What is literature and does it matter?

 

1-I think the most important aspect of chapter 2, What is literature, and does it matter? by Jonathan Culler is that he points out that literature has not a single meaning or that there is not a specific answer to define it. Culler mentions that it comes in all shapes and sizes. It means that we can find literature in any kind of book and writings. After that, we can say that literature varies depends upon many factors. Throughout the chapter, we can find some examples where Culler emphasizes, what I think are two of the main factors to pay attention to when asking what is literature. These main factors are how people treat a text and the context of it. On page 23 of this chapter, the author gives us a really good point to ponder about the main question. He stays that, “Rather than ask ‘what is literature, we need to ask ‘what makes us treat something as literature. He challenges us with this question. However, he gives us part of the answer when he says, “Most of the time what leads readers treat something as literature is that they find it in a context that identifies it as literature: in a book of poems or a section of a magazine, library, or bookstore” (28). Culler also mentions that it matter where you come across a text. I think Culler is telling us that the context is a fundamental part to decide what is literature and what is not. I think it is important to think about definitions of literature because once we know how to identify literature, we also know how to recognize non-literature works. However, I think the most important thing is the knowledge we can gain from both. It depends more on the context, but from both, we can find valuable information that can help us a lot depending on what we want or what we need to explore.

2-One question that stayed in my mind as reading this chapter was if most of the time what leads readers to treat something as literature is that they find it in a context that identifies it as literature” (28).  what would be other things that make people treat a text as literature?

1 thought on “What is literature and does it matter?

  1. Hagar A Seddik

    You are right, it is hard to define literature because it has many different forms and varies according to what people prefer, and How they decide that this text should be literary and others not?

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