Nobel Prize in Literature recipients over the past century

Please review the Nobel Prize in Literature recipients over the past century. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes-in-literature/ This is considered the highest honor in literary writing, and you’ll notice that the recipients are from around the globe.

As you will see, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016 for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” This was widely discussed at the time since previous winners have been writers of prose, poetry, or plays.

Your extra credit essay, if you choose to accept the challenge!, should be on the topic of screen storytelling. Please make an argument for why screenwriting should be considered “literature” — much like playwriting, songwriting, poetry, and prose — and identify at least one screenwriter who you think is deserving of this honor.

This will likely take some research as you may not be familiar with the writers of some of your favorite films and television shows. You may base your argument off of just one work (for instance, George Lucas’s Star Wars) or off of a handful of works (for instance, Lucas’s Star Wars series, Raiders of the Lost Arc series, and the 1973 film American Graffiti). The choice is yours.

Your essay should be three pages in length (or 750 words). It can certainly be more. You should make an argument for why screenwriting IS literature, and nominate one screenwriter for the Nobel Prize. OR, conversely, you may make an argument against including screen storytelling in the category of literature, and support your argument with an explanation and multiple examples.

You will be graded primarily on the substance of your thoughts (argument and support) and secondarily on your writing.

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