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Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton  But JD, I think we muddy things up considerably by comparing apples and oranges here. Shakespeare was a great poet and a great dramatist, but he wasn't much of a novelist, was he? How do you compare a Dickens novel with a Shakespeare play, except to say that each is a superior example of its kind?
Lovecraft, Poe, not many novels or plays there. Dickens wrote plays, novels, and short stories, but who would be reading him today if it weren't for the novels?
A work can be great without the complexity of, say, a Tolstoy or a Dickens. Darn it, Dickens could produce a work of greatness without the complexity of most of his novels! There is little complexity in A Christmas Carol. And a children's book can be a great work of fiction, if it does more than simply entertain, if it shines a light on some aspect of human life or human potential, if it gives a child something of value they can take away with them. |
Perhaps I should clarify.... I was addressing two different things in that post. One was the subject of Dr. Seuss in particular. I'm not sure whether or not I'd call him a "great" writer in the general sense, but a great children's writer, quite likely.
On the other... it's not really comparing apples and oranges; I'm speaking of great writers whose work lasts, whether it be novels, plays, poetry, essays, what-have-you. And my mention of Lovecraft is because he's not quite been out there long enough to know for certain. My personal feeling is that yes, he will prove to be one of the standard writers, though he may never be talked about in quite the same breath as Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, etc. (Then again, he might; again, it's too early to say.... But I think he'll fall
just below that level.) Poe, oddly enough, has been even more controversial at times than HPL, because of his sometimes perfervid style. Not that HPL doesn't get hyperbolic at times, but he is frequently actually a bit more restrained than Poe
in overall tone, I think; not necessarily in incident or specific passages. But both are prone to melodrama, perhaps even more so than Dickens; and that's something of a flaw artistically (though I'll admit to, as Ellison puts it, "an unnatural love for melodrama"); which
may keep them from quite achieving the same rank, overall.