Genre Fiction

I thought I'd take a second to talk about genre fiction, since it didn't spark a lot of discussion during the class exercise. I'm going to use genre fiction here as a blanket term to describe anything that doesn't fit into the category of "literary fiction," i.e. most fantasy, science fiction, horror, comedy, young adult, etcetera. The tacit assumption, especially among English majors, critics, and scholars, is that these works are not as good as literary works. More, it's assumed they're somehow "easier;" both easier to read and easier to write.
First, I challenge the assumption that being easy and enjoyable to read is somehow worse than complexity and difficulty. A complex work can be rewarding, and I would not say that complexity is bad any more than I would say simplicity is bad. But a good idea, stated elegantly, can be much more rewarding than a complex obfuscation that leaves the reader unsatisfied and in the dark.
Second, I vehemently disagree with the idea that writing a gripping and satisfying story is somehow "easier" than writing a complex and unsatisfying story. Literary people have gotten the idea that a complex work is more difficult to write than a simpler story, but I don't think that's true. Anyone who has stayed up all night to finish a Stephen King story, or read a Harry Potter book in one sitting because the story gripped them by the collar and wouldn't let them go shouldn't be ashamed to call those good books, and shouldn't laugh them off in discussion by saying "ah, it's just junk."
I found it a little unnerving in our class discussion that I was evidently the only one who wanted to bring genre fiction to prison. You're in prison, people. Do you really think you're going to read War and Peace more than once? And the sad thing is, it's an education in English that makes us act this way; we became English majors because we love to read, and then turn our backs on the books we once loved.

My realization when I began to look for closure on the topic of subjectivity.

Due to our latest readings, and especially after our discussions on the cannon and the qualities of what makes a piece of literature good, I feel like interpretations of texts and literature have to be subjective. I know a few people have brought this up on the blog already, but never agreed fully to the idea of subjectivity. They only admitted texts can sometimes be interpreted subjectively. I feel like we’ve been skating around these ideas of subjectivity and objectivity fairly frequently, but never addressed them head on.

To be truly objective one has to be free of any bias or prejudice caused by personal feelings. Objectivism is based on facts rather than thoughts or opinions. In a world where so much emotion, thought, and personal ideas come from the author to create that text, how can a reader simply look at the facts of a text and create an interpretation? What even are the facts of a text? At this point the idea of anyone ever having a truly objective interpretation or opinion on a piece of literature seems truly impossible to me. How do you not let your personal bias, interpretive communities, and personal emotions not affect the way you are reading the text? Before I said that an objective opinion seems close to impossible, but now I really think it is. It is impossible to separate our mind from our personal beliefs and opinions to form a truly unbiased objective opinion.

Is there anyone who believes in objectivity? If so, I would be really interested in what you think.

Long time, no post--reaching back to Leavis

This is reaching back a little bit into the past since I have had this blog writen for some time now but computer troubles / my own hopelessness with infernal machines like computers have bungled up my postings. So, if you will excuse me for going back to Leavis, this is my two cents.

Leavis overreaches. To say there are only four (maybe five if you include Lawrence) “great” English novelists worth reading about is to limit yourself in the extreme. I understand his early point that “It is necessary to insist, then, that there are important distinctions to be made, and that far from all the names in the literary histories really belong to the realm of significant creative achievement” (653). Bad literature has been written; we know it; we have read it but to limit ourselves (and subsequently our canon) to only a minor set of very few authors as Leavis does is an injustice to other authors who might have more merit in our eyes then do Austen or Eliot or James. Leavis was a little too driven by the general dissatisfaction of his era. Reacting to the void modern life had become in the 1920s, he wants to accuse future writers of having no inherent value to offer in their works. They are not “worth reading” in his eyes. And yet, what does he give us other than his opinion that these four authors are the ones that should be written? He seems to have picked the names of Austen, Conrad, James and Eliot out of an arbitrary hat since he does not offer us either generalized criteria but mere subjective opinion: “Disraeli[‘s]….interests as expressed in [his] books…are so mature” (Footnote 1 653). I confess myself very dissatisfied with his argument overall.

