Hoja de Trabajo 6: Narrativa

SPN 305: Introducción a Estudios Literarios - Otoño 2014

Hoja de Trabajo: 6. Narrativa

1. Since the 1960s narrative has come to dominate literary education. However, poetry is often required, novels and short stories have become the core of the curriculum. (83)

2. Literary and cultural theory have increasingly claimed cultural centrality for narrative. Stories are the main way we make sense of things. (83)

3. We make sense of events through possible stories; philosophers of history have argued that the historical explanation follows not the logic of science causality but the logic of story. (84)

4. The theory of narrative relies on notions of plot, of different kinds of narrators, of narrative techniques.(84)

5. Requirements of a story: Aristotle said that plot is the most basic feature if narrative, that good stories must have beginning, middle, and end, and that give pleasure because of the rhythm of their ordering…Theorists have proposed various accounts for this order. Essentially, though a plot requires a transformation. There must be an initial situation, a change involving some sort of reversal, and a resolution that marks the change as significant. (85)

6. Unlike poetry, which gets lost in translation, plot can be preserved in translation from one language or one medium into another: a silent film or a comic strip can have the same plot as short story. (86) IMPORTANTE PARA NUESTRAS LECTURAS DE LRP

7. There are two ways of thinking about plot: (a) plot is a way of shaping events to make them into a genuine story; writers and readers shape events into a plot in their attempts to make sense of things; (b) plot is what gets shaped by narratives, as they present the same ‘story’ in different ways.

8. The three levels that make up a narrative: events, plot and discourse function as two oppositions: between events and plot, and between story and discourse. Plot or story is the material that is presented, ordered from a certain point of view by discourse (different versions of the same story). But plot itself is already a shaping of events. A plot can make a wedding the happy ending of the story or the beginning of a story-or can make it a turn in the middle. What readers actually encounter is the discourse of a text: the plot is something readers infer from the text, and the idea of elementary events out of which this plot was formed is also an inference or construction of the reader. (86-7)

9. Some key questions that identify meaningful vsriation: (a) Who speaks? (b) Who speaks to whom? (c) Who speaks when? (d) Who speaks what language? (e) Who speaks with what authority? (f) Who sees? (variables: temporal, distance and speed, and limitations of knowledge).

10. Theorists also discuss the function of stories..Story-tellers are always warding off the potential question: ‘So what?’ But what makes a story ‘worth it’? What stories do? First, they give pleasure. The pleasure of narrative is linked to desire and knowledge (92-93).  Second, stories also have the function of teaching us about the world, showing us how it works, enabling us to –through the devices of focalization- to see things from other vantage points, and to understand others’ motives that in general are opaque to us. Characters in novels (see quote page 93).

11. Through the knowledge they present, narratives police. Novels in the Western tradition show how aspirations are tamed and desires adjusted to social reality…In so far as we become who we are through a series of identifications, novels are a powerful device for the internalization of social norms. But narratives also provide a mode of social criticism. (93)

12. Finally, the basic question for theory in the domain of narrative is: Is narrative a fundamental form of knowledge (giving knowledge to the world as sense making) or is it a rhetorical structure that distorts as much as it reveals? There seems that we cannot answer this question…Instead we need to move back and forth between awareness of narrative as rhetorical structure and a study of narrative as the principal kind of sensemaking at our disposal.(94)

SPN 305: Hoja de Trabajo 5: 09 Sep, 14

SPN 305: Introducción a Estudios Literarios - Otoño 2014

Hoja de Trabajo: 5.  Retórica, Poética y Poesía

1.Poetics: the attempt to account for the literary effects by describing the conventions and reading operations that make them possible. (70)

2.Rhetoric: the study of the persuasive and expressive resources of language, the techniques of language and thought that can be used to describe effective discourses. Aristotle separated rhetoric from poetics, treating rhetoric as the art of persuasion and poetics as the art of imitation or representation. (70). Medieval and Renaissance traditions, assimilated the two: rhetoric became the art of eloquence and poetry (science it seeks to teach, to delight, and to move) was a superior instance of this art. In the 19^th century, rhetoric came to be seen as artifice divorced from the genuine activities of thought or of poetic imagination and fell into disfavor. In the late twentieth century rhetoric has been revived as the study of the structuring powers of discourse.

3. Poetry is related to rhetoric: it is language that makes abundant use of figures of speech and language that aims to be powerfully persuasive. (70)

4. In contrast to Plato, who excluded poets from his ideal republic, Aristotle asserted the value of poetry by focusing on imitation (mimesis) rather than rhetoric. He argued that poetry provides a safe outlet for the release of intense emotions. (70-71)

5. Literary theory has been much concerned with rhetoric, and theorists debate the nature and function of rhetorical figures. A rhetorical figure has generally been defined as an alteration of change from ‘ordinary’ usage.

