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The Romance stayed near the top of the best-seller lists for over a thousand years. Some people claim (without citing sources) that it was the #2 most-read book of antiquity and the Middle Ages, after only the Bible. The Koran endorses it, the Talmud embellishes it, a Mongol Khan gave it rave reviews. While historians and critics tend to use phrases like “contains nothing of historic or literary value”, this was the greatest page-turner of the ancient and medieval worlds.
✏️ Beyond just the insanity that is this book, the takeaway from this is that literary criticism is kinda pointless, or at least, should never be held up as some objective truth.
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Critics and historians are making stuff up just like the rest of us.
👓 propaganda
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