pip said:
Watched an interesting documentry on Chaucer a month ago and found it quiet interesting that he broke the mould in producing his work. Writing in english was seen as a huge mistake and his style and humour was seen as controversial. People thought he would disapear into obscurity.
Also Dickens was esentially a serial writer similar in cultural position to soap operas today so what stands the test of time can't be predicted from previous generations. Whos to say that fantasy isn't the stand out for thsi generation in years to come. just because it hasn't been before means nothing.
Absolutely true. But most of the "great works" tend to remain in the public consciousness because academics and other intelligensia keep it there.That would be the case with Chaucer, since it was unlikely that more than a few hundred people in his time could read period, let alone English. The Tales were kept in circulation because university professors collectively recognized its worth and made it mandatory reading by students over the centuries.
Shakespeare, while popular is in time, was never considered to be the greatest writer of his generation until his reputation started to be elevated by academia and literary essayists like Pope and Johnson in the 18th century. The same probably could be said for Milton as well.
As you very rightly said, Dickens was probably the first English-language fiction writer to achieve immense popularity with both the masses and the critical acclaim of the intellgensia.
Ultimately, the lasting power of any book or author depends on how widely available his/her work is and how his or her reputation rises or falls in the critical community.
Of course, today the Internet has changed all the rules, giving the people the ability to keep an author's works in the public eye even if the eggheads don't believe they should be.
Call me in a hundred years and we'll see how popular Pterry is then!
