bo sox: "Yeah, if you want my opinion, the Bible is pretty damn boring too, but uhh, it's the Bible..."
Zmaj: "What's your point?"
Seems to me that this is stating that even if the book itself is, in your opinion, bad in some way, it's still to be respected on a literary basis if it's as influential as something like the Bible is--
After all, everyone here knows how much I dislike most of it and that I'm an atheist--and yet as I said above, my #2 favorite work of all-time, "Paradise Lost," exists BECAUSE of the Bible's enormous creative influence over people like John Milton, to say nothing of Dante, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and other writers--some of whom even have last names not beginning with "D!"--who have their most famous works, many of which we admire here (between The Divine Comedy, Dickens' novels, and Dostoyevsky's works, I'll make the assumption everyone will have found something in that wealth of literary riches that they like as a work) exist because the Bible exist and thus, by proxy, if we like the work, we should, in part, respect where it came from.
That's an interesting argument...but a flawed one, so it's one I'd say is partially right and yet partially wrong:
Do I have to acknowledge the Bible's worth as an influential piece as a "Paradise Lost" fan?
Yes, absolutely--we could never have had the latter without the former.
But do I then have to respect the MERITS of the Bible as a work?
Absolutely not--and I obviously don't--I just have to grant that it was influential, not good.
For a clearer example of this, perhaps:
Take most if not all of Shakespeare's best plays.
All/Almost all were ripped off plot-wise from one or more sources, after all, sources influential enough to make old Billy S. take up that quill of his and set to work.
Should we recognize those early versions of the "Romeo and Juliet" tale as influential?
Yes--they got Shakespeare going, after all.
But does that mean those versions--some with an absurdly-old Romeo--are "good?"
Trust me when I say...NO.
Hm.
I've had Shakespeare, Milton...well, may as well go for my holy Trinity of Authors and close this out with:
T.S. Eliot, who once said, to paraphrase "immature poets imitate, mature poets steal...good poets take what they steal and improve it and add something new to it, poor poets take what they steal and deface it."
Shakespeare took from those old sources and added to them and improved them, obviously, to a great extent.
I'd argue Milton did the same with the Bible and the Story of Genesis.
For Literature, Influence = Importance, but Influence =/= Quality.
After all...while I *personally* like it, and I think critical history's been far, far to harsh on it...
"Titus Andronicus," Shakespeare's first tragedy, IS, by all accounts...well, "crude" is putting it kindly for a play with 15 deaths in 5 acts, brutal, live disemboweling, rape, torture, probably the worst arc and fate EVER for a female character to that point (POOR LAVINIA!) and an ending that (no joke) beat "Sweeney Todd" to the pie, er, punch.
By ITSELF, it's a typical Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, bloody and gory and full of spectacle and with some very, very big flaws.
HOWEVER, key aspects and themes--a father retiring from and leaving others to rule, only to have that bite him in the ass...someone feigning madness to hatch a plot...the female ruler in a ruling marriage being the true power behind the throne...political alliances shifting...the Roman setting, etc.--of this work crop up again later in Shakespeare.
To an extent, if you take this and his next tragedy, "Romeo and Juliet," between the two plays, you have the raw ingredients for most of the ones that would follow, the ones Shakespeare REALLY has a huge chunk of that reputation rest upon.
So we can acknowledge "Titus Andronicus" has literary worth to it--by serving as a sort of precursor for a lot of things to come and be done better in Shakespeare's works--and yet still say...
It's a crude, crude play, and very, very messed up--it essentially is a cheap Shakespeare slasher college film:
The young film student might have some good ideas, and there might be some neat moments, but...yeah...the moment Roger Ebert and Harold Bloom alike cite as one that kills their ability to take it seriously:
A beaten, raped, hand-less, tongue-less Lavinia carrying the chopped-off hand of her father Titus in her mouth to him like a dog.
Yeah...again, I like parts of this play, but...yeah...hard to argue with that. ;)
So I have to agree with Zmaj here, that you can't take a work just on literary influence and use that to call it a good work in and of itself--there IS a difference between influential and good, even if they often overlap.
(By that same token, I still say "Fronk-ehn-shteen"--"Young Frankenstein," anyone?--is a good work on its own merits...what do you take issue with, Zmaj?)
My Little Tournament
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