In chapter 2 of “What is Literature and Does it Matter?” by Jonathan Culler described literature through different angles. I found Literature as fiction the most interesting in the chapter. Fiction can be entertaining as it builds up scenarios in our mind that we probably don’t get to see in non-fiction or reality. Literature as fiction also shows a better understanding of the world and human condition also known as being born, growing up, falling in love, issues, death, etc. Literature as fiction helps us get the imagination of the story. I also feel like literature as fiction helps us get a deeper meaning of the character and see them through their shoes. 

In “The nature of literature” Culler defines literature from many different angles. I found the most interesting part is “Literature as fiction”. This really stuck with me because Culler describes literature as a way to “have a special relation to the world”. Fiction is something that teleports us outside of ourselves and experiences the world from a different perspective. Rather than being told one-dimensional facts like in non-fiction.  Fiction lets the reader interpret more than what is told. A good example of this would be news articles, the news should be only taken as facts. As for fiction watching a movie with a cliffhanger ending leaves room to ask why this happened and what happens next. Culler says “Literary works refer to imaginary rather than historical individuals” this means anyone could write anything and they are only limited to their imagination.

     I think that the most interesting angle about the nature of literature is “literature as fiction” because it explores human conditions as a whole and it wants to understand the world around us. This part of fiction that talks about human nature is the most difficult. However, there are some other literary works that are fun. Sometimes literary fiction is a kind of entertainment, not all fictional literature considered as entertainment, but this kind of fiction gives the readers some enjoyment and advantages which helps them to forget their cares. Also, Fiction literature gives us the chance to interpret events according to our imaginations. One of the defining features of literary fiction is the ability to create characters, as Culler says “Literary works refer to imaginary rather than historical individuals.” Another feature of the fictional literary work is that it is not limited to the time at which a literary work is written, but rather, it depends on the time in the work that the story revolves within. As Culler says “ but to a time in the poem, in the fictional world of its action.” Variety and difference in a work of fiction makes it valid for all times, not just the time in which they were published. And that is what makes it interesting!

The different angles that define literature would be for something for the readers that would grasp the attention and relax your mind.

Something that caught my attention from “The nature of literature” was “foregrounds” they way it was describe explained what I touch upon in my “blog #1″ about what I thought about literature and why it matters

Foregrounds, basically have a language of its own and makes up a different accent then you think it more of something that jumps at you and speaks to you even if it take you a while to understand the language.”Look I’m Language” it shapes the odd ways of how it speaks to you.

Poetry, for example, people may think it’s just a short story but when you think about the logic of it much deeper than you think it is, and when you actually understand it you could hear a sound and different set tone when you come across it and read it with a sound the way it’s organized to be projected.

As we already know, Culler had defined literature from several angles. From these angles, my favorite and the one I find more interesting and useful is the fiction angle. When reading this section of the chapter, I reminded a phrase I have heard a long time ago. “BE LIKE AN OPEN ENDING AS FICTION LITERATURE CAN BE.”  As Culler says, “The context of fiction, though, explicitly leaves open the question of what the fiction is really about” (32). An “open ending, an open question.” It means that as readers or viewers we have the choice to decide what is the context of fiction literature about, through our interpretation. What I like the most about literature as fiction is that it works differently for everybody. Explaining it better, we can read the same fiction story, novel, or watch a fiction movie, and it can impact us in a very different way, depending on different factors. For instance, we can interpreter something based on how we are feeling, and it doesn’t mean we are wrong, we just have a different interpretation or a different way to see it. The open ending also means that there is not a specific final, thus, giving us the choice to create our final.

After I read Chapter II “ What is Literature and Does It Matter ?” by Jonathan Culler. In my opinion, the most interesting part is “Literature as fiction”. This part tells the story that literary works project a fictional world, and this fictional world may be very different from the real world experience sometimes. As a carrier of thinking, literary works have gone beyond words as the way of narration. It seems to me that literature does not have a specific description or record of the real world like an instruction book or a newspaper. There is a space in the “fiction” of literature, just as authors build a world with their thoughts, when readers read, they will enter the “fiction” space of literature. At this time, the author and the reader are in contact, and each reader has a different experience, so the readers’ cognition of this “fictional” world is also different. Even though the same literary works have more possibilities among different readers.

In the “The nature of literature”, the author Culler defines “literature” from several angles. I found the angle “literature as fiction” the most interesting and useful. There are many ways to interpret or create some situations that can be connected to the real world. The fiction writers, by their wonderful literary work let readers to develop their experience of thinking into the imaginary world. They create events, actors, audiences and places in the perfect organized unreal society that is not related to the historical events. Sometimes, the author can focus to the past events by adding some elements of fiction to complete some miss information or knowledge to complete the history. As it is said in the chapter, the speaker plays an important role in the interpretation of the imaginary world, we have to consider his attitude and life experience. The writer could be someone who is happy or sad or fighting for social justice etc. Therefore, he can include his real life or others life into the situation of fiction to express his opinion. The freedom of denouncing something by using fiction without pointing directly to the real event is very interesting, particularly in the dictatorial countries where the freedom of speech is restricted. Also, where activists for human right, authors and journalists are persecuted.

In my experience, the most interesting and useful part of ‘The nature of literature’ by Jonathan Culler is ‘Literature as the integration of the language’ because it help us to find different components and segments of the content in the literature. It functional when sentences are not sound correctly and also when two different words bring their implications into connection. According to Jonathan Culler, “A rhyme, by bringing two words together (‘suppose/knows’), brings their meanings into relation (is ‘knowing’ the opposite of ‘supposing’?).” In this way the connection between words are useful, like in writing there are relation of every word and that make sense when we read a sentence. To consider something as writing it’s important to look at that association or organization of its language, not to consider as the statement of its creator’s mind.

Jonathan Culler discusses five aspects of the nature of literature in this chapter, in my opinion, the most interesting and useful nature of literature is “Literature as aesthetic object”. Before it learned about literature from this book, I naturally thought that if a text made me feel beautiful and appreciate it should be literature. I think the most important function of literature is that literature makes more effects by using language in a special way. In this way which makes plain languages more beautiful and artistic, a text can capture more appreciation and enjoyable feelings from readers, as a result, it can affect more and make more impressions on readers than non-literature works. Like Jonathan Culler mentions in the chapter, some politicians use a literary way to propagandize political purpose because they want to convince the public as much as possible and they know the literary way can produce more effects on audiences to get them agreed. Any food has a function of refilling energy. However, a fully seasoned cooked food compared to boiling noodles is an artwork like literature and non-literature. Of course, a fully seasoned cooked food is more delicious and appreciated, so literature as an aesthetic object is a higher level of human civilization.