Preliminary Considerations

Question 1

What are the two definitions of literature?

Answer 1

B-road and narrow

Question 2

Why is literature broad and narrow?

Answer 2

Poetry was oral before, in that that sense it is narrow because it does not include speech.

Question 3

Whats literature? (In general)

Answer 3

Anything that’s written down.

Question 4

Whats the inclusive (broad) definition of literature?

Answer 4

It incorporates everything that has been written down in some form.

Question 5

Whats the exclusive (narrow) definition of literature?

Answer 5

Definition in a more narrow sense.

Question 6

What are 4 characteristics of literature?

Answer 6

1. fictionality
2. self-conscious use of form/aesthetic quality
3. absence of (primary) pragmatic function
4. ambiguity/polysemy

Question 7

Whats fictionality?

Answer 7

Does not intent to be factual, explores imaginative worlds

Question 8

Whats self-conscious use of form/aesthetic quality?

Answer 8

Makes the familiar unfamiliar, forces the viewer to alter their views, open to their interpretations

Question 9

Whats absence of (primary) pragmatic function?

Answer 9

Literature = No rules, something that is enjoyed, aesthetic experience

Question 10

Whats ambiguity/polysemy?

Answer 10

More than one meaning, open to interpretation of viewer, what is perceived

Question 11

When was the suspension of disbelief coined and by whom?

Answer 11

Coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 12

Whats the suspension of disbelief?

Answer 12

It often applies to fictional worlds (action, comedy, fantasy and horror genres).
There is a parallel between the factual and the fictional world.

Question 13

Whats mimesis?

Answer 13

• term used in philosophy and literary criticism.
• It describes the process of imitation or mimicry through which artists portray and interpret the world.
• Fiction = reflection
• some element of the fictional world can affect the real world, because of ways of interpreting it

Question 14

Whats close reading?

Answer 14

A detailed investigation of the overall composition of texts with the unifying principles

Question 15

Whats a canon?

Answer 15

Collection of works considered representative of a period or genre

Question 16

What are the processes of canonisation?

Answer 16

• way and process in which literary works become canons (repeated reading, long-term studies by critics and scholars, eventually being accepted and recognised as talented and original creative works by the authorities)

Question 17

Whats referential?

Answer 17

Describes a situation, object, state

Question 18

Whats poetic?

Answer 18

Way message is communicated, word usage, pictural language

Question 19

Whats expressive?

Answer 19

Feelings, mood, authors tone

Question 20

Whats appellative?

Answer 20

Reader and reaction, interaction

Question 21

Whats phatic?

Answer 21

Connection between social connection of author and reader

Question 22

Whats meta-textual?

Answer 22

Self awareness, clarifying language, understanding a message/code

Question 23

1. The author is ……….
2. The reader is ……….
3. The text is ……………
4. The code is ………….

Answer 23

1. expressive
2. appellative
3. poetic/aesthetic
4. metatextual

Question 24

1. The author is the …… to the text.
2. The text is the channel to the ………..
3. The text is ……… to the context.

Answer 24

1. channel
2. reader
3. referential

Question 25

Critics of canon

Answer 25

• represents western canon
  -decided by elite
• white, famous, male authors

Question 26

How is the canon changing?

Answer 26

Trying to be more inclusive, it is shifting

Question 27

Whats reception in aesthetic judgement?

Answer 27

refers to how literary work is received and interpreted by the reader

Question 28

Whats intention in aesthetic judgement?

Answer 28

meaning and value of literary work that depends of the authors intention

Question 29

Definition of Literature (key terms)

Answer 29

Literature is a body of works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution.
Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre and subject matter.

Question 30

What’s Roman Jakobson’s Communication Model?

Answer 30

A model which illustrates the six functions of communication (6 nouns) and the six functions of language (6 adjectives)

Question 31

Jakobson: Who is the author?

Answer 31

Person who sends the message

Question 32

Jakobson: Who is the reader?

Answer 32

The audience who receives and understands the message

Question 33

Jakobson: What is the context?

Answer 33

Forms the reason for the message to be communicated

Question 34

Jakobson: What is the text?

Answer 34

The conveying idea/expression sent by the author

Question 35

Jakobson: What is the channel?

Answer 35

Connection between author and reader

Question 36

Jakobson: What is the code?

Answer 36

The rules that combine to form the message and language used

Question 37

Explain Jakobson’s Communication Model.

Answer 37

In the Communication Model proposed by Roman Jakobson: The Author is expressive; the author encodes a message which is embodied by the text via a phatic channel; such channel connects the text to the reader as well. A reader that realises the text’s poetic/aesthetic values is appellative. The text is referential to the context, at once elicits/discerns metatextual code in an interplay with other discourses.