>the distinction between good,literary science fiction and the arguably >more
pulpy brand.
The pulpy popular stuff is necessary. Shakespeare and 'Hamlet' didn't come
from nowhere, they came from an existing tradition of gory and usually dire
revenge tragedies. There's a whole background of gothic melodrama behind 'Jane
Eyre'. The westerns of John Ford are generally reckoned classics of film but
came from the genre tradition of black hats, white hats, horses, guns, etc
etc. I suspect more 'great works of art' emerge from despised popular
traditions than from 'high' tradition (and if they do, make that high
tradition accessible in a new way--e.g the Prague errandboys whistling Mozart
after the first production there of the Marriage of Figaro).
The margins are where it's at
And yes, literary scholars tend to prefer the difficult, in need of detailed
exegesis writers like Joyce, Yeats. Some writers, what can you say, but,
'they're good'--they don't require a lifetime's decoding.
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:34 PDT