[FrustratedMonky]

Yes. People forget that Charles Dickens was considered trash, pulp, un-intellectual. That people were reading such trash would lead to the downfall of civilization. Basically what everyone says today about whatever latest media type.

[GeoAtreides]

You lie:

"From the beginning of his career in the 1830s, his achievements in English literature were compared to those of Shakespeare."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Reputation

[FrustratedMonky]

lie is really strong term in this case.

in his time he was not 'literature', it was pulp, common, 'popular'.

is Stephen King today, 'literature' or just 'pulp fiction'?

this is a subjective thing. authors that are 'popular' sometimes aren't considered 'literature'.

in your very own citation:::

"Among fellow writers, there was a range of opinions on Dickens. Poet laureate, William Wordsworth (1770–1850), thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work, while novelist George Meredith (1828–1909), found Dickens "intellectually lacking"."

"Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists":

[9283409232]

Literacy rates have fallen in the past 20 years and something tells me that Dickens is not responsible.

[FrustratedMonky]

The point is, that when Charles Dickens came out, people also blamed him on lowering the literacy rate. Called something different back then.

But maybe, it's not population wide.

More people were reading Dickens, so rate of reading in population was increasing. But the elites that thought everything should be in Greek/Latin, thought everyone reading Dickens was a downgrade.

Every generation argument.

Weren't Egyptian hieroglyphs basically emoji's.

[piltdownman]

Outside of classical studies, papish notions regarding Greek and Latin were decidedly unpopular in Church of England era Britain (for obvious reasons!).

The real argument against Dickens at the time was more to do with his habit of serialising his novels in cheap newspapers. This then rendered his subject matter of choice - social commentary, fiscal egalitarianism, and empathy for the poor - a little too accessible for the comfort of the ruling classes.

He did so even in his own Newspaper 'Household Words' - which while championing the cause of the poor and working classes, did so by addressing itself almost exclusively to the middle classes!

"...We seek to bring to innumerable homes, from the stirring world around us, the knowledge of many social wonders, good and evil, that are not calculated to render any of us less ardently persevering in ourselves, less faithful in the progress of mankind, less thankful for the privilege of living in this summer-dawn of time." Charles Dickens

He started this with 'Hard Times' - a thinly veiled socialist critique against unbridled capitalism and immorality. It specifically targeted Edwin Chadwick, who helped design the Malthusian basis of the appalling Poor Law of 1834, but was more generally an attack on the Utilitarians of the time. Shaw described it as a "passionate revolt against the whole industrial order of the modern world".

[FrustratedMonky]

ah. I did not know that. Good point. His subject matter put a negative spin on the 'elite's, and so naturally they criticized him.

[mistrial9]

my elderly neighbor sometimes mistakes the difference between one hundred thousand and one hundred million. The point is, she thinks they are similar numbers. So when "people who are capable of reading Dickens blame Dickens for being less literate" and "people who read Twitter/X blame Twitter/X for being less literate" .. perhaps there really is a difference in those two despite the claim being similar.