[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Bwahaha. Perhaps the curious matter is that which is meant by significance. What do we consider Great, and why do we think it so? I will blithely and committedly say that if something has created no cultural paradigm shift, it's not Great. Ergo Harry Potter is Great, and Great Expectations, I expect, is not. Yet which do we read in high school English?

It could probably be fairly argued that Dickens was the Rowling of his day. (And look at the success the RSC had with Nicholas Nickleby in the 1980s.)

It would also be fair to suggest that literature of the past can benefit from being taught in a classroom because the cultural and temporal distance can use a bit of explication. If all we read in school (or even on our own)l was of our own time, what paultry, pitiful minds we would have: without some kind of historical context or memory, we are blinkered. This is not, by the by, to defend Eliot's critical judgements (although some of his understanding of what happens when a poet really confronts other poets, of the past as well as of his own time, are interesting).

And can Greatness be bestowed posthumously? Everyone knows that artists are dirt poor and misunderstood (excepting fiends like Damien Hirst) until well after death. So too with literature? Does the popularity and cultural milieu of LotR have postmortem effects on the Vulsunga Saga or Beowulf or etc? Would anyone care at all about Detective Comics if they hadn't created a spinoff with that weird and kinda interesting character, Batman? What I'm asking, I suppose, is if we can grant greatness retroactively, by way of what it birthed. And is it still great if nobody cares about it?

John Donne was by and large ignored until Eliot championed him. There are clear political reasons why Eliot would champion Donne and not Milton, but the fact remains that there are now a good many readers who count Donne among their favourite poets. The entire corpus of Old English literature was forgotten until the Victorians rediscovered it. There are many women writers and working class writers whose work fell by the wayside of critical taste who are now 'rediscovered'. So, yes, the waxing and waning of aesthetic tastes and judgements does produce a mixed bag. What is crucial to one generation of readers might not be to the next.

How significant is Joseph Conrad if his biggest dead guy claim to fame is, "More high schoolers didn't read my book than didn't read yours!"?

He was kind of significant to the filmmaker who made "Apocalypse Now" (although perhaps that film is no longer widely appreciated--another shift in taste).

So what is significance?

If significance is a specific set of conditions in which only European white boys fit, then yes, I suppose we might run into some problems with literature that glorifies legends of border cultures. And in that case, LotR is basically a nerdy professor writing fantasy fan fic about myths.

However if significance is something that can be determined by the reaction of those confronted with it (either positive or negative), then we've got a bit of play room.

By "those confronted with it" do you mean the writers or do you mean readers? I would agree with you that the creative influence of a text is a better guide to understanding the soup, but then always there's the problem with accounting for minority responses and accounting for the tastes of readers and writers who are formed by a wider range or differing range of reading than others. (Note that I wouldn't claim Eliot had a wider range of reading. Once I was soundly lambasted for discussing Charlotte Bronte in the same sentence as St. Augustine.)

Originally Posted by Bethberry

It might be fun to examine how each literary theory picks up (or doesn't) aspects of Tolkien: Freudian, Jungian, Lacanian for psychology, Kristeva, Derrida, post-colonial theory.

You minx.

I shall not cease from reminding you of your ideas and the end of all the prodding will be to arrive at a place where you do find the time and inclination to post them here.