Dick, bestsellers, erotica, fantasy, chick lit and science fiction. In a new anthology contained 26 chapters on various phenomena in popular literature through the ages.
The book is titled Crime, love, alien worlds and turns to an interested public, but is primarily meant to be used in teaching at colleges and universities.
– We have tailored the book for it to function in the Swedish education system. The ambition is that if you give a course in popular literature, one should not need any other secondary literature, but only be able to add fiction. The teacher should be able to make up their course after these texts from beginning to end, says Dag Hedman, professor of literature at the University of Gothenburg.
Along with Jerry Määttä at Uppsala University, he has been editor for the book, which addresses both the Swedish and the international popular literature. Each horizontal section – which can include science fiction, romance and chick lit, fantasy, horror or historical texts – includes several more specific chapters, such as texts about Stephen King, kiosk sensations of all time, Harlequinromaner and zombies.
Poor division today
Day Hedman dislike about the division between good literature and bad literature: on the one hand a more problem-oriented literature that can be read in several layers, on the other page popular literature, which are considered to fill one entertainment purposes only.
– This one does not look at is whether this individual text is poor or not? It has initially defined certain genres and certain types of literature that bad or good, then it’s finished. There is nothing in between. There we try to loosen up with our anthology.
He believes there is a strong need for increased research and teaching in the field of popular literature, since it represents the absolute majority of the books sold and read.
– Although our literature students’re interested in popular literature private, but there is nothing they recognize this. They think that we expect them to sit at home and read Dante, Milton, and Dostoevsky, and do not want to lose cultural capital. I think it is important to show them that we accept and affirm all literature.
Both Swedish and foreign writers
Among the authors in the anthology are both Swedish and foreign researchers Viktor Sjklovski, Tzvetan Todorov and Johan Svedjedal. From the University of Gothenburg is involved Lisbeth Larsson, with a text about the power of women’s entry into soap opera and literature, Yvonne Leffler who writes about horror fiction, and Dag Hedman himself, with a chapter on kolportageromaner.
Some of the book texts have been used before: in 1995, Dag Hedman editor of the anthology Crime, love, adventure. Now, twenty years later, it was time to update it with new research and new trends in the field of popular literature, and the new book contains mostly new material.
– When the last book came out for example, was this thing with vampires completely gone from the literature, there was not. But since then, the area has exploded, it’s a giant sector. So in the block “Alien Worlds”, aimed at science fiction and fantasy, is now also worlds with zombies and vampires.
Why vampires were a success in popular culture after decades of absence is unclear. Dag Hedman says that it is hard to say why some genres suddenly becomes large or recurrence, and impossible to predict what the next trend. But one thing is sure: a bestseller within a particular genre leads to the followers.
– Much of what is driving the literature today is done online, so-called fan fiction. In such admires literature – as we also deal in the anthology – can publishers and authors to see what goes on in the present. If a certain type of literature becomes large as fan fiction is often worth investing in, there is money to be made. We know for example that Fifty Shades of Grey began as a result lyrics to Twilight. Successful work generates immediate groups of the resulting texts of various kinds. It is not a modern phenomenon: the Aeneid is fan fiction of Homer, and the Divina Commedia is fan fiction on the Aeneid, and like that it goes on.
Day Hedman Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg. He became interested in popular literature as a young man and his doctorate with a thesis on Frank Heller.
The latest popular literary book Dag Hedman thought was really good was Jens Lapidus VIP room : “It was astounding well written, and I am thinking not only on content but also on the language. A very elegant language processing “.
Jarry rug PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Uppsala.
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