Quote:
Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan
You don't say a lot you read romance, do you?  |
I don't quite understand your point, but I will say that Anthony Trollope is one of my favorites. And most of his many, many novels have a plot along these lines:
-- Boy and girl are made for each other
-- Something, or someone, is stopping them from marrying
-- They marry anyway
Is that romance?
Was Trollope literary? Well, even if the word wasn't used, he was regarded as such in his time because of being on the realism side of any grouping of authors along a realism-sensationalism spectrum. Now he seems out of favor, hardly more taught in universities than his friend and, as a novelist, polar opposite, Wilkie Collins.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
I'm thinking enduring popular appeal is bound to be a better predictor of future classics than establishment awards.
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I wonder if there even will be future classics. Don't today's English professors tend to teach, say, Dickens, as an exemplar of a time and place rather than as someone who gives us superior insight into human nature?
In order to have classics, you have to believe that human nature is real and permanent. Trollope's novels are all about the differing nature of men and women. If you think sex differences are all socially constructed, there is nothing timeless in the books and they can't be classics.