At what point did novels get taken seriously? When did novelists become artists? Really, novels are no more absurd than the belief that reading from books qualifies as reading, but it still seems odd that they would come to be taken so seriously by otherwise intelligent people.
When did I forget how to put things in the right forum? Someone move this, please.
Off to Cafe Society.
This attempt at a sentence just does not compute.
I’m not exactly sure what you are trying to get at. “Art” has always been a pretty esoteric concept, and it has different meanings to different people and different meaning sometimes to the same person depending on context. Most importantly nowhere is it implied that “Art” is by definition serious or elitist.
Most people consider all creative outlets to be a form of art and in that manner a novel qualifies just as much as anything else. Are you trying to imply that no written word is art? Or just old literature from Europe? Or are you trying to imply that only paintings are art? Honestly I have no fucking idea what you are trying to say.
Nice effort on the OP. :rolleyes:
This might be a good starting place: The novel as “literature,” 1750 through today.
Omniscient: I guess it was a failed attempt to be funny. Remember that the written word long predates books. Then imagine a bunch of people around the time book-binding was invented regarding these new… things with much the same disdain many people now regard reading off a computer screen.
They were originally scorned because they contained gossip and sex and spread anti-monarchist or otherwise subversive ideas, (true, they were essentially expanded pamphlets) and novels like The Sorrows of Young Werther inpired young men to commit suicide, and young ladies would be better improved by reading the Classics instead of trashy pornos.
Answer to the OP: probably during the late Romantic period, when the French Revolution led to a lot of social liberation.
ETA: KneadtoKnow beat me to the punch, including a reference to Young Werther!