When the first video games were developed in the 1950s, two distinct genres emerged: one was action oriented (such as the pioneering 1958 game Tennis for Two), and the other more text based. But what does this have to do with “excellence of form or expression”? To answer this question we have to look back several decades. In Spain alone, 77% of young people play videogames, making them a massively relevant form of culture. It seems that an artist like Bob Dylan can take home the Nobel prize thanks to literature’s defining feature of “excellence of form or expression”, which is not strictly limited to the written word.īut how do we account for other language-based forms of expression? If performed works such as theatre or songwriting can be considered literature, where is the limit? Word play: text-based video gamesĪccording to data from video game data consultancy Newzoo, more than 3 billion people play video games worldwide – almost half of the world’s population. ![]() Comics, for example, were not invited to join the club until recently, thanks in part to a rebranding under the more respectable guise of “graphic novels”.Īccording to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, literature displays “excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest”. Often, the word “literary” is a status symbol, a seal of approval to distinguish “high” culture from more vulgar or less valuable “low” forms of culture. These questions are all still relevant to current debates around literature. In the late 1950s, a group of professors from the University of Birmingham founded a new interdisciplinary area of study, called cultural studies, in order to ask new questions: What was the role of TV and other mass media in cultural development? Is there a justification for distinguishing high and low culture? What is the relationship between culture and power? These questions date back far beyond 2016. ![]() Does it mean the same as it did in 1901, when the first Nobel prize for literature was awarded? High and low culture The controversy fed into much needed debates on the boundary between poetry and song, but the question of what constitutes literature is much broader. It sparked debate, with many questioning the decision and even sarcastic suggestions that novelists could aspire to winning a Grammy. The decision sent out shockwaves: for the first time, a musician had received the most prestigious literary award on the planet. In October 2016, the Swedish Academy announced that it was awarding the Nobel prize for Literature to the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.
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