Emily Franzen

Reader Responce in Classrooms

I'm responding to Brian's post under subobjectivity. He said that one of the important parts of literature was looking at different interpretations. We should focus on "why each person has a different interpretation, and what are the social causes behind these subjective readings? We could certainly learn much more about our own cultures by 'interpreting' the interpretation." I think this is a valid way of going about reading and discussing literature. Yes, the text loses some of its importance, but if texts are supposed to affect readers, we should be looking at how and why people respond to things differently.
I don't think we deal with reader responce in classes at all. This could be to avoid all of the problems that go along with reader responce, like the ever present problem of whether all interpretations are valid. Is it ok to not really ever tackle this in class rooms or are we losing something by not talking about our gut feelings about the text and how the text affects us now?

Inquiry

Upon research for an aspect of my paper, I became curious as to what other people would say about the properties of a text. For a text to exist, it must have certain/specific properties. What would you deem the properties or characteristics of a text that make it a text? (And I mean this in the simplest form--text, not Text v text) Would it just be the common elements of literature, such as plot, setting, themes, etc? Or is there something else that makes a text a text? The only reason I have not offered my answer is that I am still not quite sure, although I do think that some of the elements of literature play a part in characterizing a piece of writing as a text.

subobjectivity

Objectivity. I feel that everything we’ve talked about in class has somehow come to the conclusion that this is impossible. It probably is, on a lot of levels, but isn’t it possible that there is some form of objectivity in an interpretation, albeit small or very broad? Or at least we can allow for varying degrees of subjectivity.

For example, let’s take Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s a story about a rich and crotchety old man named Scrooge who has an assistant named Bob Cratchit. Scrooge seems to be a very black-hearted man who hates Christmas while Bob loves the holiday and is a very optimistic man even though he has almost no money and a sick child. That night, the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s late partner visits the old man and warns him to change his ways. Scrooge is visited by three ghosts that night, those of Christmas Past, Present and Future. After these spirits visit Scrooge, he realizes that he must and will change his stingy ways and becomes very generous and everyone is happy. The end.

Was that an interpretation? If so, could it be construed as an objective one? If it’s not an interpretation, why isn’t it? These are the things I've been wondering each time we discuss subjectivity and objectivity... what do you think?

Dealing with the Ever Expanding Cannon

After our discussions on curriculum and cannon, I cannot help but to think about (as well as critique) the formation of curricula in any school. Should high schools better prepare students to encounter diverse literature? It seems like many, and I do not have an amazing knowledge to base this on, read the "classics" and not much else, i.e. you read a new Shakespeare play each of the four years you are in high school. I know one of my best English classes in high school included Plato, Thucydides, Johnathan Swift, and Thomas DeQuincey. While we did encounter Shakespeare, we read a text which would not seem to be the appropriate play to use--Titus Andronicus. Other English teachers were taken aback by what we read--and I am aware that this may just be the experience of my high school. All this to say, that I actually enjoyed a kind of opening up of the cannon in my very "safe" high school curriculum. Although, I know that at least one of the four mentioned has to be in that acceptable cannon, at the time it was amazing to read them.
All this to say, how can we make the cannon inclusive? What is "enough" to satisfy that inclusion? For the most part, we seemed willing to throw everything into the cannon, I just don't know how can ever cover everything or even do it justice. I can't help but to think including works earlier in the educational system would help greatly. Still, we would get nowhere near to reading everything, but I think it helps to bring in "challenging" works that might be "better-suited" in a college setting into high schools. Enough rambling. What do you think?

Speaking of 'Greatness'

Here is another literary critic who has defined greatness in literature: Harold Bloom made a list of the "Western Canon of Literature." I found this list online, I hope it's accurate.

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

As I was perusing it, I saw that Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was included but not Slaughterhouse Five. Why would that be? Also, Stoppard's Travesties made the list but not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I just thought this site/list was interesting and went along with what we had discussed in class about what should be included in the canon. Well, here it is, a *genuine?* canon.

