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Showing posts with label literarure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literarure. Show all posts

Sunday, January 16, 2011

2CEP- What Is Literature? by Terry Eagleton


WHAT IS LITERATURE
-Terry Eagleton
ABBREVIATIONS USED: lit= literature, lang= language


ABOUT TERRY EAGLETON:
- Still alive, from UK, Teaches at Cambridge, currently working on theology, comes from Marxist tradition.
-Raymond Williams influenced Eagleton. Williams is a key figure in culture studies. Eagleton differed from Williams, a general pattern in academic relations.


WHAT IS LITERATURE- General ideas
- Kant organized academics into disciplines
- Only 18th century Romantics, began trying to define lit.
- ‘Theory’ cannot have a single exception, because method means that all research should arrive at the same conclusion. Science does this best
- In Social Sciences, answers and conclusions are unimportant. The method or arriving at the conclusion is important, ie: how and why. ie: argumentation > conclusion


-Humanist vs Post Humanist
Post Humanists emphasize the varied ‘Positions of Author and Recipient’, and interactions of Speaker and Listener, Identity and Subject Position, Individual and Subject.
-Texts undergo cycles of relevancy
E.g.: Feminists loved, then hated, and are now re visiting Marx and his theory of labour. Environmentalists are referring to Marx’s idea on resources.


Broad topics argued by Eagleton, to define literature:
a-Imaginative writing?
b-Fact or fiction?
(His first 2 ideas, were Common Sense explanations of Literature. Common Sense is a literary concept from Plato till 1967, until Derrida broke it.)
c-Literature vs. Literature
d-Formalism (“organized violence committed on ordinary language”) (associated to Linguistics, Structuralism, Saussure). Formalism employed ‘scientific spirit (Pg 2)’: they relied on method and tried to be Objective. (Science can be falsified- Karl Popper) --Emphasis of Form/ Structure over Content -Importance of Devices
(Eagleton isn’t saying that the Formalists didn’t believe content was important. He says that Formalists believed that content isn’t the business of critics, but devices are)
e- Paradox: This estrangement from ordinary language (that the Formalists spoke of) brings us into a fuller possession of experience!
f- Norms?: Formalists identified lit. as a deviation from the norm (ordinary lang.). But what is the norm then?  Ordinary lang. itself differs across time and place. Slang doesn’t fit into this idea of the Formalists either.
g- Shift and Change: of time, place and context. (“context tells you it is literary but not the language”)
h- Making strange/ Matter of contrast (Pg 6)
i- Formalists think all lit = poetry, and thus prose is judged by the same scale as poetry.
j- “lit. may be at least as much a question of what people do to writing as of what writing does to them.” .
k- “lit is a non pragmatic discourse with no immediate practical purpose, but referring to a general state of affairs” . But what about Orwell’s essays studied as literature? (Pg 7-8)
l- Points j. and k. imply that lit is not Objective, but is up to how a person decides to read a text and not the nature of what is written (see also Point g.). There is no essence of lit (pg 8 & 9).
m- “Some texts are born literary, some achieve literariness, and some have literariness thrust upon them” (pg 8-9).
NOTE- I have made no lecture notes for pages 10, 11, 12, 13
n- Ideology: there is no randomness (Pg 14) (In India, when we began to include texts by Indian authors in Lit sylabbus, we included Ananthamurthy, RK Laxman. They all happen to be upper class, Hindu, males while most students of Lit were women. Power is maintained and exercised.)
o- Lit is constituted of value judgments. There can be no absolute definition of it, and only definitions that are “according to xyz” (Pg 15)


NOTE/ DISCLAIMER- My notes are by no means comprehensive of Eagleton’s original text. I have only included the information given by Mr Pinto during his lectures and some broad arguements covered in the essay. And out of my lecture notes, only that which is (seemingly?) relevant has been put up here. You still have to break your own head over the essay:).

