/lit/ - Literature

This article brings up an idea that was always in the back of mind in regards to literature.

In my not yet fully formed opinion literature is vastly different from other forms of popular media like films and music in that is is far more objective.
What I mean by this is that if we consider the Classics (i.e the Canon) these have been around for hundreds of years in some cases thousands.These books have been read by almost all notable authors and have played at the very least an indirect role in influencing their opinions and the state of the culture around them.

More scholarship has occurred because of the books than any other art form in known history. The greatest mind of each generation has read and reread these books, analysing every minute detail, studying their impact on the proceeding generations and almost all have attested to their significance.

This begs the question, how vain and naive must a person be to look back on all of this and say things like, Shakespeare is a bad writer, or say the quality of the literature is diminished because they don't hold current day political views.

Now im not swinging in the opposite extreme as I still think there is room to have valid reasoning for not liking a certain book or fair arguments to be made against them, but to come out and say classics are bad literature is mind-boggingly dense.