A look at popular literature and the importance of a good read in our lives.
In the view of Joe Ardle McArdle, popular literature includes a range of reading material from comic books to best sellers.
I mean those second class works in which figures like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Hercule Poirot leap out of the covers and have taken on a life of their own. I mean too the comics that teachers told us would ruin our reading ability and of course I mean the international best sellers that grow fatter and more programmed every year.
He also examines the relationship between popular culture, fine art and mass culture.
Neither popular culture nor fine art exists in a vacuum. Popular art must borrow from fine art and fine art in its turn must be influenced by our industrial environment of which mass culture is an essential element.
Joe Ardle McArdle says that there is a dialectic in the development of twentieth century literature. He distinguishes between serious literature and popular literature. Emerging from both of these is something new.
Non literary influences can also inspire a work of art. An example of this crossover can be found in a new novel 'The Book Thief's Heartbeat' by young Irish writer Philip Davidson. He tried to make the book as iconic as good rock and roll lyrics and the book is written in scenes like a film script.
'Secret Languages: Curl Up with a Good Book' was broadcast on 23 March 1982. The presenter is Joe Ardle McArdle.
'Secret Languages' was a six-part series in celebration of mass culture in our everyday lives: posters, cinema and fashion.
