CHALLENGED BOUNDARIES. JOURNALISM AND LITERATURE IN THE SIXTIES

Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio FF – Philologiae

Literature and Reality (Introduction) Literatura i rzeczywistość (wprowadzenie) The volume you are holding in your hands is devoted to the broadly understood relations between a literary work, journalism and non-fictional reality-the real, tangible world. In his criticism of the hermetic model of poetry, characteristic of Western approaches, which entails creating an opposition between life (reality) and literature, Michał Paweł Markowski warned against separating language from reality, treating both these orders as disproportionate (2009, p. 33). This idea of straying away from creating opposition in order to search for appropriate formulas of description, 1 methods of research and deciphering activities is what guided the scholars, who prepared the papers compiled in this volume, trying to showcase the complex relations between literary (and-in a broader sense-also cultural) text and reality, as well as their analytical and interpretative consequences The papers collected in the themed issue of Annales UMCS. Sec. FF offer a variety of methodological perspectives, allowing us to take a look at the eponymous issue in cultural spaces-American, English, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Iranian, French, and Surinamese. This diversity and multitude of research directions-consistent with the academic profile of the journal-resulted in an interesting spectrum of issues addressed in the papers, whose temporal range covers

Yale Journal of Criticism, 2004

We need to return to the eternal question concerning the "being" and the specificity of literature, but this time we need to recast it. Instead of "What is literature?" 1 we might ask "What does literature do and, from that moment onward, what can literature do?" Ever since the Decadents and the Symbolists of the s, we have been offered the dull replies of aesthetes, which was:"Literature doesn't do anything, and it can't do anything, thank God!" Furthermore, according to the poetry of Edmond Rostand, which has made a comeback in contemporary literary commentary in the form of postmodern paraphrases, a thing is even more beautiful when it's useless. 2 What does literature do, what does it work on, and, at the end of the day, given what it does, what does it know? What does it know that is not known as well, or better, in other knowledge domains? 3 Does it know something about other sectors of language production, but in a mode that is specific to it, that is, with peculiar cognitive instruments? For instance, does it know something about knowledge that is permeated with images (Bildhaftigkeit), an idea that György Lukàcs employs to distinguish literature from scientific knowledge even as he situates both on the same level, thereby rendering one a complement to the other? To take on such questions is not the same thing as posing the following, seemingly related question:"What can literature be used for?" It is by no means an a priori that this literary knowledge, if there is such a thing, should be usable in a practical or a positive sense, nor that it should be redeemable for some purpose or another. With all due respect to Rostand and his Aiglon, such negative determinations are not to be synonymous with "useless." Text sociocriticism interrogates the work of textualization (the miseen-texte) even as it refuses "formal" aestheticism and nihilism that conma r c a n g e n o t   

Cultural Sociology, 2020

When analyzing literary fiction, most cultural sociologists still accept the well-established boundaries between the literary and the sociological, thus leaving literature stripped of its aesthetic qualities. Instead, I propose a new approach that focuses on the process of meaning-making as it occurs within the interaction between the reader and the novel in a given socio-historical setting. This allows analysts to capture those aspects of understanding social experience which are usually ‘lost in translation’ between fictional and sociological genres. My major claims are that, first, when referring to social experience, both sociological and literary texts employ aesthetic devices to mediate understanding for the reader. Second, within the literary genre, the understanding of social experience relies much more on the emotional engagement of the reader through a reading process facilitated by these aesthetic devices. Third, to benefit methodologically and epistemologically from the ...

2015

That literature is a reflection of the society is a fact that has been widely acknowledged. Literature indeed reflects the society, its good values and its ills. In its corrective function, literature mirrors the ills of the society with a view to making the society realize its mistakes and make amends. It also projects the virtues or good values in the society for people to emulate. Literature, as an imitation of human action, often presents a picture of what people think, say and do in the society. In literature, we find stories designed to portray human life and action through some characters who, by their words, action and reaction, convey certain messages for the purpose of education, information and entertainment. It is impossible to find a work of literature that excludes the attitudes, morale and values of the society, since no writer has been brought up completely unexposed to the world around him. What writers of literature do is to transport the real-life events in their ...

