Over the past few months I've taken to reading literature, mostly short fiction, by some of the great literary masters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I've developed an appreciation for it, one never felt during high school and college when the works of such figures were forced upon me by English teachers. Most of these men, when on their game, could seriously write, while others are and always have been overrated. For example, Silas Marner will still suck long after all of us have gone to the grave.
The question regarding these authors and their works is just as the title says. While the best of these stories are highly entertaining for those with the attention spans to handle them, are they what we should be reading in order to improve our own work in the present day? I think we could all benefit from their vast vocabularies and eloquence, but their rhythm is non-applicable in a modern sense, as is the length of their stories and the amount of extraneous information crammed in. Thus, I'm not sure these men play a role any longer in the education of the modern writer, who must be brief and to the point, his eyes ever on the word count in the bottom left corner, always writing "for a market".
Just wondering what others think about this.
The question regarding these authors and their works is just as the title says. While the best of these stories are highly entertaining for those with the attention spans to handle them, are they what we should be reading in order to improve our own work in the present day? I think we could all benefit from their vast vocabularies and eloquence, but their rhythm is non-applicable in a modern sense, as is the length of their stories and the amount of extraneous information crammed in. Thus, I'm not sure these men play a role any longer in the education of the modern writer, who must be brief and to the point, his eyes ever on the word count in the bottom left corner, always writing "for a market".
Just wondering what others think about this.