In William Dean Howell's "Criticism and Fiction", he argues his opinion of good literature. Howells idea of good literature is the honest truth. Simple truthful literature is without sugar coating and without being mystified. He says that authors are conforming to fame, and 'whats hot' instead of being original ."If the truth could become a fad it would be accepted by all their 'smart people', but truth is something rather too large for that; and we must await the gradual advance of civilization among them." He also says that authors are being taught to think that what they think is good instead of first finding the good and thinking it. However, he does commend Jane Austen because she was forthright, honest, and created "material with entire truthfulness." Furthermore, Howells claims that literature needs to convey the simple truth instead of a distorted truth that looks pleasing to the eye.
This connects to Annie Dillard and her essay "Total Eclipse", Berger, and Freire. These all explain or show examples of mystification. Mystification is someone telling you what to see. Howell explains that if you are writing while being mystified, then this is bad literature. Meaning that if you write something that someone else already told you is the truth, it is bad literature. Instead you should write your own thoughts and speak the simple straight forward truth.
Question: Hasn't everyone been 'mystified', making everything bad literature?
No comments:
Post a Comment