The Riddle of Literary Quality Solved?

The chapter sums up the main results of the project The Riddle of Literary Quality. For Dutch readers in 2013, genre fiction had no chance of literary fame. Literary novels with a more complex or difficult language, structure, or content received higher ratings. Male-authored literary novels were still more highly valued than those written by female authors and this reflects the Dutch society in which the conventions about literary quality are embedded. Being aware of underlying prejudices may lead to changes in the future and suggestions are done how to conduct follow-up research into, for example, the literary canon. More methodological research is needed into the influence of amount of dialogue, first-person or third-person perspective, and narrative tense.