Literature

fact vs. fiction: literature as ‘imaginative’ writing in the sense of fiction: writing which is not literally
‘true’ (literature and reality)
• literature as particular use of language: formalist theory of what is literary
• literature as non-pragmatic discourse: serves no immediate purpose, but refers to a general state of affairs (->ambiguity, polyvalence convention)
• literature as a kind of writing that is highly valued: fine writing/belles lettres (value judgment)

subject matter: historical development of literature: occurences and phenomena of literary history (e.g. publication of literary works, changes in book market, lives of authors, thematic and formal characteristics of texts)

reconstruction and presentation of literary-historical occurrences in literary historiography:

retrospective representation of these occurrences -> literary histories in printed form

literary history reconstructs the development of literature, taking into account theoretical assumptions, criticism and historical contexts

- historicity as important aspect of literary studies
->not only medial, generic, contemporary cultural or other systematic approaches
->take historicity of texts into consideration to attain a historical understanding
- full potential of meanings of a text only emerges when studying it in its historical and literary context
-> becomes particularly important with regard to
o satirical allusions to political events/ socioeconomic problems o intertextual references
o particularity of individual work/position within genre system/ formal innovations can only be evaluated if broader literary-historical knowledge is available

--> means of analytical differentiation and orientation (within bewildering diversity of literary production)

refers to the theory of poetry or imaginative texts/literature in general (its nature, forms and genres)

thus is the science of/reflection about poetics: the different schools/theories of/approaches to poetry

mimetic approach

pragmatic approach

expressive approach

objective approach

gr. mimeisthai, “to imitate” (mimesis: term coined by Aristotle)
- world and work of art are interdependent, literature ‘imitates’ the world
- mimesis as aesthetic ideal: literature is supposed to imitate the world and nature as precisely as possible
- literary traditions of realism and naturalism
 

gr. ‘pragma’=act
- the pursuit of practicality over aesthetic qualities
- a concentration on experiences rather than emotions or ideals
- concentrates on the purpose of literature to educate the reader, for example to communicate a moral message
- concentration on effect on the reader to be found in the literary theories of reader-response-criticism

the author wants to express himself/herself in his/her work of art (emotions, fears,...)
- author himself/herself as the centre of attention
- focus on the author as ‘centre of meaning’ to be found in biographical approaches, intentionalism
 

focus on work of art itself
- e.g. aesthetic ideal of art for art’s sake (l’art pour l’art) of late nineteenth century
- focus on the literary text to be found in literary theories of New Criticism (literary work of art speaks for itself, ‘organic whole’) or structuralism, deconstruction, post-structuralism (structures and functions of literary text(s))

distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’, definition of ‘fictionality’ questionable, since dividing line is often blurry and historically and culturally variable (e.g. essays, sermons, philosophic- political writings, letters)

- linguistic norms and deviations are socio-culturally and historically variable

- ‘literary’ language use may also be found in non-literary texts, e.g. advertising

--> ’polyvalence convention’ makes readers expect that literary texts are open to a variety of
interpretations
- leaves what is literary open to how sb. decides to read a text
- literature as a number of ways in which people relate themselves to writing vs. notion of an ‘essence’ of literature

- since value-judgements are notoriously variable, this definition reveals that literature is no objective category: sense of a set of works of assured, unalterable value, distinguished by certain shared inherent properties does not exist
- so-called literary canon (unquestioned ‘great tradition’ of ‘national literature’) has to be recognized as a construct (fashioned by particular people for particular reasons at a certain time)

literary history underpinned by different theoretical presuppositions -> literary theory and literary history mutually interdependent

there can be numerous ‘histories’ of any one national literature and any one period
o literary histories produce models and narratives of the past (periodisation, genre designation)