3 ms·
I wonder what today's world would think of "A Modest Proposal" or even "Lolita?" Works that are now considered good literature would, were they published today,
by pyre 13y ago
I wonder what today's world would think of "A Modest Proposal" or even "Lolita?" Works that are now considered good literature would, were they published today, see their authors vilified, (possibly) tortured, and jailed by an extremely paranoid public in a manner befitting the height of Soviet Russia (i.e. "Report your neighbour, comrade!").
- JonSkeptic 13y agoActually, if A Modest Proposal was published today it would be taken literally by the general populace, acknowledged as good, satirical reading by a few, and then it would be promptly ignored by every major news outlet because they would be too busy talking about Snowden's girlfriend or Paula Deen.
- pyre 13y agoAre you sure that eating children wouldn't be regarded as "making a threat" and the author jailed?
- gizmo686 13y agoI think its worth mentioning that Lolita was first published under a pseudonym, and was controversial when it came out. In general, old works get much greater leeway in what they are allowed to do because they are old.
- pyre 13y agoAccording to Wikipedia it was not published under a pseudonym, though there was an original intention to do so.