IUBio

Time Magazine: Man of the Millennium

Patrick Juola juola at mathcs.duq.edu
Thu Sep 24 09:33:28 EST 1998


In article <6udgpo$iil$2 at news.indigo.ie>, Gerry Quinn <gerryq at indigo.ie> wrote:
>In article <360943a4.17842976 at 192.168.2.34>, dhansen at btree.com (Dave Hansen) wrote:
>>On 23 Sep 1998 17:36:17 GMT, peter at baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It's hard to point to any particular literary figure as being really critical.
>>>Shakespeare was a man of his times, and he didn't introduce a new artform so
>>>much as develop it. How about Daniel Defoe, who wrote the first modern novel
>>>(even if it was based roughly on real events, Selkirk and Crusoe were not at
>>>all similar...).
>>
>>I thought Miguel de Cervantes earned that honor for "Don Quixote"
>>
>
>What's so modern about the 'modern novel'?  Despite the accretions of 
>literary theory, the novel (as depiction of fictitious events 
>befalling fictitious persons) was well developed in the ancient world.

Really?  Find a novel prior to 1000ad that

	a) Purports to tell events "realistically" (e.g. no allegories)
	b) Is expressly about characters that are not supposed to
		have existed (e.g. no epics about legendary heroes)

Both the _Bible_ and Homer's canon, for instance, are supposedly
about people who really existed and were treated as such by their
audiences.

I doubt you'll be able to.

	-kitten



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