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Eine Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Verlage

Beltz Verlag Weinheim · BaselBöhlau Verlag Köln · Weimar · WienVerlag Barbara Budrich Opladen · Farmington Hillsfacultas.wuv WienWilhelm Fink MünchenA. Francke Verlag Tübingen und BaselHaupt Verlag Bern · Stuttgart · Wien

Julius Klinkhardt Verlagsbuchhandlung Bad HeilbrunnLucius & Lucius Verlagsgesellschaft StuttgartMohr Siebeck TübingenC. F. Müller Verlag HeidelbergOrell Füssli Verlag ZürichVerlag Recht und Wirtschaft Frankfurt am MainErnst Reinhardt Verlag München · BaselFerdinand Schöningh Paderborn · München · Wien · ZürichEugen Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart

UVK Verlagsgesellschaft KonstanzVandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingenvdf Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich

UTB 2526

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English and AmericanLiteratures

A. Francke Verlag Tübingen und Basel

M I C H A E L M E Y E R

3., überarbeitete underweiterte Auflage

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Umschlagabbildung: Atelier Reichert unter Verwendung eines Fotos von Michael Flaig.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen National-bibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über <http://dnb.d-nb.de> abrufbar.

3., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 20082., überarbeitete Auflage 20051. Auflage 2004

© 2008 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KGDischingerweg 5 · D-72070 TübingenISBN 978-3-7220-8255-9

Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertungaußerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlagesunzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikro-verfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.Gedruckt auf chlorfrei gebleichtem und säurefreiem Werkdruckpapier.

Internet: http//www.francke.deE-Mail: [email protected]

Satz, Layout und Einbandgestaltung: Atelier Reichert, StuttgartDruck und Bindung: CPI – Ebner & Spiegel, UlmPrinted in Germany

ISBN 978-3-8252-2526-1 (UTB-Bestellnummer)

Michael Meyer ist Professor für Anglistik an der Universität Koblenz-Landau.

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V

Prefaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 What is literature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.2 Literary criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.3 Literary history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1.4 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2 Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2.1 What are poetic texts and what do we (ab)use them for? 22

2.2 Communication, speaker, situation and topic . . . . . . . . . 26

2.3 Rhetorical form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.4 Poetic form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.4.1 Metre and rhythm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.4.2 Phonological forms, stanzas and types of poems . . . . . . . 45

2.5 Postmodern poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512.6 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

2.7 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3 Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

3.1 Oral and written narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

3.2 Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

3.2.1 Narrative situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

3.2.2 Voice and focalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

3.2.3 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3.3 Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

3.4 Fiction and metafiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

3.5 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

3.6 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

4 Drama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

4.1 Dramatic text and theatrical performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

4.2 Verbal communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 994.3 Character and action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

4.4 Place and time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Contents

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4.5 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

4.6 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

5 Literary Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1315.1 Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

5.1.1 Psychoanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

5.2 Text and code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

5.2.1 New Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

5.2.2 Formalism, structuralism and semiotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

5.2.3 Deconstructivism, post-structuralism

and postmodernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

5.3 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.3.1 Marxism and cultural materialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.3.2 New Historicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

5.3.3 Feminism and gender studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

5.3.4 Postcolonialism and multiculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

5.4 Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

5.5 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

6 Research papers, presentations and examinations . . . . . . . . . . 185

6.1 Academic standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1866.2 Getting organised . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

6.3 Writing a term paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

6.3.1 Defining topic, purpose and approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

6.3.2 Research for and use of secondary material . . . . . . . . . . . 190

6.3.3 Writing the first draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

6.3.4 Revising the paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

6.3.5 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

6.4 Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

6.5 Oral and written examinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

6.6 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

7 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

7.1 Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

7.2 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

7.3 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

VI C O N T E N T S

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VI I

This introduction to analysing literature is intended to bridge the

gap between students’ needs and academic requirements. It ad-

dresses students’ difficulties with technical terms and issues in lit-

erary studies without oversimplifying matters. Providing helpful

tools for reading and research, this book primarily addresses stu-

dents in the first semesters but is designed to be also helpful for

preparing final examinations. The text

˘ concentrates on the major literary genres,

˘ provides many examples from various historical periods,

˘ explains how and why to use approaches and technical terms,

˘ presents a set of guiding questions for the analysis of texts,

˘ offers exercises to practise analysis and interpretation,

˘ comments on and recommends further reading,˘ gives comprehensive checklists to enable students to cope with

papers, presentations and examinations,

˘ concludes with an index of technical terms, authors and titles.

