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EWRT 1C Class 2

+Agenda

Lecture: Introduction to LiteratureDiscussion: What is Literature?How to write a QHQ

+What is Literature

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word “Literature has three definitions:

1. Written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit: a great work of literature.

Many scholars consider this novel a modern classic in US literatures.

2. Books and writings published on a particular subject: the literature on environmental epidemiology

It is certainly true that the published literature on the subject is well surveyed.

3. Leaflets and other printed matter used to advertise products or give advice.

They will be visiting problem areas to hand out literature and advice to people on how best to secure their vehicles, and offering support to victims.

+One Guide to Literary Terms defines it this way:

Literature: writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas and concerns of universal and apparently permanent interest, are essential features. While applied to any kind of printed material, such as circulars, leaflets, and handbills, there are some who feel it is more correctly reserved for prose and verse of acknowledged excellence, such as George Eliot’s works. The term connotes superior qualities.

+What does Terry Eagleton Say?

Eagleton's "Introduction: What is Literature?" addresses this question, which is prompted by the study of literary theory systems used in critically thinking about and understanding literature.

+ Your First Group!

Get into your groups of three or four.

Once your groups is established, choose one person to be the keeper of the points. Write down

members’ names Turn in your sheet at

the end of the class period.

Discuss Eagleton’s introduction (6-7 minutes)

+Who is Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton is an influential cultural theorist who is widely regarded as the one of the foremost contemporary Marxist literary critics. With the publication of Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976) and Literary Theory (1983), Eagleton earned recognition for producing smart, accessible works of literary criticism that explore the relationship between literature, history, and society. He urges critics to promote a more equitable society, that is to use intellectualism and critical inquiry to serve a broader good than just the academy.

+Eagleton’s Introduction to Literature Eagleton examines several different ways of defining

literature and points out the difficulties with each of them.

First he says “You can define it, for example, as 'imaginative' writing in the sense of fiction -writing which is not literally true,” but then he explains that this definition is fragile because “our own opposition between 'historical' and 'artistic' truth does not apply at all to the early Icelandic sagas.” He also tells us that “in the English late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the word 'novel' seems to have been used about both true and fictional events, and even news reports were hardly to be considered factual.” He points out that “our sharp discriminations between these categories simply did not apply.”

Then he suggests that literature might be identified “because it uses language in peculiar ways.” He refers to the Russian formalists when he offers this definition: “Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.” As an example, he says “If you approach me at bus stop and murmur 'Thou still unravished bride of quietness' then I am instantly aware that I am in the presence of the literary. I know this because the texture, rhythm and resonance of your words are in excess of their abstract able meaning -or as the linguists might more technically put it, there is disproportion between the signifies and the signifies.”

He explains that Russian formalists reduce a work of literature to the formal parts of the text, disregarding both the author and message. They asserted that Criticism should “concern itself with how literary texts actually worked.” that is how they operated within “specific laws, structures and devices, which were to be studied in themselves rather than reduced to something else.”

Eagleton makes his point about the fragility of the formalist definition when he tells us that Formalist Osip Brick once said, in defense of disregarding the author when analyzing literature, that Eugene Onegin [own-yay-ghin] (a novel in verse which features a thinly veiled version of the author as protagonist) “would have been written even if Pushkin had not lived” because it was a textual expression of a present material reality.

Eagleton goes on to explain that literature is often what is determined to be good. He says, “value-judgments would certainly seem to have a lot to do with what is judged literature and what isn't -not necessarily in the sense that writing has to be 'fine' to be literary, but that it has to be of the kind that is judged fine.” Then he points out that this determination is shaped by inescapable social ideologies. Our value judgments “refer in the end not simply to private taste, but to the assumptions by which certain social groups exercise and maintain power over others.”

+What do you think?

What is literature? How does Eagleton’s explanation reinforce or destabilize your ideas about literature?

+The QHQ

Thinking about writing

+How do I know what I think until I see what I say?--E.M. Forster

Each text we study will provide material for response writing called a QHQ (Question-Hypothesis-Question). The QHQ requires students to have second thoughts, that is, to think again about questions that arise during their reading and to write about questions that are meaningful to them. Begin your QHQ by formulating some question you have about some aspect of the reading. The first question in the QHQ may be one sentence or longer, but its function is to frame your QHQ writing. A student might start with a question like, “Why is the house in this story haunted? Or, “Why do I suspect the murdered child has come back to life?” A student might even write, “Why am I having so much trouble understanding this story?”

After you pose your initial question, focus on a close reading of the text in search of a hypothesis. This hypothesis section comprises the body of your text. The student who asked about the haunted house might refer to multiple passages about haunting in the text, comparing and contrasting them to other instances of haunting with which he or she is familiar. The student who asked about the dead child might connect passages associated with the death to sections about a new child who abruptly appears in the text. The student who struggled to understand the text might explore those passages whose meanings were obscure or difficult to understand, connecting them to other novels and/or cultural texts. After carefully exploring your initial question (200-300 words), put forward another question, one that has sprung from your hypothesis. This will be the final sentence of your QHQ and will provide a base for further reflection into the text.

The QHQ is designed to help you formulate your response to the texts we study into clearly defined questions and hypotheses that can be used as a basis for both class discussion and longer papers. The QHQ can be relatively informal but should demonstrate a thoughtful approach to the material. While the papers need to be organized and coherent, because you will sharing them in class, the ideas they present may be preliminary and exploratory.

Remember, a QHQ is not a summary or a report—it is an original, thoughtful response to what you have read. All QHQs should be posted on the website the evening before the class for which they are due. This will give both me and other students time to ponder your ideas and think about appropriate responses. Moreover, this sharing of material should provide plenty of fodder for essays. Even though you have posted your QHQ, you should bring a copy of it to class in order to share your thoughts and insights and to stimulate class discussion.

+HomeworkRead: “Literary Theory”: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (This is linked to the website under “Course Readings” and then “Theory Texts.”

Post #2: Choose one What is the difference between literary theory and

traditional modes of literary criticism? What might literary theory serve to reveal about a literary text that traditional criticism cannot? Which major school of literary theory interests you and why?

QHQ on “Literary Theory.”