Quote:Original post by paul8585
Don't like Dickens characters? I guess you can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think.

Above is a joke in good spirit, exercise is close, but exercises prepare for, this is a way to do.

I read on another post you were looking for a writer, you, who does not like Dickens characters, in charge of writers, say it aint so.

To be fair, classic literature can be unrewarding if not read in context. I was going to put in a one-line teaser for my book-in-progress, but that would be unfair, so...

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in London and the nearby county of Kent, so I'm well aware of the historical contexts behind Dickens' writing. (Incidentally, Dickens primarily wrote serials for magazines that were only later collected in novel format. He would actually modify future chapters according to the reception of his earlier instalments; interactivity in his favoured medium was not yet dead!)

Shakespeare is another example of context making a huge difference to understanding his works.

Shakespeare's writing can be bloody hard to follow at times because he wrote at a time when the very language itself was in flux. Worst of all, however, is the way teachers tend to approach him as a playwright first and foremost, assuming that plays were performed under a proscenium arch. This does Shakespeare a massive disservice: he was an *actor* before he became a writer, and he was acting for much of his life. If you haven't seen the Globe Theatre, a replica of Shakespeare's most famous theatre, it's incredibly difficult to see just how interactive the acting process was at the time. There was no curtain. No proscenium arch. Few sets. It was surprisingly close to improvisation. Some copies of Shakespeare's plays mistakenly included dialogue that was clearly ad-libbed between actors and the audience.

We see linearity in Story today as axiomatic, but this was not the case until very recently. Oral storytellers frequently adapted their stories to their audiences. Harpists (in pre-invasion Ireland) taught through song and story, spreading news and gossip across the land -- the original gossip columnists! Even early theatre was closer to pantomime in its level of audience participation than to today's formal staged plays. Shakespeare would probably be stunned to see just how much reverence we put in his words. Heaven forfend that someone changeth a single jot or tittle of his plays!

It was not until printing presses, radio and finally movies and TV that an author's written word became entombed in amber forever by modern media. The computer has merely restored the interactivity our ancestors already enjoyed, but with the potential to take it so much further.

*

If Sunandshadow doesn't like Dickens or Shakespeare, this is no reason to insult her writing abilities. One does not need to have read widely in the fiction genres in order to be able to write well enough to make a living at it. Fiction is about the *people*, not just the words on the page. You can pick up characterisation and plotting pointers from TV, film and radio, not just books.

Quote:Original post by paul8585
Dickens wrote in periodical format because he married a newspapermans daughter, good for the family busines, periodicals. He was as well a man of the stage, quite, and as for yourself being English, sounds like a personal problem, get specific, what exactly is this context you speask of, in this, context.
Shadow did nothing to warrant my wrath, and no malice was directed twords her, I was joking, but you, well, English humor, sometimes flounders in translation, and when I insult someone, they know it, that is whole point.

Two countries separated by an upper middle class* language.

--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
Warning: May contain bollocks


* (The language married into some money recently. The ungrateful little strumpet is currently looking for a new home in either Hertford, Hereford or Hampshire.)

Thank you Stimarco, for the defense and clarification that I am a woman. :) I do actually like Shakespeare's comedies and sonnets. I never really had a problem with the archaic language, although like Chaucer, it certainly gets funnier when someone explains the figures of speech and cultural context.

Paul, to further clarify, I happen to have a BA in English, and I have for various classes been required to read 6 different works by Dickens. I had one English professor who was practically in love with the man. :D But I just never really connected with Dickens' characters or the moral mindset of his stories, which start out in a gritty/grungy way but somehow the characters are immune to life's gray areas and end up not having changed in any realistic way in reaction to their experiences. I like fairytales, and I like the gritty social examination of something like Lord of the Flies, but Dickens is like Lord of the Flies does Mother Goose, which is quite jarring to me.


*Where Hurricanes Hardly Hever Happen? ;)

Context meaning cultural context - for a book written in a time or place other than one's one, one must understand the time or place to be able to appreciate the book in the way the audiences of that time and place appreciated it, which is presumably how the author intended it to be appreciated.

But seriously, this is beginning to be annoying. Don't you recognize the importance of personal taste? Even if the majority of people in the world were to agree that one book was the best book ever written, I am still allowed to dislike it if it doesn't appeal to my personal taste. Yo can't say my professor was right - in matters of taste there is no 'correct' opinion. It's just a fact that Dickens doesn't strike my fancy, and I already explained why. I did not at all say that it was "utterly without method or merit", just that it doesn't work for me personally. There isn't any deeper to dig, so accept it and move on. I'm certain there are also examples of thing I, or other members of this boars, think are examples of champions and cornerstones of the field of writing that aren't your cup of tea. Unless possibly you don't have any taste of your own and just like whatever others say is great?

Honestly, I don't know what you are thinking. I said, "I never liked Dickens' characters." Meaning, they do not appeal to my taste. So I've been talking about taste the whole time, and because you mistakenly thought otherwise, now you're going to say I shouldn't be a moderator? I don't imagine you've even read any of my writing on literary theory, even though my own essay on the very subject of character creation is linked to in the first post of this thread? Earlier in the same series of essays is one where I talk about Aristotle's Poetics. But then, from your first post addressing me you haven't done me the courtesy of assuming that I might be a fairly intelligent and experienced writer who has already spent years reading books on literary theory, writing, and trying to help others come to a better understanding of fiction and improve their own writing.

Let me ask you one question: Why are you at this forum? If you are here to experience interesting new perspectives and discuss literary theory topics while being a polite 'citizen' of the forum and respecting others' right to hold opinions different from your own, that's awesome. If that is the case we will probably be friends once this current misunderstanding is straightened out. But of you are here to pose and lecture and argue your opinion to the exclusion of everyone else's, we get people like that occasionally, that isn't welcome here and if they don't leave on their own one mod or another will warn them, progressing to a temp ban if they continue being aggressive; in particular there is a site-wide policy against personal insults and flaming, which any mod can enforce. That's not a threat, it's something every new poster needs to know, especially if they want to participate in constructive debate without the conversation degenerating into argument and then flaming.

At any rate - either look at my stuff and come to an informed opinion, or calmly and courteously restate whatever question of theory you actually wanted this conversation to be about, or let the conversation end, since the one thing I agree with you about it that it had gone off on a useless tangent.