Concepts and Interpretations Sess 1

Question 1

Culler states, “…the modern sense of literature is scarcely two centuries old”. What is this ‘modern sense’? Trace its historical development.

Answer 1

• before 1800 the term literature just meant something written down
• literature is about meaning rather than entertainment
• The image we currently have of literature
   Imaginative writing
   We try to interpret the texts and look for hidden meanings.
• Before 1800: literature was every kind of writing
   Largely not studied for their content but for their language/rhetoric
• Nothing is irrevocably “born as literature”, we treat something as literature!

Question 2

According to Culler, which kinds of texts can be read as literature? How?

Answer 2

• we make it literature because we call it that way
• reading literature to become a better person
• literature is a cultural convention
• what leads readers to trat something ias literature is that the find it in certain conett like a library or bookstore

Question 3

How does Culler distinguish between literature and other sorts of communication?

Answer 3

• the reader is the precipitator
• in literature patience is asked much more (because there is intrinsic meaning behind it)
• literature is interested in the form of telling –> tellabilit

Question 4

Discuss the following definitions of literature, provided by Culler:

a. …as the ‘foregrounding’ of language
b. … as the integration of language
c. … as fiction
d. …as aesthetic object
e. … as intertextual or self-reflexive construct

Answer 4

a. vivid adjectives like marvelous, tremendous
- literature foregrounds language itself; for example poetry shows the sound patterns occurring language
- - we are made conscious of linguistic organization we general ignore
b. all of literature integrates dissimilar components of language
- all aspects integrate into what is called literature
- puts various elements and components in a relation
- c. something made up
- free interpretation, because the event never happened
- suspension of disbelief

d

• according to Kant the aesthetic is the bridge between the spiritual and material world
• it engages reader to consider the interrelation between form and content

e
- a work never eist b itself but always in relation to other works

Question 5

Discuss in brief the varied functions of literature.

Answer 5

• literature is universal and tells us something about the human condition
• its much more accessible than other art forms and is alle to bring about social change