What does true literature provide that genre fiction does not?

Yeah. Most genre fiction is pretty low in quality, but sells well. I'm sure there could be exceptional genre fic writers, but the audience just isn't there for them to be appreciated

>implying

Fantasy and scifi universes offer plot devices that compensate for terrible writing and hackened, watered-down ideas.

I would say that genre fiction is created merely to entertain. Literary fiction seeks to provide some insight into the human experience, some universal truth. That's not to say some "genre fiction" doesnt end up crossing over...

Subtlety, depth, substance.

...

It provides an expiration date.
Pure literature withers on the vine whereas genre fiction that stands the test of time is still read.

Subtlety is good, especially when you beat them over the head with it.

Genre fiction is infantile literature for people who haven't grown out of the fantasy world of bedtime stories. It's main purpose is to make the masses shut up, so they can go to sleep every night, and have them dream their fantasies, instead of getting some sort of clever ideas. Most people already don't get any clever ideas so it's tailor made for the vulgus.

I M A G I N A T I O N

Competency

>It's main purpose is to make the masses shut up, so they can go to sleep every night
Literature puts the masses to sleep faster than any genre fiction

Are you so dumb that you even take metaphors literally?

>t. pseud

That's what genre fiction provides over literature. Literature offers quality.

>Are humans insects?
>Well, insects, like moth, usually are drawn to light, and humans don't exhibit this compulsive behavior.

This is how dumb you sound. You think that humans not being drawn like a moth to a flame is the most defining characteristic of humanity. And it's not even a 100% true observation, as much of literary fiction has an expiration date.

>That's what genre fiction provides over literature.
>books defined by adherence to existing conventions and tropes are more imaginative than high literature
really nogs the jog

i agree with this. when I finished ulysses, for instance, it really was an unique experience, I didnt feel like I read a book, it felt like I took a walk in the streets of dublin. also i have never felt such intimacy with the characters, probably because od the monologues and streams of consciousness and prose. there is no way a book can come close to how brilliant ulysses is, let alone genre fiction

yes i shill ulysses

>books defined by adherence to existing conventions
Those conventions allow a larger cosmic imaginative scale (in fantasy and sf) than in literature. They aren't executed well like in literature but they are more imaginative.

>they are more imaginative.
>arbitrarily setting your melodramatic pap in the magical land of doodahdah makes it more imaginative
You're a complete fucking retard. How is that anymore imaginative than stream-of-consciousness literature which can jump between any images contained in the collective human conscious? Or poetry, which uses the aural and aesthetic textures of language to convey meaning? Your perception of the capacities of human imagination is limited.

>implying

>human imagination
The subject matter limited to the human world.

That's why I'm in love with myself. My narcissus complex has made so high-octane I've got constant tachycardia. In a few years I'll have a heart attack, but the sex is worth it.

>literary fiction seeks to provide some insight into the human experience, some universal truth

You can say that Harry Potter does this, and yet it will never, ever in a million years be respected by academia.

Literature focuses on the internal, and deals with questions that had plagued humanity since dawn, while genre fiction focuses on the external and deals with questions that are new

genre fiction doesn't have to deal with any questions, you're thinking of hard sci fi

litèratùr: really makes you think and have feefeels (like the iliad wich is very good even though it's a poem and i haven't read it in the original greek but i like because of the plot i guess lol like that part when Hector talks to his wife for the last time knowing that he will die lol but homer was a retard here because he made hector look like a pussy)
genre fiction: books foo plebs and liberals who dont read true patrician literature because they play videogames liek mario cart and candy crush so their brain are retarded and cant appreciate good literature. tolkien is good tho because he has all these epic battles just like the iliad unlike harry potter which also has battles but their not with swords because liberals are too pussy to pick up a sword

>never, ever in a million years be respected by academia
Sadly, some day this won't be the case. With a generation or two passing by, the old guard in academia will die off, and the kids who grew up reading that crap will write dissertations on it. Much in the same way stuff in the pulps makes it into the canon.

True. Most of my genre fiction experience has been read hard sci-fi

>With a generation or two passing by, the old guard in academia will die off
1. good. progress can't be cultivated if there's just the same crusty old gatekeepers regurgitating the same shit for 500 years.
2. it won't, because academia is a clubhouse.

>regurgitating the same shit for 500 years
More like 100 years

Wrong, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, and Shakespeare's plays all contain supernatural or mythical elements. This is the core of Western literature. Once again, you show what a brainlet you are.

#REKT

It's not like good genre fiction doesn't contain literary elements.
That which is itself classified as literature has more and better of these, but good entertainment isn't completely lacking in substance.

This started off dodgy, but you pulled it together with the punchline. 7/10

>I would say that genre fiction is created merely to entertain
By this logic trobadours are genre fiction writers

>moving the goalpost
Your argument was that literary fiction is less imaginative, not that pop fiction has some modicum of artistic merit.

>Shakespeare's plays
Was considered genre fiction in its day.

The term wasn't even coined back then, he also
wrote plays retard

which were catered toward the common man, not the intelligentsia

He is the one credited with elevating it from that status you mongoloid.

Intelligentsia? When do you think he lived imbecile

Transcendent reality

Only on retrospect. The same way some genre fiction makes it into the canon. It was disposable entertainment for Shakespeare.

I'm not the other guy. I apologize for muddying the waters.

Un petite je ne sais quoi

A lot of Salman Rushdie's work disproves this statement

>in any life
What did he mean by this?

Tolkien's prose is serviceable and his dialogue leans towards wooden, it's his eye for creative metaphor and emotional intelligence that really separates him.

I've always thought that any selected "genre fiction" work may have any amount of potential to be considered literature.
This I think mostly applies things written as the advent of a genre, before plot tropes or character cliches can be developed.

Genre Fiction is an indicator of quality, not an indicator of content. The core canon of Western Literature is full of fantastical and supernatural elements. Hell, even literature written in the last century contains fantasy- think of Master and Margarita. The difference between genre fiction and literature is primarily in that genre fiction is missing the forest for the trees, and ignoring the fact that literature has a deeper purpose than puerile entertainment.

It doesn't matter how good you are at Mario, you should still get a princess.

Big Ideas?

True literature provides literary, artistic, historical etc. merit.

Like sympathetic characters to help kids get through puberty.

A legion of "I'm better than you" readers.