by Fiona Mcgrath

Created on: January 31, 2009   Last Updated: February 20, 2009

Popular literature has been defined by the left-wing critic Raymond Williams as "deliberately setting out to win favour". He describes it as "low and base" and "well-liked by many people" thus inferring that mass popularity means sacrificing quality. The influential twentieth-century British critics QD and FR Leavis went so far as to say that society is damaged by reading such low material and it may only be mended by the promotion of high-literature such as the works of Shakespeare.

Surely it may be argued that popular literature's inclusivity appeals to readers unmotivated by or uncomfortable with the high literary texts and as such can only be a positive result? If individuals want to limit their reading to Mills & Boons romance novels are they not entitled to the escapism that those novels offer? Conversely, perhaps the Leavis duo is accurate and the proliferation of low-quality culture is acting as a moral painkiller in today's doom and gloom. Is society burying its head with its attempts to decipher the clues to the Holy Grail or empathize with the unraveling fabric that is the lifestyle of the modern "chic"?

Can these critics assume that a novel is of lower quality simply because it appeals to a wide audience? Can a novel not strike a chord with many people but at the same time be an innovative and challenging piece of writing? It is vital, therefore a differentiation is made between this type of novel and one that has acquired popularity because it follows a successful well-worn formula. This formulaic approach may provide the reader with a comforting sense of familiarity in a world that appears to be getting less predictable. Do people really want these novels or is it simply that they have been lulled into believing this is entertainment? If the answer is the former, it is truly what the public wants, then that is perfectly acceptable: freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom to be entertained. However, if it is the latter then formulaic popular fiction is having a detrimental effect on the reading public.

So what of the popular novel that has gained both critical and public acclaim can both standards co-exist comfortably? At its inception Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca was accused of existing only as a substandard rewrite of Charlotte Bronte's nineteenth-century novel, Jane Eyre. It was claimed that Rebecca simply followed the formula of the older novel to achieve popular success. British writer and critic, VS Pritchett, reviewed Rebecca in 1938

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