All literature is contemporary
Time is full of paradoxes for those who live within it. ‘Contemporary literature’ is
now taught in courses on its own. Yet all literature is contemporary, since good liter-
ature outlives its origins. The real distinction is not between new books and old but
between good books and bad. Wordsworth’s lyric ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, writ-
ten two centuries ago (see p. 231), lives as we read it. And so can longer works. A play
as complex as Hamletcannot be held complete in the mind; yet this play creates its
own world so well that the reader does not need to know much about the culture
from which it came.
We read new books in the hope of understanding life in general, not just the life
of the present. Good fiction can offer a thought-experiment or imaginative projec-
tion of what life may bring. Contemporary writing offered to students is recent,
looks promising, and engages interestingly with the present: its currency makes it
‘relevant’. Yet the quality of any writing lies in its combination of literary art and
human interest. The topical interest of a subject magnifies the notice a book attracts.
Liter ary prizes of the 1980s often went to fiction about the end of empire, a subject
which is no longer new. Even Nobel Prize winners can fail to stay the course: Pearl S.
Buck, whose chronicles of China won her the prize in 1938, is no longer considered
to have contributed much to literature. Initial valuations change, reputations rise
and sink. A few stick: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Johnson and Dickens were appreciated
in their day. Scott and Byron were over-appreciated; Keats and Jane Austen only
partly appreciated; Blake and Hopkins unknown. We cannot know which of the
writers of the year 2020 will be read in the year 2120.The dominance of fiction
Discussions of literature have, for the last century or so, followed a convention which
divides it into drama, poetry and fiction. In English literature, these formal divisions
show very different historical trajectories. Drama rose to a great height around 1600
and declined. Poetry held up well until the 20th century (see p. 336). Prose fiction
rose during the period of the British Empire, and now occupies almost the whole of
the literary field. Accordingly, almost the whole of this final chapter is devoted to the
empire of fiction. Some notice is also taken of good writing to be found in minor
branches of literature, such as biography; and in thriving areas of entertainment,
such as detective fiction and fantasy fiction, which can afford a writer a living.
Contemporary poetry and drama are dealt with first, and summarily.Drama and theatre
The Introduction noted that drama is theatre as well as literature. Theatre which is
pure spec tacle – dumbshow, mime – is not literature; nor are most musicals. The
plays which we call drama and treat as literature need to be available in print. Partly
perhaps for this reason, plays by dramatists who are still writing have until recently
been marginal to the study of English literature. Bearing this in mind, what is now
said about contemporary theatre and drama is inevitably somewhat general.
Drama is the social form of literature, interacting in public with an audience. The
audience is shown a conflict (drama needs some conflict) and its feelings are
aroused. Strong reactions (which can include laughter) should not be very far away,404 15 · CONTEMPORARIES