BDS

Well, Biff, if you insist of disagreeing with every serious student of literature, who am I to stop you? The novel is a modern art form; the epic an ancient one. Perhaps you can't see the difference between them, but everyone else does. That's why nobody calls the Iliad a "novel", and why careful English speakers don't call it "fiction", either.

Are there similarities between novels and Epics? Of course there are. Are there similarities between novels and histories? Of course there are. So what? There are similarities between dogs and cats, too. That doesn't make a dog a cat, does it?

I'm simply trying to use words like "novel" and "fiction" precisely, so that they are valuable tools. You want them to mean something vague, like whether a book is "true" or not. Allow me to suggest that you could say, "The Iliad is not accurate historically" which would make your point more precisely than saying, "The Iliad is fiction."

kciredor reprah

I have a co-worker who's enrolled in a school of theology. Instead of developing a respect for other religions, he has begun to ridicule other faiths even more. I did not quite understand this at first. Perhaps I still don't. But the way he described other faiths was purely bigoted. He mocked them as if they where unimportant ideas. This confuses me greatly.

Peace

Biff the unclean

It's something like getting a degree in English Lit; but only reading one book

nermal

Which would be an absolutely true implication. Validity and truth are not synonymous.

Ed

Biff the unclean

Well, Biff, if you insist of disagreeing with every serious student of literature, who am I to stop you?
Sigh, what's that supposed to mean? You know what everyone in the world thinks? Can you back that up?
Personally it's been a long time since I was a student. But I am an author who has had seven books published by Doubleday…does that count for anything?

The novel is a modern art form; the epic an ancient one.
And they are both covered by the category "fiction" which is the oldest art form.
Perhaps you can't see the difference between them, but everyone else does. That's why nobody calls the Iliad a "novel", and why careful English speakers don't call it "fiction", either.
Since the only remaining category after "fiction" is "non-fiction" you cannot honestly call it anything but fiction.

Are there similarities between novels and Epics? Of course there are.
The only actual difference is date of authorship.
Are there similarities between novels and histories? Of course there are.
No, novels are fiction, histories fall under non-fiction.
So what? There are similarities between dogs and cats, too. That doesn't make a dog a cat, does it?
Except you are saying "here's a St Bernard and here's a Newfoundland. If the Saint is a dog then the Newfy is a cat."

I'm simply trying to use words like "novel" and "fiction" precisely, so that they are valuable tools. You want them to mean something vague, like whether a book is "true" or not.
That is what the words fiction and novel mean, there's nothing vague about it.

Allow me to suggest that you could say, "The Iliad is not accurate historically" which would make your point more precisely than saying, "The Iliad is fiction."
That's sheer nonsense. The Iliad is a work of pure fiction…a great deal of it fantasy…that is set in a real place during real events. It is still fiction.
Once upon a time I owned a Superman comic book. In it Superman went to Germany, beat up Hitler then flew to Washington DC where FDR ran across the Oval Office and shook his hand.
WWII is real, Hitler, FDR, Washington and Germany are all real. You would not bother to say, "The comic book is not accurate historically" You would say it was fictional.
Both the comic book and Homer tell stories that never happened, both use historic characters but change them into something they were not (Achilles becomes invincible, FDR has the use of his legs), and both stories are populated by other worldly beings with supernatural powers.
Mythology is non-fiction because it is the study of myth. The myths themselves are fiction.

Biff the unclean

Webster's New World Pocket Dictionary
second edition
val'id a. 1 true or sound

NobleSavage

A Dawkins quote I just serendipitously stumbled upon:

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?

Richard Dawkins

Starboy

Good quote. I would add to the list a subject that would not be missed, philosophy. IMO a sibling of theology and both "truth" mongering traditions.

Starboy

BDS

Good grief. So "intellectual achievement" is defined strictly by utility, according to Dawkins. I suppose he derides philosophers, too.

Of course he's dead wrong when he claims that, "The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything." Let's see: the theological treatise "The Hammer of the Witches", written in the late 15th century, which led directly to the European witch craze of the 16th and 17th centuries didn't affect anything? Tell that to the 500,000 witches who were executed.

Starboy

Yup he's wrong. He should have said we would be better off without theology.

Starboy