Fiona wrote:
At the risk of getting into philosophical areas here, also, this viewpoint has always struck me as very similar to that of Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who argued that "poetry is as good as pushpin [a kind of eighteeth-century children's game, as I understand it]."
But Bentham isn't a relativist - he makes value judgements on, as you say,
the
utility of the activity. I thought that point was meant to be that he might argue, for example, that football is 'better' than opera (more people get pleasure from it, it makes more money as a business, etc. etc. etc.).
He doesn't work for the BBC, by any chance :)? But it has to be said that later philosophers did use him to support the relativist position, IIRC.
And his Dr Who plot synopses were rubbish.
Basically, by this analysis a Mills and Boon romance is every bit as literarily valid as a Shakespeare play. Which is something I've never been able to accept--
I guess since I'm invariably looking at this from the perspective of how
these
things are received, the reception of a romance by its readership is as interesting to me as the reception of a Shakespeare play.
Me too-- see my post to Neil on my first-year essay on soap opera. But also note the reception it got. Value is tied up with the culture.
Yep, we're dead on of the same opinion here.
BTW, how many Cambridge first-years does it take to screw in a lightbulb? :)
As many as we can fit, darling.
ObB7: let's have a first-year course in "Reading B7." *I'd* attend...:)
Yay! But Ika would have to run it.
Una