Friday, April 30, 2010
Do you respect a literary work less because the author was paid for it?
Just that--an opinion poll. Unlike the other posts this afternoon, which are more detailed. I'm curious, because there seemed to be a consistent thread in the questions to the effect that an economic motive tainted the text somewhat.
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I don't think that an author being paid for a work makes it any less valuable, if the writing is still quality writing. I think it's when an author does not truly care about their writing, and that comes across in a novel, that there's a problem. Just because an author is paid doesn't mean they can't be "literary". Most of the authors we see as "literary" today (Dickens comes to mind the most), had to be paid as writers in order to survive.
ReplyDeleteLizzie Crosthwaite
Tuesday Section
I agree with Lizzie. There is nothing wrong with being paid to write, its what comes out as works that is important. But the question I would ask is how we value each work? And how does its popularity change its monetary value? There is no question that in order to survive as a writer, he/she would have to write as much as possible especially when paid by how many words he/she contributes, but how can we judge as readers whether their works were just to earn money or trying to convey a message/story? I believe texts are tainted with the idea of monetary gain instead of literary worth only when we perceive it that way and since we can never really know the author's intention in the writing I suggest merely accepting that everyone has to make a living and move on with the text, whether it had an economic motive or not.
ReplyDeleteI think that writers associated with high pay are also associated with writing pop culture, and for some reason pop culture writing is looked at as low brow literature. As literature students I feel like we do not give credit to writers of this category. As Lizzie mentioned, that Dickens comes to mind, I think that these well paid authors must find a happy medium between quality writing and pleasing the masses. (I cannot help but think of the Twilight phenomenon in answering this question).
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