- After reading the chapter “what is literature and does it matter” written by Jonathan Culler, in my opinion, the most important aspect of this section is the diversity of the literature. As Culler talked about the weed story, “Weed are simply plants that gardeners don’t want to have growing in their gardens”(23). It indicates that which plants are weed depending on the gardener’s own preference. When differentiating literature and non-literature works, the standard also depends on a group’s preference. Thus, different people from difference culture background may have different opinions on determining whether a work is literature or non-literature. As a result, it makes literature varies from places to places, which form the diversity of literature. Besides, as Culler claimed, most of literature works seem to ” have more in common with works that aren’t usually called literature than they do with some other works recognized as literature”(21), which i believe is also one of the factors that makes literature diverse. From this chapter, i learned that even some texts can be treated as or changed into literature form. As literature is common in our daily lives, knowing about the definition of literature is important. It enables us to differentiate literature and non-literature.
- One question that stayed with me as i read this chapter is that “when reading a literature work, different people may have different opinions on its implicit meanings, which maybe not the same as the author aimed to express. Is it matter? Is there only one correct interpretation?
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Hey Waleed, and to try to answer your question I think that once an author puts out literature for people to read thats the end of their part. The rest is up to us readers to dissect and form our own view points of the overall piece.
Hi Woury! It’s Shumin here. Thank you for your comment and i agree with your opinion!