In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not be, art is also entertainment. Bad art fails to entertain. Good art does something in addition. Brigid Brophy
About This Quote

"In a sense" seems to be an attempt to justify the notion that, no matter what the quality of the art, art should be entertaining. To put it in a different way, we can all agree that art should be good and powerful and aesthetically pleasing. But, we would never say that art should entertain us in order to succeed.

Source: Fifty Works Of English Literature We Could Do Without

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More Quotes By Brigid Brophy
  1. In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not...
  2. Manners are for those who have neither beauty or talent but want people to like them despite their lack of attractions
  3. When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent -Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore- he unveils nothing less than a canvas by Rubens, baroque...
  4. I told some imprecisely imagined interlocutor that each year I hoped to have outgrown being moved by the autumn and each year I hadn't
  5. Sentimentalist” is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel, thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to be cruel, which it isn’t.
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