I haven't counted the number of women writers in it, however, the list was just too long.

Standards and Greatness

Looking through the blog topics, I have noticed that no one has yet started a thread about our current question: “What should we read?” In discussing Arnold and Leavis, the two big topics in class were “can there be standards?” as well as “is there such a thing as greatness?” What we didn’t talk about and what I have been thinking about lately is the ramifications of taking the opposites of these questions. What I wonder is, how can there NOT be standards for literature? and, also, is there such a thing as “poorness” in literature? My guess is that, when you just read these questions, you immediately agree that there is no way that literature has NO standards and also, most people would probably agree that there is definitely such a thing as poor writing. If this is correct, then I don’t understand how people can argue that there is no way to discern standards for great writing. Anyone who was sitting in the middle group: can you explain? I believe that there MUST be at least some base set of standards! And, also, there seemed to be a lot of confusion on exactly what “great” means. If we can easily define “poor,” then why can we not do the same for “great?” If everyone could volunteer their thoughts on this, I think that it would be a very helpful discussion for everyone!

~ Kristen

In case you were wonding what Fish is doing these days

This was passed on to me by a former Theories student:

> Hi Dr. Chapman!
>
> I saw this on the New York Times today. I thought it was amusing that a staunch
> reader-response critic would critique the truth produced by an interpretive community.
> http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/

I have to say, it really does seem like he's trying to say that Clinton is saying something very particular, quite apart from what everyone else thinks she said...can anyone see any way that he is being consistent with his reader-response self?

Wes

Accuracy of mind-reading

Marcus wrote:
"My question is this: Zunshine notes that Woolf assumes that we will automatically read a character's body language as indicative of his thoughts and feelings because of our collective past history as readers. How do we know which readings are correct?"

A good question. The short answer is that we don't: Zunshine says explicitly that the fact that we have the ability to mind-read only means that we have the ability to attribute mental states to other people, not that we're right about our attributions.

The long answer is more complicated. These abilities are highly evolved, so they're more than just generalized learning and indeed more than just our "collective past history as readers." For example, look at this:



Which face is happier? According to M. Derec Bownds in _The Biology of Mind_, most people say that the face on the right is happier, despite the fact that they are mirror images. The reason for this, he says, is that the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the face, is more active during happy emotions, while the right hemisphere, which controls the left side of the face, is more active during negative emotions. A smile on the right side of the face is more likely to be the product of genuine happiness. (This may be the reason for the mysteriousness of the Mona Lisa's smile; she is smiling with the left side of her face.)

If he's right about this, then it suggests that our intuitive feeling about which face is happier is in fact "right," at least for most people. We are hardwired with the equipment to pick up on a clue of this subtlety, process it, and presumably act upon it, without ever being conscious of what exactly we've picked up on or how. It's an impressive feat, I think. If, as seem likely, the ability to mind-read consists of lots and lots of different modules interpreting all kinds of subtle clues like this with this degree of accuracy, then humans have surprisingly good information about what other humans think.

Wes

gadji beri bimba glandridi laula lonni cadori

Today in class you probably thought I rambled on and on with no direction. In all of that mush and misunderstanding and cut-off phrasing was actually "something" inside of my head. Maybe I would've been better drawing a picture or writing you guys a poem. How do you know if what you heard was what I meant? You don't. How do you know that I knew what I wanted to say? I don't. How do you know what I wanted to say was REALLY what I wanted to say? You don't, and I really don't. All of what I (and I hope people, in general, otherwise I'm heading towards a dizzying future) say is just riding on a hope that we stay in some sort of horizon of hoped understanding. Thats what I think horizon is. Am I wrong? Are all the sounds we produce just a hoped possibility that the paroles will turn into a formed langue? Look up "Hugo Ball" on google and you'll quickly find out that "elephant turnip paperclip" must have some sort of meaning! It comes from a brain (or a brian?) and all of those neurons, they work together, well, if not in some sort of order! Nothing is random! I guess then I would say that there is one (very complicated) original meaning for a text that we can never really comprehend nor ever figure out, but it is there! It is the intent of all of those cells working and processing together, in a moment, for the work of writing, and once it's out there, there go all the other brains of the world into which it dissolves to be processed, moved around, and spit back out--for a brand new work that emerges in all that processing!

