WhatIs literature

What Is Literature?

Reading, Assessing, Analyzing


What is “Literature”?
In the last 50 years, the very meaning of
“Literature” and “reading” and
“criticism” has undergone deep
alteration


Literature:
 Traditionally,
literature is
“imaginative”
writing---writing
which is not literally
true

 HOWEVER: the
distinction between
“real” and “fake” or
“fact” and “fiction”
isn’t always a good
distinction; many
classical works were
non-fiction


What do we mean when we say

something is “Literary”?

“Some texts are born literary, some
achieve literariness, and some have
literariness thrust upon them.”


Is literature dictated by context?
I’m your teacher. I have several college
degrees. If I tell you it’s LITERATURE,
am I to be believed?
Many works of “literature” that we study
in college were constructed to BE
literature, but many were not.


What qualities in form and
content make a text . . .

LITERARY?


Language
 Literature transforms
and intensifies
ordinary language
 Literature deviates
systematically from
everyday speech
 Language in

literature draws
attention to itself

--This is what the
FORMALISTS
thought--Russians in
the early 1900s who
organized literary
criticism around
language


When “Language” is the only
criteria of “literary”, what types
of texts are ignored?

Should these types of texts be
ignored? Why? Why Not?


The problem with language. . .
“The idea that there is a single, ‘normal’
language, a common currency shared equally
by all members of society, is an illusion. Any
actual language consists of a highly complex
range of discourses, differentiated according to
class, region, gender, status and so on, which
can by no means be neatly unified into a single
homogeneous linguistic community.”
--Terry Eagleton, literary critic and scholar

What happens when one
language is preferred over
another?

Can language reveal your: class,
race, ethnicity, educational level,
gender?


If literature were only based on
how language were used
Everything would be poetry.
What other qualities can we look at that
might help us to define the “literariness”
of a text?


The truth is:
 If “they” (the critics,
scholars etc) say
you’re literature,
then you are!
 If “they” say you
aren’t, then you
aren’t!

 “Literature” is a
formal, empty sort of

definition.
 “Literature” has no
“essence.”
 “Literature” is
dependent upon the
way people relate
themselves to the
writing.


Literature is Subjective
Since the 1980’s, the “literary canon” of
works--a group of works “agreed upon”
to be “the best” by well-known scholars
and critics, has been disputed


Why do you think the “canon”
was disputed?

And who forwarded the charge of
dispute?


The “Canon” excluded most
works that were not by white,
European males

Works of literature by women,
homosexuals, and works by

individuals of varied races, classes
and ethnicities were marginalized


How did this happen?
There are many ways of “writing”--but
those in power recognized only one,
formal way of “writing,” and this was
given the higher value
Thus, the literary “canon” is a construct;
it was fashioned by particular people for
particular reasons at a particular time.


There is no literary work or
tradition that has value in and of
itself

Even Shakespeare!


In his era, Shakespeare was
regarded as a hack!
It’s true! Time and circumstance has
offered the value to particular texts; and
this “value” is a transitive term--it will
change as the people in power change
and are altered, and according to the
context of the reading of a particular text.

10 Years Ago

BLOGS were stupid. NOW:
Iraq War Veterans BLOGS are
considered vital historic and
“literary” documents!


Revisioning the Canon:

All “literary” works are
unconsciously rewritten by the
societies that read them.


Context:
Readers interpret literary works in the
light of their own concerns
Readers interpret literary works in the
light of a given circumstance
Readers interpret literary works in the
light of a given time period


The Diary of Anne Frank:

Literature? Or Not?

HOWL by Allen Ginsberg
BANNED in its era. . .
LITERATURE? Or not?


“I Have A Dream”-Is this speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Literature? Or Not?


Literature and “value”
 You see, each of us is
constructed of
experiences and
backgrounds and
emotions and ideas
and prejudices and
knowledge and lack
of knowledge. . .

 How we each
respond to a
particular text is
deeply entwined with
our broader
prejudices and belief
systems.