Wednesday 27 February 2008
No more gatekeepers
More of the kind of eloquence that we've come regularly to expect from Dan Green:
I've never understood the print critics' plaint that without their gatekeeping the literary marketplace will be flooded with inferior work that will unavoidably drown the valuable work. This assumes a "commons" occupied by clueless vagabonds who just happen to be passing through and who need guidance by their settled betters. In fact the literary commons, especially the part of it devoted to poetry, is the preferred destination of those who already value what is offered there, already know how to distinguish good work from bad, and will be perfectly capable of judging the former against the latter. Literature will still be literature once the gates have been torn down. It's just that there will be fewer people claiming the authority to define its boundaries for everyone else.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: blogosphere
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