Some of the angles that I found most interested when used to define literature as described by Culler, was when he mentioned poetry and went on to describe the linguistic patterns. Things like rhyming, patterns, and the relation on words have to one another when conveying a certain message. Poetry is like a song without a melody, in my opinion the word play certainly creates a sound. Which heavily defines the ambiguous meaning that literature holds whether it be poetry or a fictional piece of writing.
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After reading chapter II, “What is literature, and does it matter?” by Jonathan Culler. In the passage of the nature of literature, culler gives After reading chapter II, “What is literature, and does it matter?” by Jonathan Culler. In the passage of the nature of literature, culler gives us five points of literature, which are: literature as the foregrounding of language, literature as the integration of language, literature as fiction, literature as an aesthetic object, and literature as intertextual. One of the points that I have read that I was interested in was, the literature as fiction. In the passage it depicts how stories of fiction give us a feeling of human emotion/trauma. In stories like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, emotions like love, death, fear, pride ensue. Reading fictional book gives us a type of feeling that vicariously allows us into the story, watching it first hand. With every page we read, it gives us the emotion of curiosity as we see what is unfolding and what is being foreshadowed.
#2 Literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct
After reading the section of “The nature of literature,” I find myself most interested in angle of “literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct”. In this part, the meaning of literature is not only presented from word to word or sentence from sentence, but also connected with other contents even other literatures to show different or further information. It is like that the prior statement has provided some background information, performing a stage for the later show. For readers, the loss of content might lead to various view, because they cannot relate the information to each other. Only if reader read everything the author performs in the work, they can get the true ideas of the author and respond to the ideas correctly. To complete the process of communication though reading, relevant and logical structure in literature is necessary. In my opinion, the structure of intertextual and self-reflexive both promote readers to think critically, actively, and logically. It is very useful way to advance the how we consider and act.
The Nature of Literature
The angle that I found the most interesting, and understood the most, is literature as the ‘foregrounding’ of language. I am infatuated with figurative speech, and this text made me realize that it is a good indicator of literature. When I stopped to think about texts that include alliteration, hyperbole, metaphors, rhyme, and so on, those texts (poetry, short stories, novels, plays) were all included in what I would consider to be literature. On the contrary, texts that steer away from figurative language, like news articles, research papers, and nutrition labels, were all texts that I would not usually consider to be literature. I think figurative speech is what Culler was referring to when he described one aspect of literature to be that it emphasizes that you are looking at language. It asks you to stop and pay extra attention to what you are reading.
Which of these angles do you find most interesting and useful? Why?
Though I admittedly found it hard to grasp or even agree with every idea presented within each angle Culler gives I found that Literature as Aesthetic stood out and was the most interesting to me. I thought it was very interesting how Culler brings up the debate between the objectivity of beauty in works of art in general vs. the subjectivity of them. I thought it was cool how this sort of looped back to his assertion that within literature there seem to be “rules” that define what is literature or not and through these rules it sort of creates an “objectivity” that can become universal. Conversely if left to opinion (subjectivity) rather than a set of defining regulations, we are back to not being able to clearly define what is art or literature as easily.
I also really liked how Culler brings up of “aesthetic” bridges the gap between the material and spiritual world of ideas. By Limiting a work to one means of communication ie. visual art or literary text it forces our brains to work on filling the blanks if you will. This filling of the blanks to me is when the spiritual world of ideas starts to come into play. Our own subjective thoughts and experiences combine with the work and form a new personalized meaning to it.
Literature is various components of the text that are brought into complex relation. It grabs readers attention. Literary work is a linguistic event which includes speakers, actors, events and an implied audience. Speakers have reactions between authors, what authors think always matters of interpretation. Literature is an ideological instrument to set stories that seduce readers into accepting the hierarchical arrangements of society. The culler defines Literature from the angle of it. Culler mentioned in the article , the literary work is a linguistic event which projects a fictional world that includes speakers, actors, events and implied audiences. Fiction literature gives us a chance to interpret events according to our imagination. Fictional literary work is not limited to the time at which work is written. It depends on the time in the work that the story revolves.
Literature as fiction
In the section called “The Nature of Literature” which is from Chapter 2 of the article “What is literature and does it matter” by Johnathan Culler, Culler had interpreted the nature of literature from five various angles which are literature as ‘foregrounding’ of language, literature as the integration of language, literature as fiction, literature as aesthetic object and literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct. Personally Speaking, the part I find is most interesting among these five angles is literature as fiction. One of main factors that makes literature different from other works is there is a particular relationship between literature and the world called fictionality. As Culler mentioned in the article, ” The literary work is a linguistic event which projects a fictional world that includes speakers, actors, events, and implied audiences.” , literary works provide imaginary world to readers and leave some space for them to build up their own scenarios and create the characters based on their understanding of that particular literary work. Compared to non-fictional works including newspaper, textbooks, instructions and so on, literature gives brand new experience for readers to wonder what is fictionality really about and interpret it in their own ways.
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Many readers address literature uniquely because its words are fictional. Writers in their work include fictional actors, speakers, episodes, and an assumed audience. According to Culler, “Literary works refer to imaginary rather than historical individuals,” though imaginary is not bounded to nature or phenomenon. What writers think and what speakers say in fiction bear upon interpretation. Fiction writers in their work interpret or form various events that can be associated with the real world in such a way to allow readers to expand their knowledge of thinking into the fictional world.However, a fictional setting opens up the question of what the narration concerns. As said in this chapter, the speaker has a significant role in evaluating the fictional world, considering their opinions and life skill. Following their attitude, the writer could write fiction on their real-life or even other person’s life to illustrate their perspective. At other times the author can use early events to figure up some components to perfect the history by adding missing details or creating awareness. In writing fiction, there is a lot unspoken, as readers have great anticipation. It isn’t very comforting because many people get to be reading great novels by the best authors when they are still very young. But one can always try writing fiction, especially with a little aid. It’s fascinating how writers write fiction without addressing the real event categorically. It’s mainly seen where human rights advocates, writers, and reporters are sued. Anyway, though fiction might be the most challenging type of writing to advance for even the professional writers, but with the correct mechanism, even the anxious writers can make it.
Blog Post #2: Literature as Fiction
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.
Blog #2 The paradox of literature
What is attractive in a text? Is it the wording? Is it the story? Its grammatical tournure?
In his paragraph ” the paradox of literature,” Jonathan Cullen argues that literature wants us to fill up specific codes to be considered as such. Yet it is when you do not follow them that you get praise. He states, ” Literature is a paradoxical institution because to create literature is to write according to existing formulas… but it is also to flout those conventions, to go beyond them.” In other words, the theory does not always follow the practice, and some texts considered as literature are far away from the more ” academic” sense of it.
Having words that follow each other and rhymes don’t necessarily make it a piece of literature. I join Jonathan Cullen on his thought that one of the major elements of reading anything should be the pleasure produced by it, it’s capacity to disconnect us from the real world for a second whatever the text can be.
