What is Literature?
From Chapter 5: What Is Literature, in: A Short Guide to Writing about Literature, 7th ed., by Sylvan Barnet, pp. 78-80, 82, 88, color emphasis mine. Images added for this blog entry and are not found in Barnet’s book.
“I want stories to startle and engage me within the first few sentences, and in their middle to widen or deepen or sharpen my knowledge of human activity, and to end by giving me a sensation of completed statement."
~ John Updike
We all know why we value a newspaper (for instance) or a textbook or an atlas, but why do we value a verbal work that doesn’t give us the latest news or important information about business cycles or the names of the capitals of nations? About a thousand years ago a Japanese woman, Lady Murasaki, offered an answer in The Tale of Genji, a book often called the world’s first novel. During a discussion about reading fiction, one of the characters offers an opinion as to why a writer tells a story:- "Again and again something in one's own life or in the life around one will seem so important that one cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion. There must never come a time, the writer feels, when people do not know about this."
Literature is about human experiences, but the experiences embodied in literature are not simply the shapeless experiences – the chaotic passing scene – captured by a mindless, unselective camcorder. Poets, dramatists, and storytellers find or impose a shape on scenes (for instance, the history of two lovers), giving readers things to value – written or spoken accounts that are memorable not only for their content but also for their form – the shape of the speeches, of the scenes, of the plots……
Ezra Pound said that literature is “news that stays news.” Now, “John loves Mary,” written on a wall, or on the front page of a newspaper, is news, but it is not news that stays news. It may be of momentary interest to the friends of John and Mary, but it’s not much more than simple information and there is no particular reason to value it. Literature is something else. The Johns and Marys in poems, plays, and stories – even though they usually are fairly ordinary individuals, in many ways often rather like us – somehow become significant as we perceive them through the writer’s eye and ear. The writer selects what is essential, and makes us care about the characters. Their doings stay in our mind.To say that their doings stay in our mind is not to deny that works of literature show signs of being the products of particular ages and environments. It is only to say that these works are not exclusively about those ages and environments; they speak to later readers. The love affairs that we read about in the newspaper are of no interest a day later, but the love of Romeo and Juliet, with its joys and sorrows, has interested people for 400 years. Those who know the play may feel, with Lady Murasaki’s spokesman, that there must never come a time when these things are not known. It should be mentioned, too, that readers find, on rereading a work, that the works are still of great interest but often for new reasons. That is, when as adolescents we read Romeo and Juliet we may value it for certain reasons, and when in maturity we reread it we may see it differently and we may value it for new reasons. It is news that remains news.
As the example of Romeo and Juliet indicates, literature need not be rooted in historical fact. Although guides in Verona find it profitable to point out Juliet’s house, the play is not based on historical characters. Literature is about life, but it may be fictional, dealing with invented characters. In fact, almost all of the characters in literature are imaginary – though they seem real. In the words of Picasso,- Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth……The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.
One reason that literary works endure (whether they show us what we are or what we long for) is that their form makes their content memorable. In Picasso’s terms, the artist knows how to shape lies (fictions, imagined happenings) into enduring forms. Because this discussion of literature is brief, we will illustrate the point by looking at one of the briefest literary forms, the proverb. (Our definition of literature is not limited to the grand forms of the novel, tragedy, and so on. It is wide enough, and democratic enough, to include brief, popular, spoken texts.) Consider this statement:- A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Now let’s compare it with a paraphrase (a restatement, a translation into other words), for instance “If a stone is always moving around, vegetation won’t have a chance to grow on it.” What makes the original version more powerful, more memorable? Surely much of the answer is that the original is more concrete and its form is more shapely. At the risk of being heavy-handed, we can analyze the shapeliness thus: Stone and moss (the two nouns in the sentence) each contain one syllable; rolling and gathers (the two words of motion) each contain two syllables, each with the accent on the first of the two syllables. Notice, too, the nice contrast between stone (hard) and mass (soft).
