Yes, blogs are literature.

Now, for the continuing question: Are blogs literature? I found an excellent post by this English teacher/blogger, Kilian Crawford, from Writing for the Web. His contribution to the query is a yes, indeed, blogs are literature. We may not see it now, but he’d like us to think of all the classic writers, and how they had contemporaries that produced drivel. Thus, if we look at the present, and “contemplate the geyser of writing unleashed by blogging technology, we should not feel disappointed that it’s a geyser of sludge.”

No matter the time, the genre or form, there will be bad writing produced. Moral of the story? If you come across a bad blog, that’s to be expected. Most literature is bad, it is only the exceptional that becomes canonized. We shouldn’t be so hard on bloggers (ourselves) as they are still working with a new medium – it can take time for exceptional writing to be produced. Besides, there’s bound to be a jewel somewhere.

As it stands, we view blogs as writing that focuses on the everyday, or as some would argue, mundane. Some critics use this fact to discount the blog’s potential. But we should view that as the defining characteristics of the blog – immediacy and accessibility. The ability for the “common man” to use and read blogs is what makes the medium unique. I hope that by linking to Crawford’s entry, it provides a better idea of why blogs are inherently literature.