Does litterature still evolve?

[drofgnal]

As long as language evolves, literature will also.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

As long as language evolves, literature will also.

To me it seems to be de-evolving to the point I have stop buying from even favorite authors latest releases as I don't know if the editors have change but I have seen some of my favorite authors writing become more simple losing any trace of complexity or beauty of the language they once written that got me hooked on them in the first place. It's sad.

[Prestidigitweeze]

My feeling is that the evolutionary model doesn't really work for the arts. In terms of levels or permanent traits, literary excellence isn't linked to any particular time period. In that sense, the plays of Aeschylus are more "evolved" than, say, the Twilight series.

Until the end of the modernist period, writers and critics often did view changes in style and form as evolutionary advancements. (Personally, I tend to view them as changes in fashion; as generational reactions or antonymic shifts. In which case romanticism vs. classicism isn't so different from romanticism vs. modernism.)

But with postmodernism, the idea of evolution seemed to give way to the simultaneity that Forster talked about in Aspects of the Novel: The idea that every novelist who ever lived is effectively writing in the same room at once.

By subscribing to the idea of evolution in the arts, we might be mistaking experimentalism and fashion for actual advancement.

Think of the modern attention span: It isn't an evolved version of attention spans in the past. We're not focusing on more important things than we were. We're being conditioned to shift our attention rapidly in ways that aren't always healthy neurologically.

If our brains were suddenly to split and allowed us to think several thoughts at once, and the purpose of that split was to help us adapt to the act of multitasking -- which for us is merely switching rapidly between two points of attention, but ideally would mean literally doing several things at once -- then I might regard that as an advancement in evolution.

In which case the media we read might evolve to accommodate our new talent for mental bifurcation, and we could say that literary content and form evolved along with us in the literal sense -- just as the printing press once did in the technological sense.

[RHWright]

Originally Posted by Kasper Hviid

Is a novel written i 2015 in any way different from a novel written in, say, 1965? I have noticed that modern novels has mobile phones in them, but are there other changes?
It's old news that whodunnits aims for social realism. Cyberpunk is rather vintage too. So what's new, if any?

This is an interesting question with lots of angles to unpack and examine.

First, I don't know if "evolve" can be one-for-one conflated with simple change. The analogy of biological speciation and evolution is hard to lay over the aspects of literature.

Also, are we examining literature as a whole, or just the novel? Even if we are just talking the novel, what role does genre play in the discussion? Is it a primary or secondary characteristic?

I think there is no doubt that the popular novel has changed, for many of the reasons already cited. Still, I think what we consider the novel today would be largely recognizable to early practitioners of the form.

What Cervantes, Defoe, or Fielding might think of the merits of the modern popular novel is another discussion entirely.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Kasper Hviid

Is a novel written i 2015 in any way different from a novel written in, say, 1965? I have noticed that modern novels has mobile phones in them, but are there other changes?

Undeniably so.

If you really want to see the growth and maturation of a form of storytelling, pick up a comic book from the 1960s and compare it to a new one. Almost everything is different - more intricate art, longer storylines, less sensationalistic narration, and more "adult" content. (I don't mean that last in terms of 18+ sexy stuff, but that newer comics are more prone to dealing with subjects beyond the "kid stuff" that used to be the norm.) Certainly I'm painting with broad strokes, as the old EC comics hold up well and we've still got Archie digests that have used the same setting and format for over 70 years - but the trend is unmistakeable.

Returning to the purely written word, compare a SF novel from the 1940s to one printed today. There's a certain flavor to the older book, a "Golden Age feel" that differs sharply from the more modern work. Some of it's due to a certain author's style, as I found when reading a Simak novel from the 1970s that could've come from twenty years earlier. I followed that up with another novel published the same year that read more like a 1990s (or later!) book, and had I not checked the copyright dates, I never would have thought they'd been published in the same decade, let alone the same year.

Some of that is undoubtedly due to editorial preferences and social changes, but there seems to be rather more at work than only those factors would explain.