Thursday, June 07, 2007

III BA V Sem Opt Eng Course plan

Department of Media Studies

Christ College (Autonomous), Bangalore

V Semester FEP, JPEng, PSEng

Literary Theory and Criticism, & Indian Literatures in Translation

Course Plan 2007

Name of the Teacher : Anil Pinto

Total No of hours (approx) : 37

Subject : Optional English

Papers : Literary Theory and Criticism, and Indian Literatures in Translation

No

Topic

No of Hours

Dates/Remarks

1

Structuralism

Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan : ‘The Implied Order: Structuralism’

Gerard Genette : ‘Structuralism and Literary Criticism’

Claude Levi-Strauss: ‘On Structuralist Approach to Levi-Strauss’

6-8

June 23 - June 30

2

Post-structuralism

Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan : ‘Introductory Deconstruction’

Paul de Man : ‘Semiology and Rhetoric’

J. Hillis Miller : ‘On a Post-structuralist Approach to Wordsworth’s a “Slumber Did my Spirit Seal”’

8-9

July 01 - July 30

3

Psychoanalysis

William Vesterman : ‘A Brief Introduction to Psychoanalytic Criticism’

Earnest Jones ‘Hamlet and Psychoanalysis’

Geoffrey Hartman : ‘A Psychoanalytic Approach to “A Slumber did my Spirit Seal”’

7-9

Aug 01- Aug 22

4

Introduction to Indian Poetics (one hour per week

12-14

June 08 to Sept 22

5

Review/Feedback


Last week of Sept

Methodology

The classes will follow lecture method. The lectures will as far as possible be PowerPoint based and will draw upon visual material namely painting, films, advertisement and literary works. There will also be scope for student presentations.

Continuous Internal Assessment

Guidelines for Submission:

· The written assignment should be based on your field research. The typed assignment should adhere to the following specifications: A4 size paper, 12 font size, 11/2 line space, font: Times New Roman, Book Antiqua, or Garamond

· Assignment details - your name, reg. no, class, semester, assignment code, name of the College, name of the teacher in-charge and date of submission- should be mentioned on the top right-hand side of the first page. Do not use a cover page.

· You are free to take the assignment beyond the expected criteria. Such efforts will be appreciated

· Those who are going to be out of town can submit the assignment online

· No late submission is entertained

· Plagiarism will not be tolerated and may result in rejection of assignment

· Remember to give reference at the end of your assignment of the books, articles, websites, and films that you have referred to. The following pattern may be followed: Author’s name with the last name first, a period, name of the book italicised, a period, Place of Publication, colon, name of publication, year of publication, page no

o E.g.: Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, My Experiments with Truth, New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.

o In case of a website give the complete URL of the site referred to along with the above details

o If you are directly lifting some lines quote them. If you are using some idea write it in your words but acknowledge it

For further information on bibliography writing please refer to MLA Handbook – Sixth Edition.

Note:

Ø Attendance is compulsory for all the sessions.

Ø Please be punctual. If you are late, you will not be allowed to attend the class. However, should there be any serious issue, do discuss with me or bring to my notice through the counsellors.

Ø I expect you to come to class having read the required essays. Failing to which you will not allowed to attend the classes.

Ø Please feel free to clarify your doubts, ask questions or give feedback in the class, department or through email.

Ø While emailing please mention your name, class and batch.

Ø If you are absent for any of the classes please get the help of your classmates to get updated, before you approach me for help.

Ø If you wish to make classroom presentation on any topic or idea within the framework of the syllabus, you will be given encouragement and guidance.

Ø Visit my blog for notices and announcements regularly

Ø I reply to emails within 24 hours. If you do not receive reply within that time, you may assume that I have not received your email.

Ø As far as possible avoid calling me on my mobile phone.

Ø All the best. Let us grow together.

Anil Pinto

Email: ajpinto42 at yahoo.co.in, ajpinto42 at gmail.com

Blog: http://anilpinto.blogspot.com