h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, Shakespeare was pretty good, right? Maybe he got lucky, got remembered by history where everyone else got forgotten, his works survived where others got destroyed. Maybe the passing of time filtered off his contemporaries until we only remember him. Maybe he was just the stand-out guy of his era. I don't know, I'm guessing. But he was pretty good.

Later, the pool widens; we have Byron and Keats, Dickens and the Brontes, and maybe we can think the same of them. As time goes on, there are more 'greats', and perhaps the greatness lessens with each passing decade.

Who was the best of the 20th Century? Joyce? Kerouac? Orwell? Blyton? You could give me a dozen names each.

And now, in the space of the last two decades, we have about 1,000 documents on the Internet for every man, woman and child on the planet. The ultimate mass-medium has left us with no time to even establish a benchmark, let alone allow space for the great writers to create their style and develop. Best-sellers are published in the names of Jade Goody, Jeremy Clarkson and Wayne Rooney, and nobody bats an eyelid.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare would be writing a dull blog about the hardships of being a playwright from Stratford-Upon-Avon, and no-one would read it.

And all of a sudden you could apply the same thinking to so many things. Music is available for nothing on MySpace, now taken over by the record industry. The old art of photography has been lost to Photoshop and Flickr. Art itself has been dead for decades. YouTube will, in time, kill the moving picture.

We have an infinite potential in terms of communicating ideas with others, but no clue how to use it. We've found a way for everyone to be able to communicate with everyone else, but not a way for us to find the cream and attach cultural value to it, to celebrate and value it. As it stands, we'll never build another St Paul's, or write another Iliad, or even play another Love Me Do. The cacophony of competing voices would drown them all out.

In the UK, the response to a loss of national identity seems to be to revert to the local. That's interesting, because 'local' has always had a geographical emphasis, but the internet has taken that requirement away to some extent. We can have communities of shared ideas and interests without having to live near the other members of those communities any more. If we can find our own localised greats, do we need Michaelangelo after all? Or will we end up celebrating the Brysons of this world far too much and leave a cultural deficiency in a century's time?

I'll leave that question open, but I'd like to think that future historians would blank the 20th Century as a modern Dark Age, apart from Ronnie Hazlehurst. He would be clearly marked out as the leading cultural light of the age.

Holy Moly, where to begin.

Well, assuming that Shakespeare really was Shakespeare (and there is a degree of doubt), it's easy to see how he could have been viewed as the Damien Hirst of his day, what with is high falutin similes and metaphors and suchlike. All mouth and no trousers, you might say. All hat and no cattle. But somehow he came to be revered and several of the phrases from his plays have entered into the English language. Aye, there's the rub.


At school I had to study Macbeth, Jane Eyre and narrative poetry for English O level. I could see that there was something in Shakespeare even if I didn't quite understand it at the time. There was something deeper than just the words. Charlotte Bronte, on the other hand, was just a load of old loblocks. I mean, it was a pretty good story and all, but as for this meaning that and the other meaning something else, well how do they know what they hell Charlotte Bronte was thinking when she wrote what she wrote, any more than Ernie Wise did when he wrote his plays wot he wrote? I couldn't see it.

Narrative poetry on the other hand, now that was the shit The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Sir Patrick Spens, Horatio holding the bridge? Hell yeah! Poets don't just write stories, they use language...

Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the nine gods he swore, that the great house of Tarquin should suffer wrong no more. By the nine gods he swore it and named a trysting day, and bade his messengers ride forth, east and west and south and north to summon his array.

And I didn't even have to look that up - burned into my consciousness until the day I die.

There are giants of the 21st century. You mentioned a few of them, but forgot one in particular - Steinbeck. There are plenty of others too.

Got up.
Had a shave.
Did The Times Crossword.
Had another shave.
~Roger McGough

Here's another 20th century gem:

"To begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched courters' and rabbiters' wood limping invisible down to the sloe-black, slow, black, crow black fishing boat bobbing sea."

I have to agree with you though that the internet is cheapening everything and bringing it all down to the level of the lowest common denominator. If you tell somebody online that a word isn't spelt that way or their usage of grammar is wrong, they'll ignore you, tell you to off or get all hoity toity and say that "language evolves".

