There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
English culture is highly literary-based.
I believe in books. I believe more in 'cross-media' - how characters are adapting across mediums.
Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.
I strongly believe that literature can do something that nothing else can do, and that is embody the human spirit.
A culture produces ideas which are being explored, which of interest to that culture at that moment. And I think one of the things a writer can do is to take those ideas and go a bit further with them.
I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.
Politics is marginal, but literature moves along by indirection.
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it.
Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.