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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
It has been argued that the Englishness of English art resides in the view that the purpose of art is to preach, and the best preaching comes in accurately observing the detailed minutiae of daily life. In this sense, Chaucer is English, Malory is English (I recall that C.S. Lewis gave us some examples of this), C.S. Lewis is English, but Tolkien, like Rudyard Kipling, is not.
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Well, 'argued' by whom (Lobdell himself??).
I'd argue with the statement that Malory depicted the minutiae of English life. Firstly, he was re-writing courtly French romances, & there is next to nothing of contemporary English life in the whole of the Morte d'Arthur. Chaucer may have been depicting English daily life, but he wasn't depicting it for ordinary English folk, but for his rich patrons (who probably considered themselves French, at that). Lewis was Irish - in more ways than one, & I'm not sure that Lewis ever depicted the 'minutiae of English daily life' in his fiction - didactic or otherwise (I don't think that was his concern).
I still can't see that it can be 'argued' that 'the Englishness of English art resides in the view that the purpose of art is to preach' (well, not with any justification, or evidence). Of course, one could 'argue' anything, but the fact that one could 'argue' may not necessarily mean very much, other than that one is just argumentative.