6. In the past, theorists’ definitions: a trope turns or alters the meaning of a word (as in a metaphor) and a figure arranges words to achieve special effects such as alliteration (the alliteration of a consonant), apostrophe (addressing something that is not regular listener), and assonance (the repetition of a word). Recent theory rarely distinguishes tropes and figures. They are fundamental structures, not exception and distortions. Traditionally the most important figure has been the metaphor. A metaphor treats something as something else (calling Verónica a queen, or my love a big river). Metaphor is thus a version of a basic way of knowing: we know something by seeing it as something. For example: ‘Life is a journey’. (72)

7. For Roman Jakobson, metaphor and metonymy are the two fundamental structures of language. Metonymy moves from one thing to another that is contiguous with it, as when we say ‘the Crown’ for ‘the Queen’. (72-3). Other theorists add synecdoque and irony to complete a list of ‘four master tropes’. Synecdoque is the substitution of part for whole: ‘ten  hands’ for ‘ten workers’. It infers qualities of the whole from those of a part and allows the parts to represent wholes. Irony juxtaposes appearance and reality; what happens is the opposite of what is expected. (73)

8. Literature depends on rhetorical figures but also on larger structures, particular literary genres…For readers, genres are sets of conventions and expectations in a text. (73). Greeks: three broad classes according to who speaks: poetic or lyric, where the narrator speaks in the first person, epic or narrative, where the narrator speaks in his own voice but allows characters to speak in theirs, and drama, when the characters do all the talking. Another way is to focus on the relation of speaker to audience: In epic, there is oral recitation: a poet directly confronting the listening audience. In drama, the author is hidden from the audience and the characters on stage talk. In lyric, -the most complicated case-, the poet, in singing or chanting, turns his back on his listeners, so to speak, and speaks to himself or to someone else. To these three elementary genres, we can add the modern genre of the novel, which addresses the reader through a book. (74).

9. Epic and tragic drama were in ancient times and in the Renaissance: the crowning achievements of literature, the highest accomplishments of any aspiring poet. The invention of the novel brought a new competition onto the literary scene, but between the late 18^th century and the mid 20^th century, the lyric, a short non-narrative poem, came to be identified with the essence of literature. Theorists treat now lyric less an expression of the poet’s feelings and more associated with imaginative work on language making poetry a disruption of culture rather than the main repository of values. (74-75)

10. Literary theory that is focused on poetry debates, among other things, the relative importance of different ways of viewing poems: a poem is both a structure made of words (a text) and event (an act of the poet, ab experience of the reader, and event in literary history). 75

11. Lyric poetry, is utterance overheard…Lyrics, then, are fictional imitations of personal utterance…The dominant mode of appreciation of poetry has been the focus of the complexities of the speaker’s attitudes, on the poem as the dramatization of thoughts, and the feelings of a speaker whom one reconstructs. (76)

12. The extravagance of poetry includes the aspiration to what theorists since classical times have called the ‘sublime’, relation to what exceeds human capabilities of understanding, provokes awe or passionate intensity, gives the speaker a sense of something beyond the human (77).

13. The foregrounding and making strange of language through metrical organization and repetition of sounds is the basis of poetry…(80)… The interpretation of poems depends not just on the convention of unity but also on the convention and significance the rule is that poems, however slight in appearance, are supposed to be about something important. (81)

Los poemas que me impresionan son los que hablan de la condición humana como los del peruano César Vallejo. Hay algo transcendental en varios de sus poemas como el de “Masa” que resume de varias maneras lo dicho por el autor en (11). La conexión con el performance y la lectura de este tipo de poemas siempre me ha interesado como un efecto hacia una audiencia que busca compartir esos momentos de transcendencia humana.

Aquí un enlace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDwlT2xZINY

Términos literarios

Poetics: The general principles of poetry or of literature in general, or the theoretical study of these principles.

Poetry: Language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense.

Rhetoric: The deliberate exploitation of eloquence for the most persuasive effect in public speaking or in writing.

Genre: The French term for a type, species, or class of composition. A literary genre is a recognizable and established category of written work employing common conventions as will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it for another kind.

SPN 305: Contribuciones de estudiantes Conceptos Cap. 1-4 04 de Setiembre, 14

SPN 305: Definiciones  y comentarios

Catalina

1. Theory:

La teoría es una idea. No es típico, es fuera de la caja. La historia está más allá de lo que escribe el autor. Tomamos la teoría y creo que lo más que tema de sentido común normal. Crea un desafío.

Comments:    

Me ha gustado aprender sobre teoría. Yo no sabía que era un tema profundo. Hay un montón de interesantes puntos de vista sobre la teoría y cómo la teoría está presente. Me gusta que va por encima de la conversación normal.

2. Literature

La literatura es una combinación de todas las clases de escrituras. Literatura va sobre el conocimiento sólo común, pero se llama "escrituras imaginativa." Literatura se supone captar nuestra atención y nos dan ganas de escuchar más​. 

Comments:

He disfrutado siempre leer, pero nunca dio cuenta que había una diferencia en la literatura. Aprendizaje que la literatura ha evolucionado y ampliado con el tiempo fue interesante. Asimismo, que la literatura se supone que toma nuestras atención y hacen los lectores activos participa en la historia. 

