Tag Archives: Bressler

Bressler is my new Hero

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Bressler shed some insight on the various levels of criticism, as well as attempting to form a concrete definition of “literature”. When describing the different types of critics, he showed how they relate to one another. I was under the assumption that a literary critic was just a critic who evaluated a piece of literature; after reading Bressler’s definition of the different roles a critic takes, however, I feel much more informed and now view the literary critic with more respect and reverence. He then drew my attention to the theory of literature. I have had a brush with a few key terms from the theory toolbox in other classes, but I found his explanation more comprehensive. I especially like the quote: “Whereas literary criticism involves our analysis of a text, literary theory is concerned with our understanding of the ideas, concepts, and intellectual assumptions upon which our actual literary critique rests” (8). The distinction between the two made these broad concepts more understandable for me, and I enjoy thinking of literary theory as “concerned” with what my personal experiences and knowledge lends to my analysis of a text.

I found the definition of what exactly literature is to also be highly entertaining. I was drawn in by the implications which language and the construction of words can have on something’s meaning. The examples of the Latin term littera and the German word Wortkunst depicted this distinction of carefully chosen words to represent a body of works—whether oral tradition or the “written word”. It never occurred to me that the written word would have its own flaws (hence the example of the phonebook); however, upon reflecting on this crucial part of deciphering just what constitutes “literature” I began to think of many example where the written word wouldn’t actually have any literary merit.

Bressler also brings back the idea of a ‘canon’ when he explains the “hyper-protected cooperative principle” (13). I agree with Bressler when he asserts that though published works may be superior to a phonebook, not all published works are worthy of being included in a significant literary canon.

Advertising, Media, Literature, Commercialism, or Creativity?

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Our conversation today based on Bresslers “Defining Criticism, Theory, and Literature” got me thinking about modern days vast media, and how the meaning of literature has no doubt shifted greatly from what critics initially proposed as guidelines in the 1800’s. Bressler’s section on Defining Literature put forward several possibilities for the definition of literature, but overall, also left a lot of questions, room for negotiation, and general ambiguity.

I took the liberty of putting forth a few examples of what I consider, walking the modern-day line between art, literature, media and advertising. The truth is, as we progress as a society the meanings of all of these have fused. An advertisements success in targeting the educated literate class may rely on its ability to mimic established literary ideas, and thereby be accepted as more reliable. This is evident even in such minor things as the formatting of letters on commercials or billboards—if it is advertising something that is supposed to be serious, reliable, or have integrity, such as a law firm or an insurance company, you can bet they are using classic fonts—Times New Roman, Arial, Old Courier. This isn’t accidental. We ascribe certain moral values to these types of fonts, we are reminded of sturdy, classic novels, just like we subtlety ascribe values to writing styles. In this way, the question of ‘what is literature?’ is being compounded. Literature is everywhere something disguised as something else.

For example, I today I was reminded of something I think of often when I shop online at Anthropologie (hold on a second, don’t let me lose you on the way to this point, it’s valid, I swear.) Every time I look at an item its accompanied by a very catchy, enticingly well-worded description of the apparel that borders on poetry. There is no doubt that Anthropologie hires advertisers, or quite likely creative writers, to compose these vignettes for each article they put out. Besides wondering “how the hell does someone get that job?” I also found myself wondering: “could this be considered modern-day literature?”

Here are some amusing examples:

“With the help of a little magic, it seems, Leifsdottir has swirled a thousand colors into their chiffon-paneled silk charmeuse dress.”

“Slick, wine-hued patent pours over the platform, chunky heel and stylized origami bow of these embossed suede peep-toes, creating a heady contrast of textures.”

“These season-spanning slip-ons combine the sun-yellow hue of summer with the tassels and kilty fringe of autumn-evoking loafers.”

“Layered and lined with layers of lines, this silver-flecked dress is an achromatic success.”

You might think that this is clearly an instance of advertising, definitely NOT literature, but it more than plays with very much established literary tools. There is alliteration and imagery, even rhyme, characterization, and a conscientiousness of language. What if each of these descriptions was teased out into a short characterization? Each object featured as a small story, to further enhance the perception of ‘uniqueness’ and evoke desired associations?

What about blogs? They are becoming a definite source of employment for creative writing graduates. These days companies, stores, schools, and individuals are all looking to get in on the social mass media frenzy. Here is a blog of one of my friends who graduated from CofC, and who writes amusing daily anecdotes tinged with societal commentary, humor, and occasionally the profound poem. (She would probably kill me if she knew I was posting this, but its public domain : – ) http://sofiewrites.com/blog/

What about the transcript of Obama’s presidential inauguration speech, which was no doubt, VERY carefully crafted and composed?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html

And lastly, (in this authors opinion perhaps the farthest stretch for the application of the title Literature) what about the Twilight book series? Have you ever tried to read one of those things? Tell me the Anthropologie clothing descriptions are not better written than those. I mean where are the guidelines for this stuff, or is it just all one indecipherable mess of media, advertising, commercialism, and writing? Dare we refer to these things as ‘literature?’