If someone writes something really good but it doesn't fit into the trends of the time, it's destined to be lost innit? It'll never be canonical.
I don't mean ones that are deliberately reactionary against trends either.
no
plenty of classics get canonized after the author's lifetime
>>7896114
Nah, Moby-dick wasn't liked at the time it was wrote and only gained fame later on after Melville had died when some guy read it and realized how great it was.
You do have to be published though, so it can't be that out of the times.
>>7896114
There's always an element of contingency to it. Nevertheless there are countless examples of gems that are only really unearthed or at least rediscovered and given their due decades or even centuries after their author's death. As far as these works are concerned you could say the times have finally adapted to the author instead of the author adapting to his times.
>>7896117
That's not what I mean (sorry I phrased the OP poorly). I know they aren't necessarily liked at the time, but when they're appreciated retrospectively it's because they fit some gay historical theme and suit a literary movement.
>>7896119
There were loads of adventure books at the time, it totally fits a popular genre.
>>7896114
So OP, you're saying if I were to dedicate my life to writing poetry in English it would all go to waste?
You're probably correct. The trick would be to find a new way to convey the poetry I want to share with others. This is what I always understood McLuhan's "the medium is the message" to mean.
>>7896127
You think Moby-dick is an adventure story?
>>7896138
Yes, it is. That's not a pejorative term.
Anyway, he's usually categorised as one of the American renaissance writers, all about freedom and wanderlust in their own new country and shit. He doesn't buck the trend.
