Influence of classic literature on writers declining, study claims...

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I just saw this piece from the Guardian. Influence of classic literature on writers declining, study claims.

 

[Montero]

Three quick thoughts.

a) Interesting study.

b) Classical and popular music has changed far more massively than the written word.
e.g. Vivaldi compared to Havergal Brian (if I've spelt that correctly).

c) and painting and sculpture. From Michaelangelo to cubism and unmade beds.

Mind boggles as to what books would be like now if there had been that level of change in literature.

 

[Esfires]

For me it's just the opposite. I've read hardly any modern authors in the last few years, and it really shows in my writing.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I thought the current trend was for writers to steal classic literature (because it's out-of-copyright), and just add werewolves or zombies or vampires...

 

[Sapheron]

I'm not at all surprised. Its a great pity, but fewer and fewer people, at least from my point of view, can bear to read things written in an older style. I know a lot of people who say they're too difficult and require too much attention to make them enjoyable.

 

[Lilmizflashythang]

People are reading at a third grade level anymore. There's no wonder that many do not read the classics now. Makes them think too much. More of the line of 'Don't read the King James Bible, it's too hard to understand. But Shakespeare is great literature.'

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Yes, maybe. But I'm not so certain that its necessarily such a terrible thing.

Old writing has its place, and there is little doubt that some of it was great. But at the same time a lot of the new stuff is great too. Maybe what's happening is not so much that the classic literature is being read and used less often, its that there is a lot more out there which is already classic to widen the pool that writers drink from. Its just that because its new, many people don't seem to recognise it as such. Yet.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Anne Lyle]

I'm wondering if the method used is actually scientifically valid. How much of the similarity between 18/19th century writers and their predecessors is down to the former actually reading the latter, and how much is a relatively slow change in English grammar? There are grammatical constructions such as the passive voice (e.g. "dinner was being prepared") that post-date Jane Austen.

Similarly, the fact that modern-day writers don't copy the style of Victorian novelists doesn't mean they're ignorant of the classics, only that they are (understandably) writing for a modern audience whose everyday language is much snappier than a middle-class Victorian's.

I think this is one of those research projects whose purpose is to prove the bleeding obvious...

 

[Bowler1]

The classics were written in a time before modern media such as TV. These classic books contain (in my experience, and not great I’ll admit) a lot of description and internal thoughts from the characters. The writing is slower but can have as much drama as any modern novel. The writing reflected the need of the user at the time, which was to give a picture of events and places the reader would otherwise never experience. Today these images are with us from numerous sources, the internet, TV and other forms of print, so description is not a prime requirement. The reader also has other choices for sources of entertainment so a modern book is forced into being concise and dramatic to compete. These are the times we live in, we no longer sit by the fire reading of an evening because the next village over takes hours to get to on horseback. The world is faster, with a lot more on offer. Writing has to reflect this.

So an interesting study, but I’m with Anne on this – bleeding obvious.
From what I remember, Jane Austin never once mentioned aliens or spaceships, so I won’t be looking to her books for inspiration!

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I agree with Anne and Bowler. It isn't automatically a bad thing. How much of Beowulf and Canterbury Tales went into Jane Austen ? Things have changed, there are things I can assume most of my readers have seen and that I don't need to describe. Jane Austen herself had a very narrow life and circle of friends, many of her readers would have been in the same position and needed more description for things.

I would look out of place if my main husband and wife character addressed each other as Mr Harlow and Mrs Harlow etc Sentence structure has changed, language has changed. Also far from dumbing down the opposite has happened. We have more people of all status and only basic education that can read and write. That requires we have more of the modern version of the Victorian Penny Dreadfuls.

Having said that Jo March and Professor Bhaer inspired my ogre race. The classical literature is influencing my work, along with religious texts, art, cartoons, computer games etc

 

[The Judge]

Things have changed, there are things I can assume most of my readers have seen and that I don't need to describe. Jane Austen herself had a very narrow life and circle of friends, many of her readers would have been in the same position and needed more description for things.

I'd have said that there's relatively little description in Austen -- she was writing contemporary fiction for people of the same general class and with much the same interests, so she could assume they knew exactly what the Assembly Rooms in Bath looked like. Conversely, I'm reading a SF book at the moment which is absolutely laden with description, because the author needs to get across all that is strange and unfamiliar about the worlds he's created, including the alien species and technology.

It's interesting that the report makes it clear that "modern-day" is restricted to works before 1952, ie from authors who would have had an education firmly based on the classics and, in the UK, the KJV, but I can't help thinking that their methodology of counting these content-free words is itself flawed.

