[2015 07-27] lecture 21: whatever you say, say
TRANSCRIPT
Quick notes from Culler
● “Literariness” also occurs outside literature (19-20).
● “Literature” is a contemporary historical category, and one that has varied a great deal over the last two hundred years. (22-23)
● Nevertheless, we tend to take some texts as supporting the move of “treating them as literature.” (23-26)
● Literature is thus both language organized in particular ways and a set of conventions that produces a certain kind of attention.
Several approaches to “what is literature?”:
1. Literature is the foregrounding of language. (29-30)
2. Literature is the integration of language. (30-31)
3. Literature is fiction (or as language with certain special deictic properties). (31-33)
4. Literature is an aesthetic object. (33-34)
5. Literature is an intertextual and self-reflexive construct. (34-36)
Several approaches to “what is literature for?”:
1. It is civilizing. (36)
2. It is universalizing. (37)
3. It is nationalizing. (37-38)
4. It is the vehicle for ideology, and/or the opportunity to undo ideology. (38-39)
5. It is cultural capital. (41)