The reader probably feels this shapeliness unconsciously, rather than perceives it consciously. That is, these connections become apparent when one starts to analyze, but the literary work can make its effect on a reader even before the reader analyzes. As T.S. Eliot said in his essay on Dante (1929), “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” Indeed, our first reading of a work, when, so to speak, we are all eyes and ears (and the mind is highly receptive rather than sifting for evidence) is sometimes the most important reading. Experience proves that we can feel the effects of a work without yet understanding how the effects are achieved.“If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?...What we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves…A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.”
~ Franz Kafka, 1904
Images attribution
Fearless movie poster: United International Pictures; Rogue Pictures; Ronny Yu; William Kong
Bruce Almighty movie poster: Universal Studios / Buena Vista Intl.
Titanic scene: 20th Century Fox / Paramount Pictures
Hogwarts castle: Warner Bros.
Power Rangers group shot: Jetix; BVS
Spaceman in red room picture: MGM; Turner Entertainment; Warner Bros.
Phantom and Christine shot: Universal Pictures
King Kong shot: Universal Pictures
The Bicentennial Man [Video: Touchstone Pictures; Columbia Pictures]
Movie-watching
By Victor Ong
Movie-watching, among other things, is a learning experience, as much edutainment as it is entertainment. Like music, dance, literature and other art forms, movies show us:
- What we are capable of doing
- What we are capable of not doing
- Who we are capable of being
- Who we are capable of not being
- What we should do
- What we should not do
- What has been done
- What remains to be done
- How to start doing
- How not to start doing
- How to love
- How not to hate
- Where the world is headed
- Where the world is not headed, because of what we can do to stem the tide
We live as princes and princesses of our Lady and Lord. If ART has a refining effect on us -- making us a people more well-informed, intelligent, responsive, sensitive, resolute and harmonious -- it will have served its purpose, and served it well. It should have us realise the power that we have inside ourselves (the incredible human potential!), and how we must respect nature and honour science.
Apply and proliferate in real life everything that is presented in film and theatre, however, and prepare yourself for a world of cruelty and chaos. Many things are better left fictional and suppositional. After all, if the film stage is our test realm for ideas aplenty and thus our province of experimentation and contemplation, we have no need to try out every concept in the real world and risk destroying that which experiments in the 'test realm' have shown to be impracticable, unfeasible or downright impermissible.
A good case-in-point would be the manufacture of gargantuan semi-sentient robots like those in the Power Rangers TV show for use in the real world: is this practical, considering how a 500-foot-tall Megazord in the city centre would devastate more infrastructure than if the invading enemy have been left to his own devices? However impracticable colossal assault vehicles are for real life, one thing remains certain for millions of Rangers fans: Zords are cool. But looking at how we must now adopt a pacifist and patient attitude toward aggressors -- avoiding warfare as much as possible or risk nuking the world to bits -- do not expect Megazords to appear on our skyline any time soon. Nor Autobots, for that matter.
Media ought to equip us as rulers of this domain we call 'Earth'; we ought to be as gods, and wield our knowledge and experience for good, not for evil.
Image attribution
King Kong shot: Universal Pictures
Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana, performing Nobody's Perfect. [Video: Disney Channel; Michael Poryes; Richard Correll; Barry O'Brien]
FILM GENRES
From Wikipedia
Setting
Crime \ Film noir \ Historical \ Science fiction \ Sports \ War \ Westerns
Mood
Action \ Adventure \ Comedy \ Drama \ Fantasy \ Horror \ Mystery \ Romance \ Thrillers
Format
Animation \ Live action \ Documentary \ Musical
It moves, it binds, it empowers
by Victor Ong
There is this quality in THE ARTS -- visual arts, performing arts, language arts, culinary arts, physical arts, etc. -- that makes it liberating (and particularly entertaining): Empowerment.
