Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
My personal definition (and others may well disagree) is that a "literary" author is one who writes as an art form, rather than to entertain the reader. Two examples would be James Joyce and Virginia Woolfe, neither of whom wrote for the entertainment of the public, but considered writing to be a form of art for the "intelligentsia" (however you choose to interpret that word). Which explains why most people don't find their books to be an entertaining read: they weren't intended to be.
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My definition of a "literary" work is similar: it is a work in which the prose (the specific choice of phrasing, metaphor and so on) is at least as important as the outward or apparent meaning of the prose. Like poetry, a true literary work paints a feeling or imagery using words that might be quite distinct from the meaning of the words themselves.
Non-literary works (basically everything else), are those that use the overt meaning of the prose to impart the desired effect. Such works are more those of a craftsman or tradesman rather than a pure artist. But there is, as we must all have seen, considerable overlap. Many craftsmen (crafts-persons?) can easily be described as artists, and some artists create work of deliberate purpose, achieving both form and function. The distinction, for me, is that for a craftsman function is the priority: first it must work, second it should look good.
For me, "great" works are those that achieve an ideal compromise between the literary and non-literary aspect. Some, I believe, manage to achieve it deliberately, but others - I think - come across it accidentally, finding that form and function have complemented themselves in the effort to achieve one or the other.