Posts Tagged ‘genre fiction’
Storyteller as a Noble Calling
To entertain someone is to transport them to a different world. This is no small feat.
In my previous post, I talked about my belief that genre fiction can also be literary, and emotionally and intellectually deep.
But the honest truth is a lot of what we read isn’t deep. And that’s ok.
It’s pure entertainment, and that’s still valuable for a number of reasons:
Genre Fiction as Literature
What is literature?
Yes, the dentists’ brochures on flossing, the neon green flyer tucked under your windshield, and the weight-loss ad cleverly disguised as an article in your magazine are all technically literature as written materials.
But I’m talking about the definition of literature as a creative work of excellent quality and lasting artistic value. Think Hamlet and A Tale of Two Cities. Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dante’s Inferno and Goethe’s Faust.
These are the pieces literati will hold up as paragons of literature.