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DiapDealer · 09-02-2015, 08:41 AM

@HarryT
I find your definition of 'literary author' to be a bit juvenile actually. Anyone can claim to be writing only "for the art of it". So does that automatically make them a "literary author" in your eyes? I'll answer for you; "of course it doesn't." They have to claim they're writing for art's sake only, you have to believe them when they claim it, and you have to think their writing has merit.

So why don't we just dismiss the "writing for art's sake" as the unprovable and largely irrelevant criteria that it is (because let's face it "art" and "entertainment" have never been mutually exclusive--or even dependent upon its creator's intent, for that matter), and just accept the fact that a literary author, to you, is someone that you've been told is literary author; and one that you (and many others, to be fair) personally feel has "a little sumthin' extra." Which is, of course, entirely subjective once again (intelligentsia target-group be damned).

"Literary"--in its genre-like manifestation--is nothing more than a mechanism for cherry-picking the best works from all the other genres and claiming it as its own ... for art's sake. It's a self-perpetuating, intelligentsia-inspired synonym for "good (by our invisible criteria)."

NOTE: I'm not dismissing the authors labeled as "literary" or their works. I've appreciated (and even been entertained by) many of them. Not because of the mainly mythical Literary burden they carry, but because I thought they were "Good."

09-02-2015, 08:41 AM	#136
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,709 Karma: 205039118 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	@HarryT I find your definition of 'literary author' to be a bit juvenile actually. Anyone can claim to be writing only "for the art of it". So does that automatically make them a "literary author" in your eyes? I'll answer for you; "of course it doesn't." They have to claim they're writing for art's sake only, you have to believe them when they claim it, and you have to think their writing has merit. So why don't we just dismiss the "writing for art's sake" as the unprovable and largely irrelevant criteria that it is (because let's face it "art" and "entertainment" have never been mutually exclusive--or even dependent upon its creator's intent, for that matter), and just accept the fact that a literary author, to you, is someone that you've been told is literary author; and one that you (and many others, to be fair) personally feel has "a little sumthin' extra." Which is, of course, entirely subjective once again (intelligentsia target-group be damned). "Literary"--in its genre-like manifestation--is nothing more than a mechanism for cherry-picking the best works from all the other genres and claiming it as its own ... for art's sake. It's a self-perpetuating, intelligentsia-inspired synonym for "good (by our invisible criteria)." NOTE: I'm not dismissing the authors labeled as "literary" or their works. I've appreciated (and even been entertained by) many of them. Not because of the mainly mythical Literary burden they carry, but because I thought they were "Good."