-brow, unsophisticated art. If it's simple enough for us to understand, then it must be too simple to be good. Perhaps a larger component of their dislike for LotR, however, is not that it's popular, but that it's the kind of book that can be popular. That is, if the book has property x, and property x causes it to be popular, the critics hate not the popularity but property x itself.

I think there are several things about LotR that cause it to be both popular and hated: it is essentially plot-based rather than character-based, it is heroic rather than ironic, its prose is somewhat archaic. As for plot/character, this is an argument I've recently had in great depth on another forum. There I argued:

This pretty clearly sums up the viewpoint of the modern literary critic. Which is basicly that character is what is important in a novel, rather than plot. This is taken even to the point where novels that are mostly plot-driven are not 'serious'; they are criticized for the lack of character development. I've yet to hear a critic criticize a novel for being too character-driven and neglecting plot. For some reason a detailed character-study in which very little happens is good literature, but an intricate plot with very little character development is juvenile trash.

No, I'm not suggesting that modern literature is in error. I'm merely saying that a plot-driven approach, generally discouraged in modern literature, is just as valid as a character-driven approach.

Dickens is a perfect example of the plot-driven type of novel I'm talking about. His characters are, as you say, two dimensional; but they serve their purpose in terms of the plot. These are not detailed character studies, and, as with Tolkien, there is no need for him to delve into the sexuality of most of his characters. And, like Tolkien, Dickens was initially (and still is sometimes) bashed by critics because he did not conform to their view of great literature.

To which I can think of nothing further to add at the moment. As for heroic/ironic: modern literature and literary criticism are essentially based on the idea that the author wrote X,Y,and Z, but what he or she really meant was A,B,and C. It is the function of the modern literary critic (in their own view, of course) to translate what the author wrote into what the author (supposedly) meant, to translate story into interpretation. This is ironic literature. Tolkien wrote heroic literature (like Homer, for instance); that is, he wrote what he meant. No hidden meanings, no allegory.

Then there's Tolkien's prose. I think this is hated so much because the modern literary world (probably the modern artistic world in general) has the erroneous notion that there is progress in art. There is a supposition underlying modern criticism that modern literature is inevitably better than what has come before. This is false.

But ... there are plenty on these boards who will sneer at Britney Spears

Including me. Well, there's the real flaw in the populist argument. But fortunately for me, the populist argument is not my argument. I'll get back to this in a moment.

But there's no escape from subjectivity (by me, or anyone) if you have nothing measurable.

Certainly not. Art is not science, and cannot be treated as such.

The fact that I've enjoyed it more than, say, Sophie's Choice, doesn't automatically make it 'better'.

Why not? This is one of the fallacies of modern literary criticism (or at least of many modern critics): the assumption that literature must accomplish something beyond entertainment. This is an unfortunate view that seems to exist only in literature among all the arts. The modern critic assumes that because it is possible for a work of literature to communicate a message or insight that relates to the normal (non-literary) world, it must have such a message to be considered good literature. There is something of a double standard here: literature is subjected to this criterion but no other art is. A painting can still be a 'great' painting, even if it exists only for enjoyment. A symphony can be 'great' without having any extramusical meaning. Yet both of these art forms are capable of sending political messages or making philosophical statements. So why is literature treated differently?

Of course, this was not always the predominant view. Homer's epics were meant mainly to entertain, and if they have any 'applicability' (as Tolkien put it), it is, as with LotR, because they are such good stories. The same is true for most epics (well, not the Aeneid, but certainly many others). Dickens's novels (thousands of years later) were designed to entertain, at least to the extent that their entertainment value could be converted into monetary value.

Now I don't deny that there is something to be said for meaning in literature. But as I see it, the value of this meaning comes from the fact that it makes the work more enjoyable. I can't speak for anyone else, but I enjoy The Lord of the Flies, for example, largely because of its meaning. Nonetheless, I enjoy LotR better, making it in my opinion a better work of art.

Coming back to the Britney Spears argument (ugh . . . that's the first time I've had to utter her name in print) - I don't think it's popularity that makes a work of art good. Remember, (according to my criteria) we have to judge work of art for itself. It's therefore not whether this "singer" is popular; it's whether her music is enjoyable. Maybe some people actually think it is. But people are easy to fool, and popularity is not a good indicator of merit until well after the work has been produced. Many listen to her because it is the popular thing to do. There's also her "image" which, of course, should have nothing whatsoever to do with music, but nonetheless attracts a large male audience. A hundred years from now, no one will think that she is superior to say, Mozart or Haydn.

I do believe there are aesthetic tools with which one can, if necessary, compare and contrast different works.

Yes. And I don't mean that literary criticism is worthless. I mean only that it is gone about in entirely the wrong way. The purpose of literary theory should be (like music theory) to tell us what makes a work of art enjoyable.

Nothing in life is entirely objective, yet some essence of aesthetic analysis, the intrinsic 'qualities' of a work (as opposed to how much you or I liked it), can be understood and argued.

I completely agree about using the intrinsic qualities of the work. But certainly these are the reasons that you or I liked it as much as we did. There is an inherent aesthetic value in a work of art that causes it to be liked or disliked; these are not things that happen randomly.

As a last note, I'll quote Oscar Wilde from the preface to The Portrait of Dorian Gray:

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

Well, I had a pretty good rant after all. My apologies if I've put anyone to sleep.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]