Did you know that Emily Dickinson read newspapers from all over the world everyday? She sometimes responded to the topics she read about in her poems. She was looking for higher meaning in the news, which I think many of us can related to.
Dr. Mark Canada delivered a presentation at the Mary Livermore Library today that blew me away. He was presenting on his new publication titled: Literature and Journalism in Antebellum America: Thoreau, Stowe, and Their Contemporaries Respond to the Rise of the Commercial Press, To be released on April 12, 2011.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was also a "news junkie." Poe, Thoreau, Melville, all writers I enjoy, had strong love/hate feelings about the daily papers and the sensationalism of news. Dr. Canada told us a lot about this and I plan to read his book to find out more. There was no television at this time, so these great literary figures did not have the opportunity to be completely outside of society by not watching television, (like myself)-- but I question if they would watch television. Probably not! I'm giving myself a huge compliment here, but I tend to believe that Henry David Thoreau would not be watching "reality TV." I suspect he would be a rabid NPR listener!
James Fennimore Cooper sued newspapers over controversies. Herman Melville had a critique of newspapers within his great novel Moby Dick. Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe used news (such as hoaxes) to create fiction and science fiction.
What is the importance of news and news reporting then and today? How does this affect our literature and our society? Is there a zeitgeist related to new methods of social networking and will this bring in a new age of literature? I'm sure it will, but I would like to see the "science fiction" of it to know what it means to us.
Dr. Canada did address "What's Next" for journalism, I feel that the story is writing itself as we hold on to every gesture of Newt Gingrich as if it were really worth the time.
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