 

[Peter Graham]

Personally, I'm very heavily influenced by the "classics", although that doesn't mean I seek to write in 18th century idiom, which appears to be the entirely pointless assumption behind this research. Classics are classics for a reason - and it's nothing to do with verbosity or some chippy belief that they are only good because snooty academics tell us that they are.

Take Chaucer. He's a brilliant storyteller. His tales are heavy with wry humour, irony and pathos. The fact that most English students nowadays can barely spell their own name, let alone decipher Middle English, says precisely nothing about the quality of his writing.

Dickens, Hardy, Twain and Steinbeck are incredibly talented social commentators. I'd argue that no-one has written a book as funny as Tom Jones or Tristram Shandy (although Kurt Vonnegut gets close). No-one writes satire like Swift or Defoe. Anyone who thinks Austen just wrote sedentary fluff for prim middle class ladies really has no idea what they are talking about. Anyone who has reached adult years and says that Shakespeare is boring might be best advise to give up reading - let alone writing - and buy a copy of Zombie Marine Mayhem IV - Total Death in San Jose for their PS3 instead.

The classics are classic because they are exceptional slices of storytelling written by people with command of the language and a rare ability to observe, record and entertain. As such, they influence and continue to influence modern writers. And quite right too.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Vertigo]

Some have commented on the validity of the study, but I would say that if you take any criterion at all and find a statistical correlation on that criterion from authors of one period and a different correlation between writers of a different period, then you have clearly identified a difference in style. Exactly how you would describe that difference is a another matter altogether, and possibly irrelvant for this study anyway.

I think the significance of the study is that the correlation didn't change all that much until recent times or at least not as fast, indicating a shift away from the previous trend. As they say in the article, this may just be down to the much greater numbers of books being written, and the much much greater numbers of people literate enough to read but maybe not literate enough to tackle some of the heavier classical styles.

 

[Weird Era]

Everything has its place, I think. Someone said that the general public of today find the classics difficult and not enjoyable to read. However, for an educated Victorian person, general literature of today, with its quicker pace and focus on the concrete and character, would probably not interest them much.

Styles of art, literature including, change along with the fashions of society. it isn't so much a bad thing as just a healthy, natural progression, i think. People still take inspiration from the classics. Just as much as they did before, even. But they also move writing forwards from those old styles

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Zombie Marine Mayhem IV - Total Death in San Jose

Me me me me I want it!

On the article in question, it just seems to me to be yet another Guardian fluff piece that exists only to shrug shoulders and say 'kids today, huh?'. Times change, tastes evolve, communications diversify attention spans, yadda yadda.

As I always say, write what people will enjoy, not what you think people will be impressed by.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Jane Austen herself had a very narrow life and circle of friends, many of her readers would have been in the same position and needed more description for things.

I'm with TJ. Few writers use less description than Jane Austen did.

Not that Austen's prose moves at a blistering pace. But the way that she dissects characters like Sir Walter Elliot is well worth a few pages of "telling."

The novel has evolved; it will evolve. That's as it should be. But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and it's a good idea to read some of the classics and learn to appreciate them, so that we can identify what it is of value that we might be losing.

 

[Brian G Turner]

"authors of any given period are stylistically similar to their contemporaries"

Well, there's a shocker.

A big difference is there's arguably a larger volume of work out there, reading habits are different, influences are far more diverse (ie, Eastern and pagan/animist interests), and genre fiction is more specialised, ie, there are "classics" specific to that: Frank Herbert's "Dune", Arthur C Clarke's "2001" and Asimov's "Foundation" series within science fiction, for example.

But the classics are still there.

But as pointed out above, few modern writers are likely to try and emulate the writing styles of previous centuries. That would be silly, forsooth!

 

[Glen]

I just saw this piece from the Guardian. Influence of classic literature on writers declining, study claims.

Forsooth! This is of ill-omen and strikes to my very heart!

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Forsooth, quoth the I,Brian and the Glen. Forasmuch as styles hath changed through yon weary centuries, so too hath ye "novelle".

'Twas upon a recent dark and stormy night, I didst write in great and telling detail about ye Internalle Combustioning Engine, so my gentle readers didst understand how the horseless carriages didst so move about without need of noble steeds.

Gadzooks, even.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But as pointed out above, few modern writers are likely to try and emulate the writing styles of previous centuries. That would be silly

It worked out very well for Susanna Clarke.