Evolution

Alright Marcus, I'm going to take a stab at answering your initial question. Before that, I'd like to say Kim- I love the fact that you brought up getting stuck on "right" or "wrong" interpretations, it's probably the single issue that bothers me the most. The jury's still out for me, but I'd say your post, and marcus and sylvi's comments land on about the same page as mine.. or at least on pages close together... definitely in the same book though!

Marcus, your question is a really interesting one, and for an answer, based on Zunshine's article I'm going to have to revert to what Prof. Chapman has mentioned in class a few times. This is the idea that our interpretation is an evolutionary, biological phenomenon. Basically, we developed the ability to "read minds" in order to better our chances of survival. I think Zunshine supports this by saying "our cognitive evolutionary heritage structures the ways in which we make sense of fictional narrative..." (1102). This might lead us to think that as a biological factor common to the human race (with exceptions such as autism aside) there might be one common "right" interpretation. However, at the same time, Zunshine acknowledges Richardson and Steen's point: "the history of cognitive structures 'is neither identical to nor separate from the culture they make possible'" (1100).

This leaves me somewhat stumped. If the point is that our interpretation is evolutionary my first instinct is to say then there must be one concrete interpretation, a right answer if you will. However, when you acknowledge differences in the evolutionary process, the various influences of time, place, society and culture, etc on an individual's particular cognitive structures that opens a whole new can of worms and leads back to the last question about a "right" interpretation. What does everyone else think? If there is room for more than one interpretation according to Zunshine, how much room is there? Is there a line and if so where?

What is important?

This is in response to the post just below mine about Zunshine, specifically Marcus’ response to Emily’s question. Marcus said, “My question is this: Zunshine notes that Woolf assumes that we will automatically read a character's body language as indicative of his thoughts and feelings because of our collective past history as readers. How do we know which readings are correct?”

This got me wondering why does a reading even have to be correct, especially a reading within the reader response theory? An interpretive meaning is derived based on those interpretive strategies and interpretive communities that the reader is a part of. There are many different communities; therefore many different readings can come from one specific text. What's wrong with that? As long as the reader is gaining something intellectually, or emotionally from that text, does it matter if it disagrees with another's interpretation?

I sometimes feel like we get too stuck on right and wrong, as well as determining which interpretive strategy is better, that we forget the main theories and ideas actually at hand. Isn’t that what is really important, or is determining the best interpretive strategy more important?

Zunshine

Finally! A reason why certain texts (anyone else have trouble with
Hemingway in high school?) escaped all attempts at my comprehension:
“The personal aesthetics of individual readers thus could be
grounded...in the nuances of their mind-reading capacity” (Zunshine
1098). This article fascinated me because not only do you realize that
when you read you are looking at a world from the author’s
perspective—meaning the author wrote the black marks you are
perusing—but you are also looking at the world through your own eyes, a
character’s eyes (or more than one) and their respective perspectives
of the world. Involved, yes?

In this muddled fashion the reader deal with more than one mindset at
a time (if you will allow characters to have a mindset) and sets of
intentions—at the same time, often in the same scene such as when
Zunshine presented the Mrs. Dalloway example with Richard Dalloway,
Hugh Whitbread and Lady Bruton in the drawing room which leads into the
confusing mesh of fifth and sixth levels of intentionality that the
reader supposedly draws from the text.

Now I have a question.

Could these speculated intentions of author and character be
considered “gaps” according Iser? The reader creatively (if mistakenly)
“fills in” the intentions of characters as exhibited by their physical
actions in the novel? This could particularly be so if the writer is
someone like Hemingway or Woolf who only give us smatterings of
physical action, leaving us to dig frantically for emotional responses.
Zunshine is a reader-response critic so supposedly attributing Iser to
her argument can do no harm and only spur more speculation and debate.

