Art and the public
By
Naguib Mahfouz
Among the points raised by the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series is the critical stand adopted towards best sellers. Such works are often ignored by critics, who look down on them, assuming that popular success automatically implies rampant commercialism. Such attitudes are an extension of the erroneous assumption that art is the exclusive property of the elite. What the public appreciates, in other words, is not the sort of thing with which critics are supposed to concern themselves.
Popular acclaim, or its opposite, should not form any part of the criteria brought to bear in making a critical assessment of a literary work. There are great works of literature that have enjoyed success with the public, and there are those great works that only ever seem to attract a handful of readers.
To assume that popular success is an indication of artistic inadequacy is terribly unfair. Cinema, for example, emerged as a form of popular entertainment with no artistic pretensions whatever. Now film has become one of the most widely respected art forms -- spawning its own critics and artistic schools. The same could be said of television drama, the achievements and impact of which cannot be ignored by cultural historians.
And in securing popular success literary works may shape any emerging consciousness in far more significant ways than works that circulate exclusively in the hands of the self- appointed guardians of taste.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy
