Englisch (Subject) / Literature and Culture (Lesson)

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• There is no one "true, correct notion of literature, but there are concepts. Which concepts are there There are textual concepts (werkästhetische) and contextual concepts (kontextbezogene)
• Concepts of literature Criteria ? Quantitative Criteria Qualitative Criteria
• Quantitavie Criteria Narrow selection: drama poetry narrative fiction Broad selection: article essay autobiography song lyrics diary aphorism prayer joke graffiti
• Qualitative criteria Normative definition high literature Descriptive definition popular literature (schema literatur, trivialliteratur)
• Textual concepts of literature: (Defining Literature) Fictionality real - fiction depends on type of reference fictional language works like referential language, but does not make truth claim no read as truth statement mimesis (imitation) - poisies (creation) [realism - fantasy] Mimesis: Literature that imitates the real world Poisies: Literature that creates realities independet from the real world
• Are all fictional texts literature an all non fictional texts not literature? -> Some fictional texts can be written as if in the real world, some non-fictional texts can use literary language (reportage)
• Textual concepts of literature: Literariness, Poeticity As linguistic features of special type of text not read as pragmatic statement in defined context decontextualized and thus open to multiple perspectives gives rise to: special type of reception readers bring certain set of assumptions and interpretive operations to bear on literary texts literary demands and rewards intense attention; is the result of semiotic effort and is extremely meaningful special type of language use --> Complexity (each text contains multiple perspectives) ambiguity (no one meaning, open to interpretation) organization, patterning (importance of form) self-referentiality, poetic function (Jakobson) (language that makes you notice it) deviation, defamiliarisation (russian formalism) intertextuality, autonomy (text places itself in relation to smiliar texts, text as part of autonomous literary system)
• "The task of literature is to identify the typical literary techniques in which...... ....defamiliarisation finds concrete expression." (Nünning 19)
• How can you call a rhyming pattern? Iambic pentameter
• Contextual concept literature as social practice Literature is socially constructed and performed It is embedded in the literary system (book stores, publishers, literary festivals, literary magazines, uni...) Institution of literary system (literary field:bordieu) construct and perpetuate a certain view of literature marked by special ways of reception and appreciation Text internal and text external markers            - Genre, Title, Subtitle, Book Cover (Design), Font, Size, Type of paper etc.            - Type of marketing, type of publisher, poetry reading, placement in bookshop, review in              cultural section in newspaper            - Author´s name as signal. Aesthetic object created by single creative mind
• English literature: a working definition belongs to a larger part of aesthetic (music, sculture, painting) verbal art in print Texts that show both features of literariness and fictionality belongs to one of the three classical genres (drama, poetry, narrative fiction) anglophone literary texts
• Literary criticism (Literaturwissenschaft) concerned with all areas of the literary system (author, text, context, reader) Uses specific theories, models, terms and tools explains how text works, what they consist of, what their specific features are (analysis) explains the manifold meanings and effects of a text (interpretation) - no one meaning, but a range of meanings - no one authoritative reading, but many readings explores the complex interrelations between society, history, ideology and literature
• Meaning = Relation to a given context meaning = function Meaning: an object´s function/ effect with regards to a specific context; Meaning is defined by an object´s  specific relationship(s) to different contexts: other texts by the same author texts of the same genre texts of the same period texts of the previous period contemporary cultural context contemporary social/ political context contemporary ideological/ philosophical context literary theory Intertextual meaning vs. extratextual meaning The meaning of an textual element vs. the meaning of the entire text
• The changeability of Textual Meaning? Depends on context that implies that, the textual meaning is not stable, fixed, monolithic, universal but changes with the cultural communities/frameworks/contexts whithin which it is placed/read. But of course, there are also changes with each individual reader in a community
• Literary Criticism as a scholarly endeavour (Wissenschaftlichkeit) Interpretation is never context free. It always rests on certain assumptions, premises and presuppositions that need to be made explicit! coherent, logical, plausible and systematic argumentation Intersubjectivity
• Simplified model of literary communication Author -> literary text (message) -> reader Institutions of literarty mediation: Author, Medium, Code, Reader All that happens in socio-historical context
• The channel language in print/some consequences written text as storehouse of human memory repeatable, durable communication at one remove non pragmatic: abstract and aestheticised through lack of immediate communicative context standardisation(of stylistic and generic choice, of way ot thinking, of perceiving and evaluating individualisation (trough derivation of standardized form) mass production emerge of reading & debating public
• Literary criticism: Approaches Approaches centering the literary context: studies literary sources and influences literary sociology studies on intertextuality and intermediality Author centred approaches biographical approach psychonalytical approach Text-centred approaches new criticism/ close reading structuralism post-structuralism context centred approaches feminist literary criticism marxist literary criticism post colonial theory new historicism culural studies... readers centred approaches Reader-responsive criticism cognitive poetics empirical reception studies history of reception and effect of work
• Story vs. Discourse Story: What is narrated? Who does what and in which order? Where, When and Why? The level of surface content Treats signifié-elements as if they where real ("madeness" and "inventedness" are ignored) summary, eye witness report strictly neutral account, chronology, causality Story elements: action character temporal and local setting
• Story vs. Discourse Discourse How is it narrated level of transmission, textualization, of giving the story textual shape moulding the story elements so as to give them a certain, meaning, function and effect affects all textual levels: typography ,phonetic level, communication situation, temporal order, space, characterisation, style, speech and thought represantation.....
