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.

In the part of the lecture“The nature of literature.” Culler defines “literature” from several angles. Culler indicates the nature of literature is important, because of their unique structure and function many types of poetry are instantly recognizable and this makes them literature. Culler divided nature into five specific factors: literature as the ‘foregrounding ‘of language, as an integration of language, as a fiction, as an aesthetic object, and as an intertextual. literature creates a “fictional world” in which the reader can touch the complex narrative woven using different techniques. According to “one reason why readers attend to literature differently is that its utterances have a special to the world”, this further illustrates the importance of the relationship between literature and readers. There is a famous saying that “ There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes. Therefor, the angle of literature which interests me is that literature creates a “fictional world”, for example, when I read a book called “ordinary world” by Lu Yao, many golden memories are created from the depth of my mind, those happy memories can’t describe by a single word. In the end, the fictionality of literature is very important to readers, it leaves the work’s relation to the world open to interpretation. 

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.

After I read Chapter II “ What is Literature and Does It Matter ?” by Jonathan Culler. In my opinion, I think literary texts seem to create an open mind for the reader. By definition, literary writers create art that uses language as the medium to express writers’ emotions and satisfy readers’ emotional needs. In other words, a literary work is not a simple thing, but an extremely complex combination interwoven with multiple meanings and relationships. Poems, essays, novels, and plays are common forms. As Culler claimed, ” the fictionality of literature separates language from other contexts in which it might be used and leaves the work’s relation to the world open to interpretation.” Therefore literature is not describing specific things or events, it leaves room for people to imagine, think deeply, and relate the content with their own understandings. In my opinion, the charm of literature lies in the individual expression of text structure, which can help readers to understand and adopt language media without practical purpose and virtuality. Readers can draw on and develop their own comprehension and summary, which I think will make one’s writing more colorful and interesting.

Culler came up with five points theorists about the nature of literature, there are literature as the foregrounding of language, literature as the integration of language, literature as fiction, literature as aesthetic object and literature as intertextual. I found the most interesting and useful is literature as the itegration of literature because the theory change my opinion of literature. In my eye, the literacy works is the expression of author’s psyche. When we read literature, we can feel author’s feel. However, Culler told me to consider all of the organization of its laguage first, not the expression of author. Literature is the integration of language, we should feel the contribution of different words and elements in strcuture of literature, which can be charm of literature.

Reading chapter II, “What is literature and does it matter?” by Jonathan Culler. From my point of view, I  find  “Literature as aesthetic object” very interesting because I believe that it helps us to know about the artistic expressions in our society. I come to that it helps to generate interconnection to the words and content.  According to Kant and other theorists, for them, the aesthetic object is ‘purposiveness without purpose ‘ mean not all the stories are purposeful but can have a range of effects. Reading this I realize that the knowledge of beauty depends on the knowledge of objects in which beauty is experienced.

When I read first time this article “What id literature and does it matter?” by Jonathan Culler, at that time I didn’t know that there are many kinds of literature. After I read this article, I found that really there are many kind of literature and that is really interesting. I believe that this article give me a different kind of knowledge, which I didn’t have before and I didn’t realize that I need to know about literature, which is really good. I think we just don’t have to look at this like professionally, there are also have non-literary works which we have to focus on it. Generally, I think we have to seriously think about literature.

In my opinion, the most interesting and useful angle of defining “literature” is its fictionality. In this chapter, when explaining “what is  literature”, Culler took the opening sentence of a book as an example, claiming that the “curious thing” of the poem is “not a physical object but something like a relation or aspect which doesn’t seem to exist in the same way that a stone or a house does.“（25） Since literature is not describing specific things or events, it leaves rooms for people to imagine, think deeply and relate the content with their own understandings. There is no certain answer to interpret literature works. As Culler claimed, ” the fictionality of literature separates language from other contexts in which it might be used and leaves the work’s relation to the world open to interpretation.”(33) For literature works, everyone has their own interpretations. In addition, people’s interpretation of literature works may also change over time, which i believe is one of the reasons why great literature works have been passed down to generations.

Jonathan Culler defines the nature of literature that consists of five facets including literature as the the foregrounding of language, as aesthetic object, as intertextual or self-reflexive construct, as integration of language and as fiction. I believe artistry that infuses literature make s literary work unique and interesting. Writers utilize various art instruments to shape characters, to mirror real social phenomena or to convey certain emotions through precise, impressive, vivid and touching way. The higher level of artistry the work has, the more attractive degree towards readers it shows. The characteristically allegoric figures, scenes and contexts merge with magic manner of descriptions could turn to be a fantastic work, literature. As a result, existence of artistry in literature work could be an important part of soul of a work. Because humans naturally like something beautiful as well as they are always full of curiosity for unknown things. Compared with flat non-literary work such as reports, news and essay, texts influenced by artistry could inspire readers to explore more and think deeply. So humans could learn impressively from literary work through process of analyzing it and memorizing well it through elegant texts. Perhaps a classic could be created due to unforgettable artistry.