In Chapter 2 of Literary Theory: a Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler, the author talks about the nature of literature and shows different definitions of literature from other angles. Of all the angles that he talked about, I found the angle of literature being fictional interesting, as the author says ” The literary work is a linguistic event which projects a fictional world that includes speaker, actors, events, and an implied audience (an audience that takes shape through the work’s decisions about what must be explained and what the audience is presumed to know)”. Because of this, fictional works can have many different interpretations of what they actually mean due to people’s personal experiences and as such the meaning of a piece of literature can change over time. What an author might have attempted to convey in a piece of literature could totally be different than what the reader/speaker might get just because of the way they think/their imagination.
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I had a hard time uderstanding most of these aspects of literature, but after reading your response I have a much stronger grasp on “literature as fiction.” A test that is fictional can be submitted for consideration as literature. Adittionally, literature, in the same way as fiction, gains new interpretations as time passes. Thank you!
You are right and I believe that reading literature gives us an interest in life because it helps us to see everything from the sense of others as I said that we can learn of other people and their motivations.
I agree with your argument that you say literature gives us an interest in our life because I believe that it can help us to realize everything from the sense of others as I said that we can learn from other person.