Scop of Gleeman?

Scop --Anglo Saxon poet who wrote and recited heroic epics about battles and morality and glory

Gleeman --minstral or bard, more interested in entertainment than heroic themes


Scop of Gleeman? Poet or entertainer? Teacher or creater of divertions? Sophisticated literature or genre fiction?

I sometimes feel like there is a line drawn for writers. On one side deep thinking social comentary chocked full of elaborate allusions to our predisesors and on the other J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown and Stephanie Myers. We must choose if we want to write 'real' inovative literature or best sellers.

My question is why not both? Or niether. Does every story worth telling have to be a great masterpiece? Is it only worth anything if it makes a lot of money?

The clasifications aren't really so different. I'm not afraid to strive for perfection but I don't think I'm the only who has read some of the great classics and felt like there were places they could be tweaked. I still enjoyed them, recognized genius in them but the perfectionist is never satisfied.

Not all the great classics were written with 'greatness' in mind. Kidknapped is a classic 'blood and thunder'. Shakespeare wrote histories that were more or less court propoganda but they managed to stick around. They were entertainments with enough thought provoking matter (or simply emotions that we can connect with) that we still find them worth reading hundreds of years later. We are still diverted and entertained by them. Profound doesn't usually happen on purpose.

Granted Twilight probably won't be taught in schools a hundred years from now and a lot of the books that are didn't make any amount of money worth mentioning when the author was alive. Still, a story is a story and the question shouldn't be "How much money will it make?" or "What is the great meaning behind it?" but "does it want to be told?"

Scop or Gleeman? Poet or player? Literary or Genre? What's the difference?