Anything can be 'art': a skill, a technique, a pattern, a form or a process. Art bears significance to the beholder. It informs people. It moves people. It enables people to think and do great things. Art is often valued and harnessed for its aesthetic appeal and emotional power. For centuries, it has been a vehicle for expression, a textbook of social studies and a popular source of inspiration.
Culinary art is a microcosm of culture -- sometimes centuries old -- and is a history so tangible...so living...that it can transport you to a foreign land, to a foreign time, at your own dining table.
Visual and literary arts chronicle what human civilisation has done, is doing and may be doing. This art is both archival and suppositional: it tells us what we have achieved, and also what we are capable of achieving. It is in this that we find the emancipatory quality of art. It can equip us with the knowledge of the ancients; we use their discoveries to sustain our race and ensure our continued survival.
From art, we understand how to relate to the natural world -- to tame it, to hold it back, to receive it.... From art, we can fully understand our inherent constructive and destructive powers; thus, we shall learn from past mistakes, anticipate new problems and, armed with acquired knowledge to handle unprecedented situations, set out to meet challenges face-on.
I have in the previous article dicussed literature (particularly movies) and its role in our lives. We are very human and I am of the opinion that we are either fallen gods/goddesses, or we are princes and princesses stuck in a sometimes arduous journey towards Glory. We do not know much, and what we know we do not wield properly to our advantage; sometimes we refuse to know some things, averting our senses and our minds from knowledge that can free us and save our lives.
The Art Explosion that we are witnessing today consists of important experiments that will help us be better stewards of the Earth and its resources. A subset benefit of this Lesson is definitely an increasing ability to live harmoniously with our fellow Man. Art is education: showing us different cultures, and why we, in this United Nations era, should now figure out how people of various colours can find common ground and co-rule. The planet is evolving -- badly in many places, no thanks to our unintelligent and irresponsible exploitation of Nature -- and so must we.
Ultimately, art releases us from the labyrinth of foolishness. It is with lack of knowledge that my people are destroyed. We must be equipped to rule. We must learn to work with one another and with the rhythms of Nature. We would do well to have "(r)espect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" [source].
This is why I chose to become a Wiccan. Wicca (and many other faiths) consists of "(s)piritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature" [source]. I am also a Unitarian Universalist (but may not be seen as one by some, as I have yet to find like-minded UUs and/or join a congregation) -- a faith movement of love, justice and inclusiveness.
There'll be loads of challenges in our lives, and the arts is one way for us to meet them. With art, we encapsulate things, and spread them out on a manageable sheet of paper to look at them sensibly. We gain wisdom from frequent appreciation of art. We know what to advocate and what to avoid; what methods to use for real, and what methods to leave as fiction.
This is why we enjoy many kinds of music, literature, film and dance -- we are learning so much in the process, identifying ourselves with so many concepts, and being informed that they are people across the world so like ourselves. In various art forms, we become acquainted with our emotions; we encounter the interesting ways people conduct themselves, and consequently, know what to avoid. Through art, we enjoy the fact (and power) that all things are possible, but not all are beneficial. Art reveals shared values, and can provide a commonality of purpose as we work to better our global village. There are diverse ideas and practices that we can tolerate...even accept.
There is a feeling of sweet victory as we learn, from the arts, how we may defeat evil and promote peace. We are empowered with concepts so strange and so exciting that we sometimes feel too well-informed...too powerful...too divine! But we are of royal make! We have been created for greatness! We are princes and princesses of the Most High! How do we implement justice, deal with evil, or even pronounce something as 'evil', when we do not have proper knowledge of all things? Shall I cocoon myself and be vulnerable, or open myself and learn to defend?
The arts is our test realm for ideas aplenty and thus our province of experimentation and contemplation -- it will make us better people. Art ought to equip us as rulers of this domain we call 'Earth'; we ought to be as gods, and wield our knowledge and experience for good, not for evil.
We shall then be emancipated.
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