[mabub24]

This is a well studied phenomenon in literature. Some books we regard as classics today sold relatively little upon release, while authors in the past were incredibly popular then, upon the author's death usually, the name was utterly forgotten from aesthetic appraisals. Ideas of a "canon" are much less stable than people think.

[paganel]

Even when it comes to philosophy I think it holds true. Up into the 1930s Bergson was regarded as one of the most important philosophers in Europe while Wittgenstein was barely mentioned outside a few, select circles, even he had already published his Tractatus. Nowadays Bergson returns blank stares when you mention his name to an Anglo audience while Wittgenstein is seen as one of the most important philosophers of the last few hundred years.

[Der_Einzige]

Which is profoundly sad since Wittgenstein is only saved by his prophetic beliefs about language - despite writing like a post-modernist while somehow being considered part of the "analytic tradition"...

He is fashionable nonsense.

[bwestergard]

Have you read the Tractatus? After Frege, and Russell, it's difficult to think of a philosopher who contributed more to the analytic style of exposition.

There is some irony in dismissing him as "nonsensical", because he himself suggested the Tractatus was "nonsense". The point of writing it was to demonstrate that philosophy in his time (e.g. the logical atomism of Russell) had gone astray.

[aqsalose]

Funny, I thought his musics about "language games" was the part of his output more amenable to fashionable nonsense. I have met very few students who attempt to say anything about Tractatus, but quite many who espouse deep-sounding platitudes about "language is a game".

[ceejayoz]

Art, as well; Van Gogh died a failure.

[vkou]

Art's a little weird, because the price of a lot of million-dollar art pieces is driven in large part by the need for an appreciating-on-paper vehicle for tax evasion. (That you can lend out to art galleries.)

And the last thing these schemes need is a living artist who can - upon his work reaching stardom - simply make more of it.

In this respect, dead poets are much safer to bet the farm on.

[ecshafer]

A good example of this is the Author of the famously "bad line", "It was a dark and stormy night" was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was perhaps one of the most famous authors of his time, who also coined many very common expressions we use today.