Emily Franzen

Plato's emotions

I’d like to try to discuss Plato’s views in a way that might appeal to more people, in a way that allows some leeway for emotion while still honoring the importance of logic and reason in society. Plato does allow that emotions exist but that we should take emotions them and instead of acting out based on only our emotion, we should use logic and reason to channel our emotions to create something constructive that leads to truth. He argues that art will often write the emotion and create an emotional response in a reader, but this is not healthy because it doesn’t lead to logic and reason. “It feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.” *Controlled* not repressed, as we talked about in class today.

This perhaps can make more sense if put into an example. Let’s say a person is very angry and he writes a poem about how angry he is. Other people read this poem and respond such that they are angry as well about this situation though they perhaps weren’t angry before. Or, maybe you're angry and you listen to an angry song, does it make you feel better? Sometimes, yes, but oftentimes don't you just end up wallowing in the emotion? This is not constructive. Anger will only perpetuate more anger if reason and logic are not called upon – the emotions will build up too much and we will not be able to understand why we have these emotions. The angrier we get, the less rational our thought becomes. However, if we have the emotion of anger and then use our logic and reason to understand why we are angry, then the anger can often dissipate through the understanding of how we came to that emotion – perhaps not at first but eventually. We change our view to something that is constructive. Thus, emotions (even those destructive ones) can be constructive if logic and reason are employed to lead one to a deeper understanding and truth.

ars poetica, Freud style

We have clearly moved away from deconstruction in class, even though some of those questions still persist, especially in our current readings. Freud, in his essay about creative writers, states that "a creative writer presents his plays to us or tells us what we are inclined to take to be his personal daydreams" where we are left to feel "a great pleasure" from the "confluence of many sources." Is "ars poetica" here really a secret? If we all opened up our egos to the world, we'd be the next Hemingways, Prousts, Tolstoys? Or is "creative writing" just one in an infinate number of outlets of sickened daydreamers? Maybe we are all creative "writers" in this way, in our own little centers of supposed human experience, each individual dream its own center in the "terrifying form of monstrosity"!

Post-Structuralism Destructs

According to Derrida as I understand him (which admittedly may be little) and our conclusions in class on Monday, fairy tales do not exist except as something that people (writers, readers, critics etc…) created. I asked Professor Chapman” what then do those critics and writers who study / write fairy tales do if their subject matter doesn’t exist? He answered, “I think Derrida would say they are doing the best they can with metaphysical concepts.” If I may take that previous question a little farther if fairy tales don’t exist because “the center is not the center”—who’s to say that “romance” exists? Or “drama?” Or any other genre / aspect of literature? Post-structuralism seems a little disconcerting in my view. How can deconstructionism hold itself up if it is arguing that everything unravels itself?

Emily F.

Decisions, decisions

A subject that keeps coming up, but we never really discuss is how sometimes literary theories come into conflict with each other. Individually, the theories all make sense, but when viewed together, some things just don't work. How do we reconcile these differences? Should we make some sort of hierarchy of theory? Should we view each theory in a vacuum?

History and literature

I'm not sure how many people came to the keynote speaker at the Muse conference this weekend, but I think I saw a few people from our class there. To briefly summarize the talk, the speaker read a paper on domesticity as it was related to the Merry Wives of Windsor. She studied this topic by researching recipe books of the era. Toward the end of her speech she began to talk about her work as New Historicism writing. She talked about the differences of opinion throughout history and said that there were just as many debates and differences of opinion as there are today. After events or eras pass by, people try to consolidate and make sense of what happened. They try to find answers and come to coherent ideas because they have the benefit of hindsight. In this way, can we understand history better than present day? Or since we are living today, in the now, do we understand better what is going on because we are living it? History, in these ways, seems related to literature. All literature is creating some sort of history of its own, a fictional history. To add to the complexity, many texts are influenced by actual history as related to the events of that time and the personal history of the author. Does that make literature more complex than just 'history'?