[egershna]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
The real reason is that no genre fiction is considered literature. The prejuidice against scifi extends to mysteries, romances, horror novels, etc. The chief reason is that genre fiction, by its very nature, is strongly bound by convention and therefore considered to be incapable of exhibiting the originality that is expected of capital-L Literature. A secondary reason is that genre fiction is considered to exist primarily for commercial purposes and only incidently as creative expression, while the opposite is is considered to be true of capital-L lit.

You can agree or disagree with the reasoning, but that's the reasoning. I can somewhat see that, but there are some genre fiction that don't necessarily suffer as a result by convention or commercial expectations rather than as an art form. The Fantasy genre has a great number of works that can be considered "literature" rather than simply novels. I guess, though, as a genre, fantasy is very expansive, covering works from "Lord of the Rings" to "Midnight's Children" to "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell".