Literature. . .

Now What the Heck Do You Suppose They Mean By That?

A Review of the Entry found athttp://nzr.mvnu.edu/faculty/trearick/english/rearick/writings/litessay/whatislit.htm

The Nature of Literature

Not All Written Text is Literature: Not Even Well Written Text Qualifies as Lit

• Literature exists to create “Pleasure.”• “Pleasure” is a vague term– Pleasure of plot– Believability in self– Believability in world– Pleasure of beauty of text– NOT pleasure in new understanding so much

• The Pleasure found in a literary text must exist in part by its organic nature not so much by the information within it

Having Determined What All literature is, what makes a work of Literature worthy of Study?

Literature is “the Lie that tells the Truth!”

Thus, while the artist is entertaining, the question for the reader is whether this work is fundimentally true? Does it fit human experience?

A nod to Picasso who wrote “art is the lie that tells the truth.”

How Is Worthiness Determined?

In Order to be Worthy a Work Must be Internally Consistent

• The reader must feel in some way that the characters being portrayed are true to human nature.

• Today we use the term “Verisimilitude” to indicate believability.

• The ancient Greeks following Aristotle spoke of a work’s Mimesis (note the closeness to the term Mime.

• If when leaving a film you comment that the actions of a character were hard to believe, you are critiquing the work’s “Verisimilitude.”

Worthy Works Must be Consistent With the Outer World

The World Presented Must be Believable

• In the previous cartoon the pixie is complaining slightly to the fairy that Stephen Crane’s description of a Civil War battlefield from Red Badge of Courage is too bizarre to believe.

• I am being ironic—Crane’s style for most is incredibly naturalistic, so much so that many vets of his time claimed to have seen him in the front.

• That’s how believable his narrative is in description.

• However, what makes a text believable in fiction is how true it is to itself in its concrete detail.

• The pixie is still enjoying Crane even though he cannot imagine canons and lines of troops because Crane is consistent and concrete.

• In the same way although few believe the reality of Middle Earth, Tolkien’s concrete description and detail make his world externally consistent. No action violate the rules even though it is a fantasy.

• Coleridge's term to describe this is the ability of the artist to present human truth and describe so concretely that for a time the reader will allow a “willing suspension of disbelief” for the time the work is being read

Worthy Works Are Often Counter-Cultural

Worthy Works are Often Counter-Cultural

• Although the first and foremost purpose of literature is to entertain, the best, the most worthy of literary works confront the very culture they are entertaining.

• Thus they fulfill the role of prophet or minister as they speak to the needs.

• Shakespeare, the treatment of women• Dickens, the abuse of the poor.