Has literature gotten better, or worse?

That's a great question and should elicit some interesting opinions.

When you consider the great works of Charles Darwin and Jane Austen and Mark Twain and other such luminaries, it's tempting to say that today's standards have deteriorated.

But now let's take a look and some authors of the 20th Century: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger, James Joyce, George Orwell, Harper Lee, Vladmir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forester...

Not exactly a shabby bunch of characters.

Granted, most of these Greats wrote in the first half of the 20th Century, not the latter half. And your point is... who do we turn to for great literature today?

Michael Crichton is wonderful; John Grisham is entertaining; JK Rowling will live forever in the hearts of generations of children young and old. But *great* literature?

No one writes like Charles Dickens anymore. (For my part, I think that's a blessing. Sorry, Charles.) No one writes like Jane Austen ( now THAT, I miss). But authors aren't *supposed* to write like them anymore. We don't talk like 19th Century Upper Class British, and we don't write like them either.

Literature is supposed to reflect its era, capture the hearts and fantasies of the generation it is written in, not the one before it.

So our literature today is different because WE are different. But that doesn't mean it's worse. Our generation certainly isn't worse (anyone who thinks that it is has simply not grasped a holistic and objective perspective of history).

This is an era in which you and I are the creators of 'literature' in a forum like this one, from the comfort of our homes and offices (well... literature in the broadest definition of the word). We are the bloggers, the podcasters, the publish-it-ourselves-ers. We are the all-communicating, all-researching, all-contributing, all-creating source of our literary generation.

And in the midst of all that morass, I think we produce some pretty good stuff.

I don't think this is an easy question to answer. The quality writing you are asking about is determined by standards which had changed over time. For example, in Les Miserables, it was perfectly correct to write tons of background information, to the point of overloading the reader's mind. It was also acceptable to write in run-on sentences. Charles Dickens, in Oliver Twist, has only one sentence as his opening paragraph. Now, that is a no-no.

And what has been written recently, to determine what is a recent work of "literature"? Most of what is written now will be forgotten. So it is rather hard to judge between an imaginary book and a real one. Maybe if you could give us examples?...

But if I were to judge between say, Alice in Wonderland, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter? I have no idea. I would be judging the "well-written" aspect by today's standards. Most likely I would choose Harry Potter. But let's say I lived sixty years ago, and someone gave me all these choices from a time machine. What would I choose then? Chronicles of Narnia. Before that, I would have gone with Alice in Wonderland. It all depends on the standards you measure from.

For me, I think it's hard to judge except in hindsight. The "classics" we read now are those that have survived the test of time; all the junky crap is long gone and forgotten. In terms of stuff written now, all the junky crap hasn't had time to be lost and forgotten yet and the sheer quantity of it can obscure the good stuff.

In terms of quality of writing, I'd say if you take the best examples of literature from any time period that it isn't a question of improvement or deterioration, it's just different.

Personally, I have a lot of trouble reading the classics. I find them dull and I never really connect with any of the issues presented. I much prefer modern literature, and think the quality of writing has improved. I think it is much better for an author to try to connect with the common readers than to produces works of art that, while beautiful, not everyone can comprehend.

But, there are many who would disagree with me.

I think the literary trends have shifted along with society. Writers are writing less for themselves and more for their readers--i.e. What will people read? "Classic" literature seems to have a feel to it that the writer is writing for themselves--some of the writers mentioned in your previous answers weren't that well regarded in their lifetime.

That's not to say this is a bad change. Reading is an important tool, and if todays writing keeps people reading then it's not all bad. I do sometimes miss the feel of Jane Austen's stories or Shakespeare's plays--I like to read things that challenge me occasionally, but today's novels are good for entertainment value.

Neither. Now there is simply more.

Personally, I have read very little of the crap there must have been in the 19th century - but I have no doubt that it was there. Generally, we are exposed only to those stories so popular that they have remained known even in our time.The inconsequential, crappy books have been relegated to the limbo of "never reprinted". Likewise many books today, but since we are living in this time, we get exposed to "fad" and "scandal" sellers. But these will likely become unknown to all but literary historians once we are gone and our valueless possessions have been destroyed or given away.

Jim, http://www.life-after-harry-potter.com/

I think in some ways it has gotten worse. authors today seem to have run out of original ideas so they borrow their ideas from the old writers and re-wrap them as something new.

"too bad"