Quoth drewcosten:
Of course they weren’t. Any piece of literature which is written to be studied for its literary merits had better be written on soft, perforated paper rolled onto cardboard tubes, because that’s likely to be all it’s worth. All truly great literature was originally written for some other purpose, be it to entertain, to teach, or to make a point.
Gotta disagree here. The English language novel came into its own in the 19th century. The American novel (except Twain and Melville) didn’t reach the same heights (Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, etc.) until the last century. In any case, the OP talks about writing, not just novels.
[side note]
My brother-in-law once remarked that he thought Shakespeare’s plays should be translated into modern English. I pointed out that the plays are in modern English, and the difficulty in understanding Shakespeare isn’t the language, its the form. Each of the plays is essentially an epic poem told in dialog.
He thought this was silly. The King James Bible, written at about the same time, uses the same style of language, so obviously that was how people actually talked back then. :rolleyes:
Besides that, translating Shakespeare into contemporary prose may make it more accessible, but it would no longer be Shakespeare. Shakespeare isn’t Tom Clancy; you don’t read the plays for the plot, but for the music of the language.
I teach 5th grade, so only a little Shakespeare makes its way into my class (Polonius’ advice to Laertes), but I’ve always been of the school that you should see the play first, read it after. Once you know the words, you can listen to the music.[/side note]
Regarding Shakespeare, there is at least one company that had the idea of printing his plays along with a “modernized” version alongside. It takes the form of Shakespeare’s original writing on the left (even numbered) pages, with the modernization along the right hand page.
And my theory regarding some of the classics - more precisely the English/Victorian set - are that they were written primarily by the upper-class and the aristocrats, as they had both the time and money to get things written and widely published.
This explains, to me, why their style is so (relatively) dry to us today - because they were men of learning writing to other men of learning, they wrote in a more academic style than, well, a stylish style, because that is what they were accustomed to. Of course, I haven’t done any real research to back this up, so feel free to tear this theory apart.
The classics are boring because, when they were written, people had way too much free time on their hands and no entertainment to fill the void.
Yes, it’s complete nonsense. It might have made more sense in the context of this thread if the discussion concerned, say, Milton, Shelley, Tennyson or Byron, but makes absolutely none in the context of Shakespeare & Dickens & Hemingway.
I don’t have the time to dissect this at length. But for instance I should point out that up until the 18th century authors from the aristocracy rarely published their writings, or if they did did so anonymously or under a pseudonym, because it was considered extremely dubious for the upper class to publish (& thus be placed at the same level as any literary hack).