New symphonies are being performed all the time, as are new plays. You are simply, factually, wrong about this. As for your mention of The Iliad, people didn’t just do readings of parts of it, they memorised and recited it for centuries before it was written down. And to say people don’t read song lyrics as poetry when people in this thread have said they do is foolish at best.
And “Everybody must get stoned” recited as poetry sounds hilarious, not ridiculous. I’ve heard it done - although I suspect most of the audience were chemically altered in some way. Just like all the opium-smoking “canonical” poets, and their intended audience, were.
I honestly don’t know where you get the idea that there isn’t a market for new orchestral music, poetry, plays, and whatever. Just for example, at this years Proms,there will be 32 premieres,, and BBC orchestras premiere work all year round.
The only difference between now and 100 years ago is that, instead of being able to only hear music when it’s being performed, I can hear it all the time. Anyone with even a cursory interest in classical music can hear more new works today than anyone outside of a music school could have done prior to the invention of radio.
Except I didn’t say that. I even said I saw a new work performed at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra recently.
Suffice it to say that new symphonies and plays do not have a significant cultural impact any more. They are not put on because they turn a profit (e.g., Haydn going to London to put on his new symphonies to ecstatic crowds) but rather are enmeshed in the whole culture of grants and donations, and they don’t become part of the canon. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s cool that new works are performed. It would be even cooler if large numbers of people really care. But they don’t.
That was indeed wrong. I meant to say the Aeneid by Virgil.
People have said that they have done so. Sure. And there are stamp collectors out there too, but philately is not a significant part of the cultural landscape in 2015. If you want to assert that the Long Tail means that there are all kinds of works with small audiences and hobbies with a small number of enthusiasts, I would totally agree.
You see, you seem to think I’m talking in absolutes, as though I don’t want Dylan to be recited at all. Or I think he’s never recited at all. But I’m not talking in absolutes. Everything is a matter of degree. Dylan is a pop music giant, and tons of people still listen to his songs. I’m sure a very large number of people look up his lyrics online to, you know, find out what the lyrics are. A miniscule number of people say, “Screw the recordings, I’m just gonna read the lyrics as poetry!”
Another example. I have a friend who was a published mid-list thriller writer. He continues to self-pub his novels and makes a ton of money doing so. But he published a short story collection and said sales were negligible. Moreover, that was his expectation, since, he says, it’s a truism of the industry that short stories just don’t sell very well.
Now is the short story dead? No, but it apparently has much less cultural impact than the novel. Matters of degree.
Sometimes that degree can approach black and white, however. If I ask 20 people on the street, Who are the famous living poets of today? they are not going to have an answer–because there are no famous living poets today! And maybe you can try to argue that there are, but the fact remains that the 20 people on the street are not going to have an answer.
Yeah, that stuff gets produced on the basis of grants, donations, government largesse in the case of the BBC. Which is fine. I’m glad it happens. But to say there is a “market” for it is misleading. There is of course a very tiny market for it, as there is for a lot of stuff with the Long Tail.
Again, I never argued that new works are not being performed. I argued that the canon is closed. 100 years from now, orchestras will be performing Beethoven’s 5th. They will not be performing anything premiered in 2015. (There is room for exceptions, but they will be rare.)
Orchestras have always existed as a result of patronage, and most orchestral compositions - including the vast majority of Bach’s work, and at least some of Beethoven’s - were works for hire. Just like most orchestral music is today, whether soundtracks or compositions for events. You seem to have a rather warped idea of how art in general works. It’s rare, historically and currently, for art to be produced solely by an artist without arrangements for funding. Whether that’s the prince of Bavaria commissioning a symphony, or the King or President wanting a portrait painted, or someone funding their new record on Kickstarter. It’s all patronage of one sort or another.
I read that the patronage system, at least the kind Haydn had enjoyed, was ending as Mozart was coming up. And sure, he had to have funding, but that usually meant he had to go out and sell his stuff–he didn’t have a Prince Esterhazy. I wouldn’t be too certain in saying, “Oh, it was all this, or it was always that.” I mean, anyone has to be careful of that, including me right now about Mozart.
In any case, my point was that it’s not as though there is a public clamoring for new classical music. If a stranger from space looked down at the all the MFA programs, s/he might conclude there is a huge demand for poetry and literary short fiction. But in time of Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven, there really was a big public demand for their music. They were famous and appreciated in their own time.
I’d say the short story is fading away because there are so many more options for entertainment that takes, say, half an hour. There’s TV shows, comics, video games, blogs, podcasts, and so on. Novels, in general, are something to be enjoyed over days or weeks, and there’s still fewer other options for that sort of entertainment. Story-based video games are getting there, and very recently binge-watching TV series.
But I don’t think people are less interested in stories that only take a short time to tell, and I think TV proves that. It’s just a format change
It seems to me that, in all your arguments, you are focussing on a specific period of time, from the late 18th century to the mid 20th, and somewhat arbitrarily deciding that the way things were done then, and the particular art forms valued, is the best way to do it. In doing so, you ignore the vast majority of human history before that, when things were done very differently, and seem to conclude that, rather than being part of some ongoing change, we are changing from the way things were always done.
To the contrary! I am saying that things are going to change and old formats and ways of doing things are going to go away. Perhaps you merely sense some regret on my part about various aspects of that whole deal.
Good observation, Steophan, about the fact that it’s not the “short time to tell” aspect of the traditional short story that has negatively affected its popularity. In addition to the more-popular short-time-investment forms you mention, there’s one even shorter: the commercial.
How many “what’s your favorite commercial?” threads have been started on this site, alone?
Clearly, people are getting something out of a favorite commercial or sitcom that they’re not getting out of text short-stories. We can’t rule out the possibility that the act of reading itself is a barrier to enjoyment for some, unfortunately, since the more popular short forms mentioned are visual or auditory rather than text-based. Reading is a pleasure for most who frequent the SDMB, probably…but we may not be part of a majority.
It’s possible that there’s more to it than that, though. Sitcoms and video games and commercials may be providing something that the traditional short story–in its classic form, a slice of life or slice of consciousness–does not. I’d guess that slice-of-life stories fail to provide the identification-with-the-One-Who-Wins pleasures that form the basis of most modern television/gaming/commercials.
(But of course making that case would require a whole book full of examples and closely-reasoned arguments.)
My regret lies in seeing the world we know go away, and I anticipate even more “going away.” An overall trend I see in the arts is society’s losing the ability to make canon, or choosing not to do so. The Long Tail is one big cause of that, I think, but I think oversaturation of works and closing of the canon due to an (unspoken) feeling of sufficiency on the part of society is another. In the case of poetry, I think it’s the case that poetry went in a less satisfying and entertaining direction (no rhyme and highly negative a la “The Wasteland”), and that course was never particularly corrected, and there ended up the feeling, “Hey, we now have a canon of poetry that’s big enough.” Again, all unconscious and unspoken. Something that happened organically in society.
I am certain there will be new canon in arts we have yet to imagine. Plus, there will be the odd work or two in old arts that manage to stick.
It’s a topic I give a lot of thought to (as is probably obvious). But it’s a contentious topic, certainly. Any analysis of “story” has the potential to stomp on the toes of cherished beliefs and assumptions about the way the mind works.