Flipside Movie Emporium

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

[Fred C. Dobbs]

Film Theory and Analysis - Independent Study

Driver's Ed

U.S. History

American Literature
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"Pino, fuck you, fuck your fuckin' pizza, and fuck Frank Sinatra."

[The Ringbearer]

Japanese as a language

Japanese History

Japanese Arts

. . . I'm Spanish.
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Check out my own (considerably cheaper) review site at http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=TheRingbearer11

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

[Erickson]

Favorite Subject this year= Graphics
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I hate quotations; tell me what you know

[stefanieduckwitz]

Yeah, I took that freshman year. It rocked.
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Stefanie Duckwitz

[the night watchman]

As a sidebar, I?ve always wondered what exactly was the difference between Literature and that which is not considered Literature. I?ve never found a clear definition, or an explanation of what is require of a work of fiction to be considered Literature, and admit I?ve always sort of suspected (maybe in a paranoid sort of way) that Literature is only what academics subjectively deem Literature, the only real requirement being that the work must be as far away as possible from the bestseller lists.

But I?m reading The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, by Tzvetan Todorov, and in the first chapter he takes time to define what precisely he means by ?genre,? and what he means by designating something to be of a fictional ?genre.? Using biological evolution as an analogy, he says of individual organisms that ?the appearance of a new example does not necessarily modify the characteristic of the species [...].? He then continues as follows:

The same is not the case in the realm of art or of science. Here evolution operates with an altogether different rhythm: every work modifies the sum of possible works, each new example alters the species. We might say that in art we are dealing with a language of which every utterance is agrammatical at the moment of its performance. More exactly, we grant a text the right to figure in the history of literature or of science only insofar as it produces a change in our previous notion of the one activity or the other. Texts that do not fulfill this condition automatically pass into another category: that of so-called ?popular? or ?mass? literature in the one case; in the other, that of the academic exercise or unoriginal experiment. (Hence the unavoidable comparison of the artisanal product, the unique example, on the one hand, and of mass production, the mechanical stereotype, the other.) To return to our subject, only ?popular? literature (detective stories, serialized novels, science fiction, etc.) would approach fulfilling the requirements of genre in the sense the word has in natural science; for the notion of genre in that sense would be inapplicable to strictly literary texts.

The passage that struck me was ?we grant a text the right to figure in the history of literature ... only insofar as it produces a change in our previous notion [of literature].? Here Todorov finally provides a requirement that is reasonable, approachable, and -- most importantly -- egalitarian.

I have no further comments; I just thought I?d share my epiphany.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[beltmann]

I largely agree with Todorov, primarily because, as you pointed out, it strives to be more inclusive than most definitions. Still, I'd go further. I've always defined literature as "any writing containing a personal imprint" of some kind. For me, virtually every example of something written--especially in prose or verse--qualifies as literature. The question isn't whether it is literature; the question is whether it is good or bad literature.

I recognize that my definition is perhaps too egalitarian, but I prefer that rather than one that limits the field according to essentially arbitrary standards. We could expect literature to be exceptionally creative or imaginative, but certainly those qualities exist even in journalism, technical writing, criticism, etc. (Anyone who has read Pauline Kael, or even Jonathan Alter, knows good literature exists in media writing; besides, how can we scientifically, unerringly quantify "creativity"?) We could expect literature to have enduring value, but that allows social factors an unreasonable sway--certainly the size of an audience often has more to do with money, influence, scholarly bias, and luck than with literary merit. (Would Dickinson's poems not qualify as literature if her sister had never opened that drawer?)

If literature is first and foremost an art form--and I think we agree that it is--then my definition must not exclude a single example that might offer what any artwork might, regardless of the size or subjectivity of the gift.

Eric
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

[matt header]

I don't really have anything major to add to this argument, but I would like to think literature encompasses all forms of creative expression, even the less-sophisticated stuff. I would agree with Eric's theory that any writing with a personal impression counts as literature; indeed, I think the dichotomy between "mainstream" escapism novels and literature is often pointless, slogans used by haughty critics to deride popular writing when they're not sure how else to criticize it. Of course, this is not always true; sometimes popular writing really is pointless claptrap, and in that case, I think it's fairer to call it a paid commission than literature.

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]