This is not a fully-developed hypothesis, and I don't know if I ACTUALLY believe it. But I do sometimes suspect that the real difference between "literary" or "artistic" works ("high-brow") and genre works is that the former has the approval of, and provides rhetorical justification for and/or for the inevitability of the dominance of, society's power elite -- the people who directly control society, and the classes who gain power from the people who control society.
How many poets provide support for a controlling elite? How do Zadie Smith or Toni Morrisson or Iain Banks provide rhetorical justification for today's elites, when indeed they provide typical or non-typical challenges to it? What about Wilfred Owen, James Joyce, TS Elliot or Virginia Woolf from the past century, each challenging orthodoxies and prevailing ideologies. From further back, what about Mark Twain, Alexander Pope, Shakespeare, David Lyndsey, John Gower, and so on....
Valid points, and that's why I said I don't know if I actually believe that. It's a suspicion, and I'm not sure how accurate it is. How many of those people were outliers amongst the group we call "literary?" What rhetorical and political goals do
most such "literary" authors serve?
But I also think that your examples raise some interesting questions: What constitutes a "literary" or "high-brow" writer, anyway? Iain Banks, for instance, is a famous science fiction writer. Is a writer whose works focus on ethnic minorities (someone like Toni Morrison or Amy Tan) part of that circle we call the "literary elite?"
The literary 'elite' is some sense is defined by the most astute commentators on that canon, that is the professors and journals that chose to analyse literature according to very high standards - and therefore attempt to place them within literary canon. All these writers, from present and history, are subject to that study. Certainly are you not aware of the large and growing study of racial and ethnic fiction across the globe, in diverse languages? It is one of the most important elements of arts reseach at the moment, pushing past a western-centric model of artistic development. Banks is considered part of the literary element of science fiction - at least in the work of the professor I linked to the page before and the work of her fellows in contemporary fiction. Also remember Banks is more than a SF writer - and that neither side of his persona, nor each individual work, is divorced in form, content or style from the other.
Shakespeare was all about justifying the authority and power of monarchs, and specifically of the ruling monarchs of his life. In his histories, he deliberately portrayed the ancestors of Elizabeth I and James I in very positive ways, and portrayed their ancestors' enemies in very negative lights. And that's to say nothing of his endorsement of things like male supremacy in The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare's art certainly supported the existing power structures of early modern England. But, by the same token -- he was not considered a "literary" author in his era. Shakespeare's plays were considered the popular, somewhat vulgar, entertainment of their day; it wasn't until centuries after his death that he became so venerated.
I would say you are perhaps wrong that Shakespeare's company, and the plays produced therein, were 'the popular, somewhat vulgar, entertainment' you state. As I put forth in the Rings of Times thread, he was the subject of diverse patronage, including in particular the household of Queen Anne. In addition, the epithets placed on Shakespeare both within his lifetime and immediately after - and the use of his plays in Restoration drama and court - indicate his 17th century popularity from the more literate members of society and the social elites.
I would also say that you simplify the role of drama and commentary in Elizabethan and early Stuart stage as to a simple political function. Arguably Shakespeare's medieval history plays do focus on the ancestors of Elizabeth and James, though not always flatteringly. What was key to the plays was the relationship to the chronicles - Edward Hall (1548) and Raphael Holinshed (1587) - Shakespeare was adapting his material from. Neither are 'histories' in the more aspirationally objective sense of today, but rather commentaries on how rulership should be effected, and what went wrong & right.
In the vein of this commentary, not all kings are depicted in the best light.
Edward III, for example, who is compared to his heroic son the Black Prince and whose adulterous desires seem to represent his failings.
Henry IV on the throne in his own titular play is shown as, perhaps, lacklustre. Henry VI - the longest cycle of the history plays - depicts the king as unable to command the realm - in part because of bad tutorship, and also his own subsumation by the realm. More so his absence from the first 2 acts of
Part 1 is representative of his failed vision and weak rulership. More so, the villains of the Tudor historical cause - such as
Richard III - do have emblematic, even heroic ends.
Beyond the medieval plays, is not
Julius Caesar a play against tyranny - and therefore critical of the overeager monarch? What of the madness of
Lear, in which a king abandons his realm to his squabbling children - commentary on the role of the ruler, and anxiety about late Elizabethan and early Stuart succession and government.
But this is a consideration of content purely, when of course the artistic is more than just the critical content. I think Shakespeare is far more challenging to what you perceive as orthodoxy formally as well as in content. Certainly even in his use of the history play, which though it had exemplars dating back to John Bale two generations before, was perceived by some of the elite of the late fifteenth century as base. For example the courtier poet
Sir Philip Sidney stated that literature -what he called ‘poetry’ - was a loftier form than history. The purpose of studying both history and literature was to see ‘virtue exalted and vice punished’, and in Sidney’s view, ‘that commendation is peculiar to poetry, and far off from history’. However Shakespeare broke through that barrier by making commendation - that is criticism of both the concept of rulership and even potential hazards in Elizabethan and Stuart government - a central part of the formal structure and even genre of history play.
Personally, I'd prefer if literature (or literary criticism at least) didn't concern itself so much with how subversive or conservative a work is. For one thing, from my perspective it's pretty much all "too conservative".
I think conservatism is an important feature of society, though the failure of political debate is to define human socio-economic opinions along a single line. For example the thoroughly orthodox Catholic should because of their acceptance of the imago Dei in all human beings, be anti-death penalty, pro-life, only accept a just war (that is, a war where all other overtures have failed or where there is absolute threat to a group of vulnerables - and which is never for just personal gain), belief in the necessity of their own charitible action (the amount of which according to consience and spiritual guidance), strict on sexual matters, believe in the rationality of their religion, accept of the role of other religious groups because of the presence of truth in them, be able to forgive the wrongs of others, etc... The thoroughly orthodox Catholic therefore fits no current political dimension as peddled by the weak 'right-left' model. However that model still is defined, in all its fragmentary elements, in opposition to a wide range of ethical, socio-economic positions.
In the same way the study of literary criticism, and wider artistic criticism, often works by identifying a critical issue within an art work, narrowing in on it, and working it out in relation to other works, opinions, theories and so on of the day, yah?
I'm just one component in a wider system, I would never presume that my position is the right one, no matter how strongly I pushed for it. I just play an unusual role in the system, so I'm often at odds with most of our people's literature.