[faltradl]

Off course litterature evolves every time. It's a mirror of the time and the society when it is written.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blossom

To me it seems to be de-evolving to the point I have stop buying from even favorite authors latest releases as I don't know if the editors have change but I have seen some of my favorite authors writing become more simple losing any trace of complexity or beauty of the language they once written that got me hooked on them in the first place. It's sad.

But with the greatest respect, Blossom, don't you think your own writing is illustrating the very faults you're complaining about other people making? Lack of apostrophes, lack of punctuation, and run-on sentences. Those would all seem to be valid example of the "de-evolution" of the written language.

[faltradl]

Originally Posted by Blossom

To me it seems to be de-evolving

Your mistake is: Evolving dosen't mean getting better. Evolving ist simply changeing.

I know, in biology we have the evolution. But evolution works with random changes. Many of them dosn't work, so the creature dies soon or dosn't reproduce. Or short: The fittest survive.

The same in litterature. Today the success is not writing good litterature. It is earning money with it. So is evolving the mass of litterature.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But with the greatest respect, Blossom, don't you think your own writing is illustrating the very faults you're complaining about other people making? Lack of apostrophes, lack of punctuation, and run-on sentences. Those would all seem to be valid example of the "de-evolution" of the written language.

I'm dyslexic Harry. It's a brain issue with me and lack of education. Please don't make me an example but I do enjoy good writing and know it when I see it. You will see I will make like 10 or so edits to a simple post because my brain can't put it all together when writing. You should see me trying to bake a simple recipe. Last time I put too much baking soda in a recipe because even though I checked 5 times my brain showed me Baking Soda instead of Baking Powder till later.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by faltradl

The same in litterature. Today the success is not writing good litterature. It is earning money with it. So is evolving the mass of litterature.

Very sad but true. It all about how much money one can make not how well someone can write. Just look at 50 Shades of Grey. The writing in that book is very bad. The grammar issues in those books were very hard to get around but it seems all new romance authors now want to write like her which is very bad.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But with the greatest respect, Blossom, don't you think your own writing is illustrating the very faults you're complaining about other people making? Lack of apostrophes, lack of punctuation, and run-on sentences. Those would all seem to be valid example of the "de-evolution" of the written language.

Blossom suffers from dyslexia. So it is possible that that is not a very fair comparison.



EDIT: Beaten...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Very sad but true. It all about how much money one can make not how well someone can write. Just look at 50 Shades of Grey. The writing in that book is very bad. The grammar issues in those books were very hard to get around but it seems all authors now want to write like her which is very bad.

Absolutely nothing wrong with writing for purely financial motives, of course. Some of the greatest writers in the English language, such as Dickens and Shakespeare, wrote with the sole goal of making money from it. Dickens in particular was obsessive about making money.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Absolutely nothing wrong with writing for purely financial motives, of course. Some of the greatest writers in the English language, such as Dickens and Shakespeare, wrote with the sole goal of making money from it. Dickens in particular was obsessive about making money.

No but I think changing how you write to make more money is they are just depriving the world of their true writing talent and I find that sad especially when it's a favorite author and you know they can write better than what their latest book shows. It's like they are no longer even trying anymore.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Very sad but true. It all about how much money one can make not how well someone can write. Just look at 50 Shades of Grey. The writing in that book is very bad. The grammar issues in those books were very hard to get around but it seems all new romance authors now want to write like her which is very bad.

There's a whole bunch of "alpha billionaire" erotica/romance out there, and a lot of "how did you get out of elementary school without being able to write better than this" content in the same field, but there are a few smut peddlers who take pride in their work. I'm doing some editing and ebook formatting for one, and I'll give Michael Dalton a special shoutout for The eGirl based on how much J.B.'s raved to me about it.

Sturgeon's Law still holds true, but I'm starting to think he was an optimist.

[frahse]

I am semi-retired now and enjoying some things that I have been missing.

Alas my knees won't let go very far up into the mountains any more, but I am starting to write again. It has been about 20 years since I have done much, but the landscape hasn't changed particularly. Sure there are a few gadgets that weren't around 20 years ago, but no real problems handling them.

War is war.
Space is space.
Fantasy is fantasy.