What is Literature?

Question 1

Different attempts at defining the quality + function of literature

Answer 1

Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson:

• argued that literature = organized violence committed on ordinary speech
• literature transforms + intensifies everyday language –> deviates systematically from everyday language

“what is literature”:

• not only defined by intrinsic but by extrinsic characteristics
• Intrinsic = qualities inherent in literature; qualities that reside within a literary text
• Extrinsic = refers to historical setting; ideological frame to literary scholars who are continuing to define literature in different ways

Question 2

What is the theory of Plato (429-247 BC)?

Answer 2

• for P., art was inferior to other sciences bc. it only imitated reality + dealt w/ appearance rather than truth
• saw no extra or intrinsic value in literature but denigrated it as a mere (bloße) imitation

Question 3

What was the theory of Aristoteles (384-322 BC)?

Answer 3

• argued that man is an imitating creature + that humans learn through + by imitation
• mimesis (Nachahmung): in the act of imitation, some universal truths are revealed
• literature represents the universal whereas historiography only represents the particular

–> Literature transforms conceptions of reality by aesthetic means + it opens up other possible worlds + can thus function as a commentary on reality

Question 4

What is the pragmatic model?

Answer 4

• Horace: defined literature as
  ° pleasure + profit
  ° aut declare aut prodesse

Question 5

What is the expressive model?

Answer 5

• William Wordsworth:
  ° saw text as the product of a creative mind or even a poetic genius
  ° defined poestry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, such as a manifestation of a inner self
  ° the audience wasn’t important in such an understanding but the poetic genius behind the poem who created conventions
• Edgar Allan Poe:
  ° literature is an aesthetic object only with no reference to reality
  ° literature is art for art’s sake or l’art pour l’art

Question 6

four different concepts of defining literature

Answer 6

• mimesis or aesthetic imitation (relates to the referential functions of literature)
• an Expression of the author’s subjectivity (concerned w/ the author only)
• delight + educated (relates to the effect literature has on its readers)
• l’art pour l’art-literature as aesthetic object only (concerned with the text or the message itself)

Question 7

Literary Communication?

Answer 7

(picture in notes!)

• Medium:
  ° the written word is commonly considered the medium of the literary text
  ° but there’s Orality (Mündlichkeit) + there are ebooks, hypertexts, comics,… –> the use different mediums than the written text but they are nonetheless literature
• Codes:
  ° refers to the rules, context + aesthetic convos of language + narrative
• Context:
  ° refers to the cultural circumstances, the historical period; political climate, ideological framing

Question 8

What defines the genre?

Answer 8

= forms a system of groups or families of texts defined by sets of conventions, which guide both the writing + reading of texts

Metafiction:

• when author in a work of fiction deliberately breaks the illusion of narrative by commenting on the rules + convention of fiction
• is a comment about fiction within a work of fiction
• its a self-conscious + self-reflective comment on devices of fiction
• f.ex. John Fowles “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” (1969)

Question 9

What defines the Literary History?

Answer 9

• Deals w/ production of literary texts in particular historical contexts
• contextualizes them w/ other text + events at the time
• looks at the conditions for producing literature at a specific time
• literary history also looks at the reception of literature + the audience
• divides time into periods, which are, however always made in retrospect
• naming + making a period involves choices –> it involves highlighting one event or text as starting point
• threshold texts (Schwellentexte) usher in a new period + eclipse other texts that are then forgotten
• literary history is never disinterested but always written from a specific point of view

Question 10

What is a Canon Formation?

Answer 10

• canons include + exclude at the same time
• canon is a culture’s memory –y preserves texts that become part of the cultural imaginary
• there’s always a wealth of excludes fiction, which suffers the fate oft what Roger Bromley in his seminal study Lost Narratives has called the cultural practice of “organized forgetting”

Question 11

What is John Guillory’s definition of a Canon?

Answer 11

• word canon derives from an ancient Greek word “kanon” meaning “reed”, used as an instrument for measurement
• in later times –> developed the sense of rule or law + in his meaning descended into European language
• since the 1980’s, critics have detected various political agendas beneath supposedly objective criteria or value judgements
• there are very few women pr writers of color in traditional canons
• those critics assumed that race, class + gender than a lack of literary quality, were reasons for the exclusion of certain groups
• started canon wars

his explanation:

• liberal vs. conservative critique
• liberal critique = claims that texts were selected for canon not b. of literary merit but bc. authors belonged to certain group (usually white, male, middle class)
• conservative critique = claims that texts were selected simply bc. they possessed an intrinsic aesthetic value
• truth is in the middle –> literary texts do passes a specific aesthetic value, but their canonization also depends on historical, ideological + political facts

Question 12

What is the Literary Theory/Literary Criticism?

Answer 12

• literary theory defines what is literature

- Literary criticism analyzes + interprets literary texts –> applied theory

Question 13

Analysis vs. Interpretation?

Answer 13

Analysis:

• of a literary text investigates its properties, the codes this literary text uses, the conventions it follows or breaks, the literary technique + rhetorical strategies, the imagery + rhyme patterns or lack of such
• tries to describe + explain how a text creates meaning + which devices it uses in doing so

Interpretation:

• is firmly grounded in analysis but goes one step further in trying to figure out what a text means
• Interpretation deals w/ how we understand texts

Question 14

Hermeneutics (Theorie der Interpretation von Texten)

Answer 14

• word + method of hermeneutics was originally reserved for the interpretation of sacred scriptures
• but during 19th century –> broadened + came to mean all textual interpretation
• Hans-Georg Gadamer “Truth and Method” (1960) brings together different traditions + strands of hermeneutical theory + traditions
• meaning of a work of literature isn’ determined by the author + hence its meaning isn’t fixed once and for all
• rather, the understanding + interpretation of a text is always dependent on language + historical context
• all interpretation is situational
• approach literary texts w/ certain presuppositions + expectations
• in the process of reading we’re confronted w/ aspects in the text that either confirm or challenge those expectations
• learn + discover new things + have to compare these to the prejudices + presuppositions we brought to the reading of the text
• our understanding of a text hence moves in a hermeneutic circle
• understanding isn’t a passive act in which w/ merely costume a text but it’s an active involvement in continuously constituting the meaning of a text
• the mental horizon of the reader has to be fused w/ the horizon of the text –> never really merge as the process of understanding is limitless + unending

Conclusion:

• analysis refers to determining the properties of a text
• interpretation gives meaning to a text by interpreting it in a certain way that is, however, always bound to the analyzed properties + to the personal and historical horizon