Nothing done purely for its own sake was ever really worthwhile. 'Every day' or 'everyday'? They mean two different things.

"Rory Breaker."
"Rory? Yeah, I know Rory. He's not to be underestimated. He's a funny-looking er I know but you've got to look past the hair and the cute cuddly thing - it's all a deceptive façade. A few nights ago Rory's Roger iron rusted, so he's gone down the battle cruiser to watch the end of a football game. No-one's watching the custard so he switches the channel over. A fat geezer's north opens and he wanders up and turns the Liza over. "Now off and watch it somewhere else." Rory knows claret is imminent but he doesn't want to miss the end of the game, so calm as a coma, he picks up a fire extinguisher, walks straight past the jam rolls who are ready for action, and plonks it outside the entrance. He then orders an Aristotle of the most ping pong tiddly in the nuclear sub and switches back to his footer."

Now, I consider myself something of an expert when it comes to Cockney rhyming slang, and I reckon that about 50% of that is just plain made up. There's three different words for television - Roger (Melly), custard (and jelly) and Liza (Minelli). 'Battle cruiser' and 'nuclear sub', however, have been around a while. Nuclear sub is a lot newer, but it's proved its worth. It's part of the lexicon now, like Claire Rainers and Gregory Peck. 'Aristotle'? No. 'Ping pong'? No. 'Tiddly(wink)'? Yeah.

Quality - written word, music, architecture, film, drama - will always rise to the top. The thing about the Internet is - will people recognise it? I don't think so.

Greatness is always a product of zeitgeist - the spirit of the times.

Shakespeare would not be great now because this is not his time.

The internet will develop into god knows what and there will be greatness in its midst because it has always been so, and it will be recognized too because greatness always cuts through crap.

Or not

I am trying, in my own small way, to keep the master works alive: A39268281
but find the apathy in PR somewhat daunting.
Strange I also quote Shakespeare a lot, A39026928 but I'm not going to go through 60 edited constellations which have been getting reviewers to even comment, but still we battle on, eh paily?

GB

I think whoever wrote the plays of Shakespeare would be just as famous if they came today, rather than 400 years ago. The plays aren't just well written, they show profound insight into the human psyche, which is still relevant today.

Take Iago (well, I was obviously going to use him as an example, wasn't I?) who gets my vote for the greatest villain in all English literature - for all his pretensions to being beyond human, he's so fundamentally human, which makes him so compelling. Shakespeare drew out a very common emotion and draws it out to its extreme limits without ever exaggerating it and losing the humanity of it all. You can do the same with any number of other characters - Shakespeare *got* people and that's what makes the stories so enduring and why they'd be successful if written today.

As for modern times, I think you've done a disservice by leaving out J.K Rowling and Philip Pullman. Okay, the early Harry Potters are very childish, but they're aimed at children. Books 4, 5, 6 and especially 7 are really powerful and some of the best writing in years. Pullman manages to tackle issues of religion, God and free will when many authors won't go anywhere near them. I challenge anybody to read His Dark Materials and not come out of the experience somewhat changed - it's one of those books.

Then there's a wide range of authors just putting out a small number of incredible stories, like Harper Lee with To Kill a Mockingbird, Audrey Niffenegger with The Time Traveller's Wife and Annie Proulx with Brokeback Mountain. The good stories are still being written.

You've also got to accomodate the shift in medium and look at TV and films for some of the best writing around. Certain Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly episodes should be considered literature at its very finest - for example the Buffy episode dealing with Buffy's mum's death, or the Firefly episode that is basically an exposition of existentialism. In Friends, Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives we have out modern Jane Austen or Bronte sisters and with series like Rome or The Tudors we have great historical drama.

In terms of films, I'd say the Dark Knight manages to out-Shakespeare Shakespeare with the Joker - it's a stunning piece of writing. The recent adaptation of Atonement actually added something to the novel because of the cinematography and if you haven't seen Bridge to Terabitha yet, you really should.