The text highlights key terms in bold letters at their first appear-

ance and central statements in italics. Wherever the German term

differs markedly in spelling, it is provided (in parentheses). This book

cannot sketch the histories of literatures in English around the

world but gives a first overview of the generic and historical variety

of literary texts mainly from Great Britain and the United States.

The selection of examples follows that of major anthologies and

literary histories. The nationality and biographical dates of authors

as well as the year of publication are given where available. At the

end of each chapter, the lists of works mark titles strongly recom-

mended for further reading with an asterisk*.

The chapters subsequent to the introduction can be read in any

order. The structure of the book follows systematic and pragmaticconsiderations for teaching and studying literature and literary

theory. Beginning with the basic analysis of texts from each genre

Preface

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allows you to see how additional approaches provide new ques-

tions about and insights into these texts. The initial interpretation

of poetry has the advantage of dealing with short texts at the be-

ginning of the semester and of introducing terms of rhetorics, which are helpful for understanding texts from other genres as

well. An additional reading of a few short stories and a drama

would perfectly complement the texts discussed here.

This introduction is dedicated to my students, whose questions

made me repeatedly search for better explanations and examples.

My warm thanks go to my students, colleagues and friends Kerstin

Eichler, Andreas Eul, Karin Lange, Elin Meek, Anja Müller-Muth,

Mary Reid, Monika Reif, Christoph Reinfandt, Isabella Rotsch,

Alexander Stützer and Kenneth Wynne, whose comments on vari-

ous chapters helped me to reconsider and rewrite them. I also

thank the editor Stephan Dietrich for his great patience and sup-

port. Of course, all remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to

write to [email protected].

Preface to the third edition

The third edition defines more subgenres and adds examples in

order to provide a better insight into the historical development of

the genres and to offer more texts for discussion. The section on lit-

erary theory has been expanded to accommodate more concepts

and present a more comprehensive, but still concise, overview of

major contemporary approaches to literature. The introduction of

basic questions and concepts for a close analysis of texts does not

advocate New Critical readings but is meant to provide a basic un-

derstanding of specific features of genres. A sophisticated and up-

to-date interpretation would combine the perspective of a contem-

porary approach with particular questions on the genre of the text

under discussion, such as an analysis of the gendered composition

of a narrative.

Many thanks go to colleagues and students who provided me

with feedback on the third edition, such as Sandra Bornstedt,

Christoph Houswitschka and Paul Schlueter, to Karoline Oeser and

the editor Kathrin Heyng for their help, my wife Stephanie and my daughter Sarah for their patience.

M. M.

VIII P R E F A C E

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1

Introduction

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

| 1

This chapter gives a brief sketch of the scope of English

and American literatures and of the basic disciplines

that define literary studies, theory, criticism and history,

all of which are interrelated.

What is literature? 4

Literary criticism 10

Literary history 14

Bibliography 18

Abstract

Contents

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Studying English and American lit-

eratures gives you access to a wealth

of numerous cultures around the

world. Besides the obvious suspects of English nationality, “English” liter-

atures include literature written in

English by Welsh, Scottish, Anglo-

Irish and “Black British” authors, an

awkward umbrella term for non-white immigrants or residents in

England. Anglistik also covers the huge variety of New English Liter-

atures or postcolonial literatures in English written by authors

from former colonies. Besides literature written by white authors

in (American) English, American literature also comprises “ethnic”

(and sometimes multilingual) literatures written within the United

States, such as African American, Asian American, Chicano, Indian

and Jewish. For historical, political, cultural and geographical

reasons, Caribbean and Canadian literatures in English are con-

tested territories between Anglistik and Amerikanistik. It is impossi-

ble to read everything. Take a look at the Studienordnung and the

Prüfungsordnung in order to get an overview of the requirements

and your options, and take the opportunity to broaden your hori-zon beyond the traditional canon of books by “dead white men”.