• The five analytical levels Story/Discourse/Theme/Norm --> Functions
• Ubiguity of narratives: story telling as fundamental human activity story telling occurs in real life and literature story telling can be found in all genres and media the way of making things mean, of imposing order, hierarchy, sequences and significance of disjointed chaos of experiences and impressions.
• Narrativity: events What stories need EVENTS !! Event: change of state
• Narrative / The story level Action Action: Plot structure internal vs. external plotlines teleological (quest, freytag triangle) cyclical episodic static
• Narrative/ The story level Action:(multiple plot lines) connected causally, through caracters, common theme hierarchy: main plot vs. sub plot contrast - correspondence
• local setting semanticised setting text as special system correspondences and system
• Characterisation Character grouping (according to corrsepondences and contrast) Position within the character system what larger concepts the character stands for flat vs round (one- dimensional vs. pluri- dimensional) static vs dynamic minor vs main charachter antagonist vs protagonist character types: witty couples, rake, fop,wittwould / confident/ Foil character/ blocking character
• Types of characterisation Narratorial vs. figural Explicit vs. implicit self vs. altero characterisation reliable/unreliabe characterisation unreliable --> discrepancy between contents of characterisation and real state of affairs - reader decides on basis of context and word knowledge
• Time concerns relation between story time and discourse time story time is the time that passes in the narrated wolrd disoucrse time: time required in order to narrate or read a text (watch a film) Order (When?) Duration (How long?) Frequency (How often?)
• Order chronology vs. anachrony anachrony: chronolgy is interrupted by a flaschback or a flashforward flaschback (analepsis) flaschforward (prolepsis) objective vs. subjective anachrony (factual vs. imaginary; trough narrator vs. as perceived by character)
• Time Frequency Story                      Discourse Singulative Repetitive Multi-Singulative Iterative
• Levels of narrative communication Author - - - - - - - - - - -> Reader (Level of non fictional communication) Narrator - - - - - - - - - - -> Addressee (Level of fictional mediation) Character - - - - - - - - - -> Character (Level of fictional communication)
• Levels of narrative communication (the less sophisticated version) "Fiction does not imitate reality out there. It imitates a fellow telling about it." (Baker, 1981)
• Narrative Situation Shaping the level of mediation Concerns with the way a story is mediated Many (conflicting) theories, many (contradictory) terms Form Format Focalisation View Mode
• Form of narration (Erzählform; Voice) Where the narrator is situated vis-a-vis the fictional story About whom the story is. Homodiegetic (The narrator is part of the narrated story) 1 st person narration Autodiegetic (The narrator tells his own story) 1 st person narration Heterodiegetic (The narrator is outside the narrated story) 3 rd person narration
• Format of narration = specific shape of narrator / character overt vs. covert overt: has more direct, overt contact to the narratee, often addresses the readership and refers to him/herself in 1st person covert: does not address the narratee, uses no vocal markers (such as performative, phatic, appellative and expressive speech acts) In special case of autodiegetic narration: I as narrator vs. I as character Degree of narrator´s knowledge vs. characters omnisience - same degree of knowledge - limited knowledge reliable/unreliable
• Focalisation From which perspective the story is viewed who sees ≠ who narrates "view" = feeling, seeing, believing, knowing, remembering external focalisation: godlike omnisience, no perspetivity internal focalisation: info which can be knowm by the focaliser, focaliser can change, strong perspectivity. Focaliser: Character within the story whose focus of perception is (temporarly) taken over by the narrator
• View Do we get to know the characters thoughts ? inside view vs. outside view
• Mode Telling (diegesis, narrative mode) showing (mimesis, dramatic mode) desriptive mode argumentative mode

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