ARTISTS AND WRITERS USING OLD FORMS.

ARTISTS AND WRITERS USING OLD FORMS. I have often wondered why there seems to be almost no modern classical music which uses the approaches of Mozart or Beethoven. A newly discovered composition by one of them would be highly valued; apparently a new composition by a modern composer which operated on their terms would be unwelcome. On the other hand, while literary critics may object to modern novels which don’t advance the theory of the novel, on the whole, literature, movies and theater seem open to the use of older forms. There are for example movies like SHAMPOO or COMPLETE STAGE BEAUTY which are variants of restoration comedy. When I first saw this article by Amanda Craig, I thought she was attacking the use of old literary forms. She opened by attacking “Cranford-style adaptations of classic English novels by the BBC.” I was particularly struck by this sentence: “This nostalgia-fest, which would be met with scornful laughter in art, or architecture, or theatre, is also rampant in literature.” It turns out, however, that she objects only to historical subject matter. She advocates a return to “Victorian narrative values”, and she has written a big novel about contemporary England which attempts to do that. Her hero is Tom Wolfe and her model is THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.