The good writing is still very much with us, it's just a case of finding it.

Oh dear, you do sound very depressed.

Also, try reading Bridge to Terabithia. Katherine Patterson is a powerful writer. And no one has yet mentioned Terry Pratchett.

TRiG.

As much as I love Terry Pratchett and think he really does pinpoint how people work, his books do date rather badly. On the other hand, most of the accoutrements (and half the vocabulary) in Shakespeare being out of date doesn't make them any less relevant, so let's hope Pratchett still manages to amuse for a few decades yet.

If we're talking Pratchett, I'm sorry, but his work is just other people's in a new guise (although you could say that of Shakespeare...), but as such I don't think it will last.

But I do I think we should add Neil Gaiman to the 'modern' list. The Sandman series, American Gods, Coraline, Neverwhere. As a modern writer I think he'll last.

And we shouldn't forget other sci-fi writers of the 20th/21st Century that will probably be remembered; Jules Verne for starters...but then Asimov, Clarke, Gibson, Dick. This is writing that will continue to inspire I believe.

And then there's Umberto Eco, Josteein Gardner, and perhaps on the lower scale of social writing Nick Hornby and Helen Fielding.

Perhaps it's children;s literature that may last longer though because of film and television, Jackie Wilson, JK in' Rowling, Philip Pullman, Philip Reeve, those names will last just as Enid Blyton, AA Milne and CS Lewis have I think.

So, no I don't think writing is dead, just evolving

Add Mervyn Peake to that list for 20th century classics. There's a writer that could make words dance and sing.

Also, look beyond English language writers. Even translated, the works of Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges are inspiring.

So far, I think, you've all actually just illustrated my point by pointing to a whole range of writers. As I said, you could give me a dozen names each; I don't see any of them being remembered in 200 years. I think the 20th Century, particularly the latter part of it, will be remembered more for the delivery rather than the works themselves; the advent of mass publishing, the ability to show works on-screen to millions of viewers or readers - it's actually more about communicating than creativity.

And while I take the point that we shouldn't forget TV and film writers, the primary purpose of these media is something else. The content isn't as important as the number of viewers; it's about selling advertising space in the breaks. The top three programmes in terms of viewing figures in the first half of the year were Britain's Got Talent, then Coronation Street, then Dancing On Ice. TV doesn't encourage the best writers; it looks to take the most money. Perversely, digital TV helps because it allows broadcasters to take a chance on more leftfield writing with little risk. Isn't it about time we were out-Shakespearing Shakespeare after 400 years of cultural development, anyway?

None of these people will be greats in a couple of hundred years; they'll all be forgotten, literary footnotes. They're very good, but so much else is, and we over-rate far too many pieces of writing. I've never watched Buffy, but Friends, Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are formulaic, usually predictable and rarely memorable. Pratchett is fun and often cleverly satirical, but hardly genius. I could go on, but it's late.

'The thing about the Internet is - will people recognise it? I don't think so.'

Exactly. But the Internet has begun to oversaturate every creative form to the point that greatness, eventually, won't get the chance to rise to the top, because it will be lost in mediocrity. A great piece of writing, or a song, or a film in such a vast wasteland will never be viewed for what it is.

Perhaps I'm looking at this from the wrong end. Maybe Shakespeare just happened to be at the forefront of writing just as theatres became popular; Dickens when the printing press was invented; Chaplin when the movie came about; Spielberg when it started to move to the next level. As those mediums become more widely-used, there is less opportunity for someone to recognise the inherent genius in any individual. By that logic writing isn't dead, but perhaps some of the ways of presenting it, in terms of a lasting legacy at least, are.

I see your point, the Internet and modern TV has introduced fame for the mediocre ( and we appear to celebrate that mediocrity - just pick up the latest 'Heat' magazine), and it's increasingly difficult to find wheat amongst the chaffe...

Although that may be putting it in a very nasty light.

But I agree that in 200 years time there are certainly names and faces that won't be recalled (some of the names listed I'm sure), but again I do believe that some of those names will be remembered.

I don't think so.


