Art and Literature

Art and Literature:

From Arts & Letters Daily, two pieces:

Is Grand Theft Auto IV a kind of art?

Is the Bible a kind of literature?

To the first, it is worth nothing that The Godfather exploited the "old v. new world" concept in gangsterism to a much higher degree; and so, rather than the innovative work that the author imagines, it is derivitive and lesser (if it is art, as such, at all). Yet it may still be a step forward, if it means that games are beginning to engage the audience in moral thinking as well as mass violence. Many early movies were similarly derivitive and lesser of stage drama, particularly the black-hat-white-hat Westerns of the 1920s and earlier; but it evolved into a form that could handle High Noon or Unforgiven. Or The Godfather, for that matter.

To the second, it is a critically important question because the only avenue for students to encounter the Bible in public schools before college is in "the Bible as literature" studies. So is the Bible literature? Or is it really something else entirely? Does treating it as literature damage its nature? The author here does so; judge the result for yourself.