[Rimbaud]

This is really questioning most of academia, particularly the literary side. Not that the field should be bereft of question and left unchallenged by any means, but the question is perhaps broader than suspected.

For example, certain authors have been studied for thousands of years (some by JRRT himself). Others for several hundred years - and some chap from Stratford-upon-Avon is a good example of this. You may imagine that several million people studying the Bard for a over three hundred years might deaden the field a little, but far from it. Try asking a full-time Shakespeare-scholar (I know a couple) that there is little left to say, and they will smile at you, perhaps affectionately, but with a certain tiredness and a glint in the eye that speaks of a long conversation to come...

Not to compare Professor and Bard directly, mind, but if the text still has an effect on people (I removed the word 'profound' from that clause, but I'll hear argument), then there will still be much to discuss.

I'll take this argument to a somewhat long-winded but logical end-point: so long as people are unique and have unique reactions to events and stimuli, including literature, then discussion of those matters shall continue; from the mundane to the sublime. The key ancillary to this is, of course, that we must invest much in the education of each generation so that at least such discourse is fruitful.

Rimsky