3. Cultural Studies

Estudios culturales es un estudio de cómo las escrituras pueden cambiar vidas. Pero compara la expresión del pueblo y la impresión de la cultura a la gente para crear un estudio cultural. Estudios culturales quiere comprender la cultura y cómo está formado. Estudios culturales desde una posición literaria punto parece más profundo sobre cómo la cultura afecta las escrituras y las historias del autor.

Comments:

Estudios culturales es un tema interesante, porque es una buena manera de conocer otros lugares y su gente. Los lectores pueden entender de dónde viene el escritor. La historia es afecto por los tiempos y cultura a través de los detalles del escritor.​

SPN 305: Hoja de Trabajo 4: Lenguaje, Significado e Interpretación

SPN 305: Introducción a Estudios Literarios -Otoño 2014

Hoja de Trabajo: 4. Lenguaje, Significado e Interpretación

Lectura de temas teóricos:  

Mencione las ideas principales del tema

Ofrezca su comentario sobre este tema

1. Literature involves a special kind of language and a special use of language as special kind attention to language. (55)

2. What is involved in meaning? We need to take three different dimensions of meaning: the meaning of a word, of an utterance, and of a text. Possible meanings of words contribute to the meaning of an utterance, which is an act by a speaker. (And the meanings of words, in turn, come from the things they might do in utterances). Finally the text, which here represents an unknown speaker making the enigmatical utterance, is something an author has constructed, and its meaning, is not a proposition but what it does, its potential to affect readers. (56)

3. Meaning is based in difference. (56)

4. A language is a system of differences (Ferdinand de Saussure). What makes each element of a language what it is, what gives it its identity, are the contrasts between it and other elements within the system of language…For Saussure, a language is a system of signs and the key fact is what he calls the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign. This means two things: First, the sign for instance a word is a combination of a form (the ‘signifier’) and a meaning (the ‘signified’), and the relation between form and meaning is based on convention, not natural resemblance. (57)

5. Each language is a system of concepts as well as forms: a system of conventional signs that organizes the world. How language relates to thought has been a major issue for recent theory. At one extreme is the common-sense view that language just provides names for thought that exist independently…At the other extreme is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that claims that language we speak determines what we can think…We have evidence that one language or normal thoughts that require a special effort in another. (58-9).

6. Saussure distinguishes the system of language (la langue) from particular instances of speech and writing (parole). The task of linguistics is to reconstruct the underlying system (or grammar) of a language that makes possible the speech events or parole.

7. In literary studies, there is a contrast between poetics and hermeneutics. Poetics starts with attested meanings or effects and asks how they are achieved (What makes this passage ironic?). Hermeneutics, on the other hand, starts with texts and what they mean, seeking to discover new and better interpretations. (61)

8. In fact, works of literary criticism; often combine poetics and hermeneutics, asking how a particular effect is achieved or why an ending seems right (poetics) but also asking what a particular line means and what a poem tells us about the human condition (hermeneutics).

9. One reason why literary studies in modern time shave favored hermeneutics over poetics is meaning needs to be sought… Another reason is that people generally study literature works not because they are interested in the functioning of literature but because they think these works have important things to tell them and what they are. (62).

10. The idea of literary competence focuses attention on the implicit knowledge that readers (and writers) bring to the their encounters with texts, what sort of procedures do readers follow in responding to works as they do?...Thinking about readers and the way they make sense of literature has led to what has been called ‘reader-response criticism’, which claims that the meaning of the text is the experience of the reader. (63)

11. There a number of theoretical school and movements (see Appendix in Literary Theory) that from the point of view of hermeneutics, are dispositions to give particular kinds of answers to the question of what a work is ultimately about: ‘the class struggle’ (Marxism), ‘the asymmetry of gender relations’ (feminism), or the ‘heterosexual matrix’(gay and lesbian studies) for example. (64).

12. But how do we choose between interpretations? The liveliness of the institution of literary study demands that: (a) arguments about what a literary work is about is never settled; and (b) arguments have to be made about how particular scenes or combinations of lines support any particular hypothesis. You can’t make a work mean just anything: it resists, and you have to labor to convince others of the pertinence of your reading. (65)

13. The meaning of a work is not what the author had in mind at some point, nor is it the property of the text or the experience of a reader. Meaning is an escapable notion because it is not something simple or simple determined. It is simultaneously an experience of a subject and a property of a text. If we must adopt an overall principle or formula, that meaning is determined by context, since context includes rules of language, the situation of the author and the reader, and anything else that might be conceivable relevant. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless.

Comentario

El lemguaje, el significado y la interpretación de una obra va a estar determinada no solo por poética (el cómo se llega a un objetivo) sino la hermenéutica (de que se trata el texto al final) de una obra literaria. Nuestra interpretación basada en nuestros objetivos y maneras de ver el mundo será importante hacer argumentos de los significados que le demos al texto tanto de una manera particular como general pero que tienen que ser convincentes de acuerdo al contexto de la producción y recepción de la obra literaria.