Granted, stage wasn't big when Shakespeare was writing, but there were plenty of plays around, and we *do* read them - sometimes I think only so you can compare them to Shakespeare and see how shoddy they are. But actually, some of Shakespeare's are equally shoddy - we just tend not to read them. To the contemporaries, going to theater for their thrills and laughs, there was probably only a small visible difference. Like the difference between a Spielberg and a smaller director.

The same thing for Bronte, but in a different way. Jane Eyre is just a shallow, romantic novel, but it's well written, and it captures the reader. People like reading it even years and years later. So it's stuck. When the general population ceases to enjoy reading it, Bronte will also pass on into the shadows that shelter other once-weres.

The true test is time - once a novel is out of context, it requires a different type of merit to survive. It needs to speak a truth to the reader.

Though your list of good writers narrows as you go back, Skanky, it's not necessarily because of quality of writing - just topic. Before Shakespeare, you have a lot of religious and toadying stuff, dirty ballads, and dumb tales. I did a paper on Shakespeare's sources - trust me, he improved on them mightily. Those people weren't strong in the critical thinking area.

And about background noise - well, there always was. Once upon a time it was very stylish to print monographs and pamphlets and ballads etc. There's doubtless some good stuff that got lost in the noise. There's also rotten stuff that's been carried along to the present (ask any lit student). There's also good stuff that's been rediscovered on dusty back shelves, and good stuff that's been lost in library fires.

Today, there's also noise, but the cream still rises to the top. Every John and Jane Doe has a blog, but who reads them? Nobody except their friends and employees unless they write something that makes people *want* to read it. And while there may be good stuff on YouTube, I don't think anything there can outdo Spielberg. (Lack of budget might contribute.)

Granted, there's good stuff on the web that we'll never hear of, but how much of it would stand the test of time anyway? Think of any blog or YouTube series that you like - most of it isn't classic. Heck - most of Spielberg isn't classic either. It doesn't have the deep message of Shakespeare or the timeless pleasure of Jane Eyre (or, if you think that's corny, how about Sherlock Holmes? Les Miserables? Huck Finn?)

There's a problem with listing our favorite authors. We see them all in context, and they look good. But in fifty years, taken out of context, will they still be interesting? There's no way we can possibly know.

My personal favorite: the essays of EB White. His stories are pretty lame, but his essays and poems are observant of human nature, have depth, and a uniquely wry viewpoint that still resonates today.

I'll also put in a good word for Steinbeck. He wrote about people. Their setting is only secondary.

Orwell's dystopias won't last because they're specifically anti USSR. The Giver and Brave New World have more of a chance.

Etc. The thing to ask is "If I wasn't living now, would this be interesting?" I love a good Pratchett, but regarding his stuff - absolutely not. Ditto for Potter. Something published in the last 20 years? Hm. Let me think about it.

>>Those people weren't strong in the critical thinking area.<<

True then and true now - as I can attest to, being a very good modern example.

Looking way into the future, Kurt Vonnegut had us all evolved into seals (no offense to Pinniped) that lolled about quietly until one of them farted, starting off a storm of laughter until all was quiet again.

This, at least, is an achievable goal for our race.

This reminds me of that syndrome where people look back with undue fondness on years past, favorably contrasting them with the present - when in reality, they're just selectively forgetting the worst bits of the past and savoring the worst bits of the present.

I think we're forgetting that 99% of the stuff written over the course of human history has been forgettable at best (and incidentally, 99.9999% of everything on the internet is irrelevant in a discussion about great writing). I couldn't name a whole lot of examples, precisely because they're rightfully unknown.

If I had to guess, I'd say that lots of people at the time would have believed that the works of Shakespeare (or whoever wrote all that) would never stand the test of time. Perhaps they believed that he was too contemporary. There were supposedly playwrights at the time who were much better, but whose works are now lost. Maybe if the works of four or five playwrights of Shakespeare quality from his era was available today, we'd see his work in a different light. Perhaps as a single part in a larger movement or 'school' of writing.

I don't think this era has a single Shakespeare. It has many. And I don't think writing has decreased in quality. With billions more people alive now than when the 'greatest works' were written, how could it?