HANDOUT 1: WHAT IS LITERATURE?

1. DEFINITION AND ETYMOLOGY.

LITERATURE - a body of written works (the Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Literature, L. lit(t)eratura "learning, writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from lit(t)era "letter." (Online Etymology Dictionary)

2. LITERARINESS.

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982):

The object of literary science is not literature but literariness, that is, what makes a given work a literary work. On Realism in Art (1921)

WHAT MAKES A TEXT LITERARY?

it is essentially verbal: a word is the primary tool of the author. Verbal word.

1. GRAPHIC NOVELS: e.g., Space Dog, Hendrick Dorgathen. Graphic novel does not contain words or contains very few.

2. HYBRID NOVELS: e.g. Abadazad, J.M DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. Written text completed by inset of comic cartoon strips.

3. CONVERGENCE NOVELS: e.g. Maximum Ride, James Patterson. Supplied with websites, computer games. Story goes on the website - you can interview the characters. There are many additional features; you can buy staff from the novel on the website etc.

1. it covers the whole scope of human experience - should be concerned with life being.

2. it foregrounds its formal features: the language, the construction, the genre

DENOTATION: a dictionary definition of a word

CONNOTATION: the range of associations the word provokes

3. it is imaginative: concerns fictional events, or facts transformed by the creativity of the author

4. it fulfills aesthetic function: it pleases or offends the taste of the reader

3. LITERARY THEORIES.

1. Mimetic theory (classical period): literature imitates physical reality; it strives to achieve a mirror picture of the universe (Plato The Republic, Aristotle Poetics)

1. realism

2. external world - Plato claimed that what we see as an external world is only imitation, reflection of real world. Literature imitates reality (because it is not possible to describe it perfectly) so in that case literature would be an imitation of imitation?

2. Pragmatic/affective/didactic theory (Renaissance): literature influences the audience, whether in moral or emotional way; it can represent the internal world of values (Sir Philip Sydney The Defense of Poesie)

1. moral pragmatism - teaches how to behave (how to be a good citizen, Christian)

2. psychological pragmatism - tells us how to unburden (uwolnić od ciężaru) soul from suffering

3. ideological pragmatism - teaches what to believe in

3. Expressive theory (Romanticism): literature provides the means of expression to the author; it represents inner reality (William Wordsworth Lyrical Ballads)

1. Biographical criticism - biography of the author helps us to understand the piece.

2. Psychoanalysis - by reading a text you can get to author's mind.

4. Objective/aesthetic theory (20th c.): literature provides a text as the object of studies; it constitutes a world in itself (T.S. Eliot Tradition and Individual Talent)

1. Russian formalism

2. New Criticism

(M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp )

Literature cannot be linked with others. It reflects the world of imagination and that is how we should treat it.

4. LITERARY THEORY VS. INTERPRETATION

2 approaches:

1. analytical/scientific - creating models for the description of literature

2. hermeneutic/interpretative - looking for new contexts

3. post-structural crisis (1960/70s): contestation of the notion of „literariness”, weakening of the belief in the universal nature of literature, rejection of abstract theoretical models. Embracing interpretation, rediscovery of the pleasure of reading, variety of possible meanings, bringing in multiple contexts (gender, culture, race, etc.)

Umberto Eco (b. 1932) : There exists a model reader who is able to decipher the „best” reading of the text. You can have your own interpretation, but there are some interpretations which are better than others. A “model reader” is the reader who is able to get best meaning from the piece.

Richard Rorty (1931-2007) : There is no model reader and no „correct” interpretation. Everybody has their own way of reading. Freedom rules. Just enjoy the text. Aesthetical importance.

Jonathan Culler (b. 1944) : Let's ask the text the questions that are not obvious, look for the hidden meanings! We should ask the text unlikely questions.

What do you have to say, you seemingly innocent child's tale of three little pigs and a wicked wolf, about the culture that perserves and responds to you? About the unconscious dreams of the author or folk that created you? About the history of narrative suspense? About the relations of the lighter and the darker races? About big people and little people, hairy and bald, lean and fat? About triadic patterns in human history? About the Trinity? About laziness and industry, family structure, domestic architecture, dietary practice, standards of justice and revenge? About the history of manipulations of narrative point of view for the creation of sympathy? Is it good for a child to read you or hear you recited, night after night? Will stories like you - should stories like you - be allowed when we have produced our ideal socialist state? What are the sexual implications of that chimney - or of this strictly male world in which sex is never mentioned? What about all that huffing and puffing?

Wayne C. Booth, Critical Understanding

5. LITERARY THEORY TODAY.

21st century: „the age of interpretation”

1. poetics of culture: broad, interdisciplinary, multi-contextual, historically changing universe of the total knowledge useful in the process of reading (Burzyńska, Markowski)

2. interest in pragmatism, rather than ontology: how does literature work? rather than: what is it?

3. including multiple cultural contexts into the process of interpretation to get the most from the reading of a text

"Literature does not lend itself to a single tidy definition because the making of it over the centuries has been as complex, unwieldy, and natural as life itself" (Michael Meyer, The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5th ed.)

SOURCES:

Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp. 1953.

Booth, Wayne C. Critical Understanding. 1979

Burzyńska, Anna, Markowski, Michał Paweł. Teorie literatury XX wieku. 2006

Meyer, Michael. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5th ed.

Notearama. Notes on the Writing Life. - http://notearama.blogspot.com.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. - http://www.britannica.com.

Online Etymology Dictionary. - http://www.etymonline.com.

COURSE OUTLINE:

What is literature?

Plato.

Aristotle.

Poetry.

Drama.

Fiction:

Novel

Short story

Literary criticism:

New Criticism

Structuralism

Russian Formalism

Post-structuralism and deconstruction

Modernism and postmodernism

Psychoanalysis

Feminism

Marxism

Postcolonialism

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Attendance.

Scoring 60%, or higher, on the written test.

LITERATUROZNAWSTWO - WYKŁAD - 21.02.2012.

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