The Impact of Literature on Society:, 2024

In the vast tapestry of human existence, literature stands as a profound mirror reflecting and shaping the complexities of our collective journey. Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi's introspective exploration in "Whose time are we speaking in?" unveils the intimate connection between literature and personal experience, unraveling the intricate interplay of time, language, and the profound influence of storytelling. From the nuances of individual reflections to the broader societal fabric, literature weaves a narrative that transcends temporal and cultural boundaries. As we embark on this intellectual journey, guided by the insightful perspectives of Jung and Augsburger, Simarmata, and the contemplative questioning posed by the article on literature's impact on history, we delve into the multifaceted nature of literature's transformative power. The scholarly contributions of Buell, Heise, and Thornber, as well as Koopman and Hakemulder, further enrich our exploration, bringing forth the nuanced dimensions of literature's impact on empathy, character formation, and its role in environmental and historical discourse. This research paper seeks to unravel the intricate relationship between the written word and the evolving dynamics of society, examining how literature shapes societal norms, influences collective consciousness, and acts as a bridge between diverse perspectives. In essence, the transformative tapestry of literature beckons us to traverse through time, language, and human experience, offering profound insights into its profound impact on the evolving narratives of our shared existence.

It is possible to argue that " myth " as Barthes uses it in Mythologies, functions as a synonym of ideology. As a term ideology is hard to define. But one of the most pervasive definitions of the term holds that it refers to the body of beliefs and representatons that sustain and legitimate current power relationships. Roland Barthes in Mythologies analyzes the insidious ways in which the societies create and perpetuate myths. He argues modern myths are created with a reason, that they are formed to perpetuate an idea of society that adheres to the current ideologies of the ruling class and its media. As we inhabit a world of signs which support existing power structures and which purport to be natural. Ideology promotes the values and interests of dominant groups within society. And as Terry Eagleton beautifully explains in his book I deology " a dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it: naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable, denigrating ideas which might challenge it, excluding rival forms of thought and obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself ". Thus as it can be clearly seen there is a common point in both how Eagleton defines ideology and Barthes's interpretation of myth as the Notion of a socially constructed reality which is passed of as " natural ". And the opinions and values of that power-holder class is declared as " universal truths ". Barthes argues that the real power relations in society between classes, between coloniser and colonised, between men and women are obscured, wiped out, or their political threat is lessened. The role of language comes to the foreground in this context, not as an instrument of real communication but of intimidation which seks to establish a specific version of the events (i.e that of the power-holders) as " the sole valid interpretation " and to marginalize those versions which contradict it. The role of literature is vital in this context. By definition novel is a subversive genre which on the surface seemingly catering to the needs of the " petit bourgeoisie " (as Barthes calls it), but in fact showing it a mirror of its ugly face, forcing it to acknowledge its reality. So novel, more than any other form of genre which is more like our lives because of this very reason is the most disturbing of all. And the novel writer, even though he sometimes may deny it (which is the case in most of the post modern novels) has a message in his mind, not necessarily sharing the ideology of the power-holders is a threat.

1993

Journal of Literary Theory, 2010

The article explores why, despite various laudable exceptions, popular fiction still has not received as much attention as its importance would merit. The answer I propose is that popular fiction is caught in the middle between cultural and literary studies. Popular fiction, I argue here, is characterized by a double otherness: as popular fiction it is not what people in cultural studies are chiefly interested in, but what they tend to leave to their colleagues in literary studies; and as popular fiction it is not what people in literature departments are particularly interested in, but what they tend to leave to their colleagues in cultural studies. The former, I argue, is an unconscious form of othering, since most scholars in cultural studies would no doubt agree that popular fiction is important and needs to be investigated. It is simply not what most of them concentrate on. The latter, by contrast, is a conscious form of othering, a means by which scholars of literature continue to define their object of study in a very traditional way. After a short introduction the first part of this essay focuses on cultural studies. It sets out by establishing that many publications in the field implicitly position popular fiction as an other and then goes on to discuss the reasons for this othering. Cultural studies, I argue, has since its inception been driven by the desire to move beyond literature and to expand the notion of ›text‹ to comprise all signifying systems. As a result, cultural studies scholars ›read‹ films, television, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, or football matches, but they hardly ever engage literary texts. This widespread neglect, I suggest, affects not only those scholars who are interested in cultural production and in the texts as such, but also those who study acts of reception and the construction of meaning as cultural practices. The next section investigates why popular fiction is not studied more frequently within literary studies, and suggests that literary studies still suffers from what I call the ›modernist bias‹. The philologies continue to embrace modernism's normative understanding of what constitutes a valuable work of art. They are interested in texts that are subversive in terms of content and innovative in terms of form, texts that are anti-mimetic, ambivalent, and complex -and thus possess qualities that popular fictional texts are said to lack. I demonstrate how this modernist bias entered literary criticism through the close association between the modernist writers and the proponents of the New Criticism, and how it survived into the age of poststructuralism, affecting the practice of criticism, impacting on the construction of literary histories, and leading scholars of literature to ignore, vilify, or recast popular fictional texts in modernist terms.