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Have to say I completely disagree with this, especially with respect to 21st and late 20th centuries. We may be more concerned with design nowadays (although I

Have to say I completely disagree with this, especially with respect to 21st and late 20th centuries. We may be more concerned with design nowadays (although I'd argue mostly on a commercial level), but to extrapolate that to an improvement in the aesthetics of writing seems a gross error. If we assume that reading great books and practicing writing is critical to becoming a great writer, we've never been in worse time for writing development. The average person grows up reading--if they read at all--Harry Potter, Twilight, etc., being inundated with inane advertising, steeped in piss-poor social media posts, etc. The most writing the average person does is work email. Contrast that to, e.g., Herman Melville, who grew up reading pretty much solely the King James Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and who probably corresponded with friends and family every day. I even think the vast majority of 21st century writers would disagree with you.

nitwit005 8y ago
What the average person is reading or writing is irrelevant to whether or not great writing is being produced. There are vastly more people who have pursued educations and careers in literature and writing than any past point in history, including reading the classics you expect. We've gone from populations that weren't even literate, to university degrees being normal. Plenty of people are putting out great writing. The problem has become finding it in a sea of publications.
- nostromo95 8y ago
  I agree that "vastly more people who have pursued educations and careers in literature and writing than any past point in history." I don't think that necessarily means we're producing better writers than the best writers of the pre-18th century Earth, largely because exemplary writers are formed--like a Terence Tao in math--at an early age. Anecdotally Faulkner never graduated from college; Shakespeare never went to college. Let's go back to the (overly) strong statement our parent post made: >I think that writing just like everything else has improved with the 20th and 21st century's obsession with design. As such, not all but the best modern writing is much more expressive, concise and communicative. Concision is more a modern trend than anything else and not an absolute good so we'll ignore it. Name me a 21st century writer more expressive and communicative than Shakespeare. Or assuming he's too "long-tail," someone more expressive than Faulkner. And I agree this is completely subjective, so I'd think the best course of action is seeing if there is any academic consensus on the subject. Just some quick googling, but here's an article [0] about a Stanford study showing that modern students are writing more than ever (mostly through text messages/social media). But one wonders whether text messages are (a) "prose" in the literary sense, (b) materially different enough on a mental level from just talking to someone to offer any additional benefit, (c) transferable in skills to writing a novel. The authors say that the students are good at "assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across," but their test subjects are a bunch of Stanford students who are great at jumping through hoops and conforming to expectations--as shown by the fact that they got into Stanford. Not to mention that they're not comparing the papers to a sample of pre-texting papers... Anyway, not like that article is definitive or anything.
  - keithnz 8y ago
    Not sure this kind of comparison is meaningful. Many modern books when I read them, I'm immersed into the world that is created, sometimes not wanting them to end. Never felt like that with Shakespeare. Another book I think that highlights this difference is Voltaire's candide, such a fast paced fantastic story, but it doesn't draw you in. But a fast paced dan brown book tends to draw me in way more than Voltaire did. But Candide is a far far cleverer book I think with a lot of things to think about. Shakespeare seems similar, great storylines with fantastic prose but just doesn't draw you in the way modern book (or scripts) do, well at least not for me. So expressiveness? the ability to convey meanings and feeling? Most any modern novelist can do this better than Shakespeare can (for me).
therealdrag0 8y ago
The 20th century is so rich in good lit. Even Faulkner (you in your latter comment) is in this time period. And getting closer to today you still have solid authors: Gene Wolfe, Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy, Marilynne, Robinson, Susanna Clarke, China Mieville, Dan Simmons, Ursula K. Le Guin. These aren't chumps. The 21st century is just beginning. It will shake out over time. I suspect a part of it is a minor fetishization with language that differs from what we're used to. Like a British accent can sound delightful to me even if it's not any more literate than me. The same could hold with past writing styles. So what is "blandly" written now, might not sound bland to people 50 years from now. Just a thought.

nitwit005 8y ago

What the average person is reading or writing is irrelevant to whether or not great writing is being produced. There are vastly more people who have pursued educations and careers in literature and writing than any past point in history, including reading the classics you expect. We've gone from populations that weren't even literate, to university degrees being normal. Plenty of people are putting out great writing. The problem has become finding it in a sea of publications.

nostromo95 8y ago
I agree that "vastly more people who have pursued educations and careers in literature and writing than any past point in history." I don't think that necessarily means we're producing better writers than the best writers of the pre-18th century Earth, largely because exemplary writers are formed--like a Terence Tao in math--at an early age. Anecdotally Faulkner never graduated from college; Shakespeare never went to college. Let's go back to the (overly) strong statement our parent post made: >I think that writing just like everything else has improved with the 20th and 21st century's obsession with design. As such, not all but the best modern writing is much more expressive, concise and communicative. Concision is more a modern trend than anything else and not an absolute good so we'll ignore it. Name me a 21st century writer more expressive and communicative than Shakespeare. Or assuming he's too "long-tail," someone more expressive than Faulkner. And I agree this is completely subjective, so I'd think the best course of action is seeing if there is any academic consensus on the subject. Just some quick googling, but here's an article [0] about a Stanford study showing that modern students are writing more than ever (mostly through text messages/social media). But one wonders whether text messages are (a) "prose" in the literary sense, (b) materially different enough on a mental level from just talking to someone to offer any additional benefit, (c) transferable in skills to writing a novel. The authors say that the students are good at "assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across," but their test subjects are a bunch of Stanford students who are great at jumping through hoops and conforming to expectations--as shown by the fact that they got into Stanford. Not to mention that they're not comparing the papers to a sample of pre-texting papers... Anyway, not like that article is definitive or anything.
- keithnz 8y ago
  Not sure this kind of comparison is meaningful. Many modern books when I read them, I'm immersed into the world that is created, sometimes not wanting them to end. Never felt like that with Shakespeare. Another book I think that highlights this difference is Voltaire's candide, such a fast paced fantastic story, but it doesn't draw you in. But a fast paced dan brown book tends to draw me in way more than Voltaire did. But Candide is a far far cleverer book I think with a lot of things to think about. Shakespeare seems similar, great storylines with fantastic prose but just doesn't draw you in the way modern book (or scripts) do, well at least not for me. So expressiveness? the ability to convey meanings and feeling? Most any modern novelist can do this better than Shakespeare can (for me).

therealdrag0 8y ago

The 20th century is so rich in good lit. Even Faulkner (you in your latter comment) is in this time period. And getting closer to today you still have solid authors: Gene Wolfe, Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy, Marilynne, Robinson, Susanna Clarke, China Mieville, Dan Simmons, Ursula K. Le Guin. These aren't chumps. The 21st century is just beginning. It will shake out over time. I suspect a part of it is a minor fetishization with language that differs from what we're used to. Like a British accent can sound delightful to me even if it's not any more literate than me. The same could hold with past writing styles. So what is "blandly" written now, might not sound bland to people 50 years from now. Just a thought.