Lecture 21: Whatever You Say, Say …PATRICK MOONEY, M.A.

ENGLISH 10, SUMMER SESSION A

27 JULY 2015

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)

"Grauballemannen1" by Sven Rosborn, via Wikimedia Commons

Media credits

The photo of Grauballe Man (slide 5) has been released into the public domain by Sven Rosborn. Original source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Grauballemanden#/media/File:Grauballemannen1.jpg