How
should literature be read and consumed?
Could we misread it? Does
interpretation change over time or person to person. What do the major literary forms – poetry,
short story, novel, plays, and literary non-fiction tell us about ourselves?
We
get some food for thought on these matters in the weighty tome, The Handy
Literature Answer Book: An
Engaging Guide to Unraveling Symbols, Signs and Meanings in Great Works, by
Daniel S. Burt, Ph.D., and Deborah G. Felder.
“Great
works of literature change over our lifetime because we change over our
lifetime," They wrote: “Twain’s
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn experienced at twelve is qualitatively different
when experiencing it at twenty, thirty, forty, and so on…Instead, a new version
of each great classic is waiting for each version of yourself that emerges with
age.
This
book poses powerful questions:
·
Why so we read literature?
·
Does
literature help us live better?
·
Does
reading literature make us better morally?
·
How
can the benefits of reading literature be measured?
·
What
role does escape play in literature?
·
Are
re-readings of a book better than the original reading?
·
What
is poetry?
This
book also provides many answers and insights, such as these:
What Makes Literature “literature?
“What
is deemed literature also is a collective agreement rather than a matter of
personal taste. Tradition and custom,
that is, the collective wisdom of others both past and present, help to mold a
contentious and shifting canon of literary worth, rising and falling like a
literary stock market, reflecting long-and short-term value and current supply
and demand.
“Literature
serves to disorient and reorient the reader to truths, not necessarily from its
faithful representation of experience but its creative repossession of
experience in ways in which meaning and relevance radiate.”
What Is the Role Of The Reader In Literature?
“Readers
are still left with the daunting challenge of interpretation: assessing the text for meaning and significance
in works of literature that by definition are multiple and complex. Lacking a direct, secure route to meaning
from either the author or the text, the reader is left with the challenge of
interpretation: the analysis and evaluation of possible meanings suggested by
the text.
“How
does literature expand our experience?
Human beings are functionally prisoners of space and time. We cannot physically be in two or more places
at once or inhabit more than the present.
Other than in memory, the past is lost to us, and the future only takes
shape in the present. The limitations of
space and time are immutable conditions of human life, or are they? This is precisely what literature allows us
to do: evade the tyranny of space and
time. In works of literature, we are not
bound to a single physical space but can simultaneously be here and there,
widening our geographical reach to extend our knowledge and experience. In works of literature, we can begin to see the
world and ourselves from multiple vantage points that our physical restraints
otherwise prevent. But literature
enhances our view not just from multiple vantage points in space but also from
multiple perspectives. You can only see
the world through another’s eyes in literature.
What Was The Impact Of Book Publishing On The Development Of The American Novel?
“One
crucial factor in the novel’s late development was the economic reality of
American book publishing, which contributed significantly to the struggles of
writers, particularly novelists, to emerge from the long shadow cast by the
British. Although a national copyright
law was enacted in 1790, international copyright protection was not established
until 1891, leaving American printers free to pirate the latest works by popular
British novelists such as Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. Because American readers could acquire the
best of British writers in cheap reprints, there was little economic incentive
for publishers to support American writers who expected to be paid. Most American writers consequently found it
difficult to survive by their writing: only those who produced works of
exceptional distinction and popularity were rewarded. The one market that was open to American
writers was the many periodicals that could accommodate short fiction. This is largely why the American short story,
as practiced by Poe, Hawthorne, and others, preceded publication of America’s
first great novels.”
What Do Poems Do?
“Poetry
seems to come from some deep impulse humans have that needs expression; it
arises when no other form of expression seems capable of conveying what the
poet is thinking or feeling. Many of us
have had the experience of feeling great joy or emotional pain: coming home for the holidays and feeling an
overwhelming sense of well-being and happiness or feeling great sorrow and
grief at a loss, such as a death of a loved one. Attempting to verbalize those feelings is
what poetry is about. Poems may tell a
story but they need not. A poem can be
only about a thought or a feeling, something both inconclusive and fleeting, in
which the poem itself is an attempt to understand or come to terms with what
prompted the emotion or thought. Poetry
is first and foremost an exploration into things unknown, giving it form,
naming and visualizing a previous, in Shakespeare’s phrase, “airy nothing” and
converting the abstract to the specific.
“At
its most basic level, poetry allows us to give voice to what we are thinking
and feeling, converting abstract emotions or ideas into a concrete setting or
situation, expressed in powerful language that can communicate to another what
we feel and think.”
You
can’t read this large and probing book in one sitting, especially when it takes
you into a deep, questioning mode on literary criticism, the relationship of
form and content, reader and content, author and content, and historical context
and content.
Perhaps
this searching exploration goes too far.
Maybe we just need to enjoy a good book and take it on its own
merits. The more we have to delve into
understanding writer intent, reader interpretation, historical relevance, or
guessing on how words elicit emotional or psychological responses, the further
we get from whatever the reader experiences as truth in the moment he or she
reads a book. That isn’t to say that we
can’t go deeper than the text in front of us, but its worth begins with what’s
on the page and not all that somehow attaches to it. You don’t need a professor, critic or
historian to tell you if you like and value a book, do you?
Books
are an artform. When I go to a museum,
either a piece of art speaks to me or it doesn’t. No amount of context can provide as part of
emotion of imagination if the actual work doesn’t communicate something to
me. To know why someone is beautiful or
a killer is not as important as believing one is beautiful or understanding one
is a killer. Sure, there are layers to
peel and enjoy about a book or artwork – but only if that book or artwork
appeals to me on its own. Just saying.
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