The literary representation of experience allows the reader to share

imaginatively others’ interpretations of different worlds. Studying lit-

erature expands the understanding of (fictional) texts by systema-

tic reflections on what literature is, how it relates to history and

culture, and how we can read it in order to arrive at interesting

and well-founded insights. (In general terms, studying English and

American literatures expands our knowledge of vocabulary and

fosters the skills of reading, speaking, writing and intercultural

communication in English). Literary Studies (roughly: Literaturwis-

senschaft ) are defined by three disciplines, which are interrelated:

literary theory, criticism and history.

Literary theory (Greek theorein: to observe) simply means reflection

and poses the questions: what is literature, how does it come into

existence, and what does it do for which reasons? The answers to

these questions usually imply assumptions about individual identi-

ty, society and culture, and suggest a particular approach ( Zugang , Methode), a guideline on reading texts.

2 I N T R O D U C T I O N

Literary studies:

theory, criticism,

history

Studies serve for delight, for ornament,and for ability. Their chief use for delight is

in privateness and retiring; for ornament,is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business.Francis Bacon, “Of Studies” (1625).

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3I N T R O D U C T I O N

If you think that you do not need any theory to understand lit-

erature, ask yourself why you understand literature the way you

do. Literary theory

˘ raises our awareness of what we are doing when we read litera-ture,

˘ provides us with new perspectives and concepts to analyse texts,

˘ helps us to understand secondary material, and

˘ to communicate our own insights to others (Nünning, Grund-

kurs 45).

Literary criticism (Literaturkritik, Analyse, Interpretation) describes, analy-

ses, interprets and evaluates literary works in two basic ways: the

reader either records his/her more or less subjective impressions of

the text or presents an approach that explains its questions and

terms of analysis in theoretically informed criticism, which is the

aim of literary studies. Its result would be a critique, a serious and

profound essay or article.

Literary history (re)constructs the development of literature, tak-

ing into account theoretical assumptions, criticism and historical

contexts. Literary histories establish and revise a canon of works (a

list of important texts) and therefore influence what is mainly readat schools and universities. All disciplines are subject to change,

and so is literary history. Feminist theory and criticism, for exam-

ple, boosted the re-reading of “forgotten” women’s texts and the

rewriting of literary histories in order to include the female tradi-

tion.

| Fig. 1.1

Literary

studies.

Criticism

Theory History

Literarystudies

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What is literature?

It is easier to say why we read literature than to define what litera-

ture is. However, our motivation to read literature implies funda-mental ideas about what it is, which are in turn closely related to

how we read it. Readers are often interested in (1) the world that

literature reveals, (2) the entertainment and/or instruction it pro-

vides, (3) the author’s experience or view of life expressed in it, or

(4) the artistic quality of the text itself. We use extrinsic information

to study the mimetic image of reality, the pragmatic effect upon

readers and the expressive origin within the writer. Intrinsic read-

ings focus on the text itself (Abrams 6-7). All of these motives have

figured for centuries in debates about the nature and function of

literature. These discussions show that literature does not own essen-

tial qualities but is rather defined by writers’ and readers’ negotiations of

literary conventions. Here, I will simply introduce some implications

of the various interests, preparing the ground for the presentation

of major modern theories in chapter 5.

1 Aristotle (384-322 BC) defined mimesis, the imitation of reality, as a

major function of literature in response to Plato (429-347 BC), who denigrated literature as a lie because it represented “ap-

pearance rather than truth” (Abrams 9). Aristotle conceded that

literature does not give us the factual truth of history but prob-

able truth, something that might have happened as against

what did happen. However, he considered literature superior to

history because it deals with general and fundamental truth

rather than that of particular characters and events (Aristotle

29-31). The English poet Sidney (1554-1586) supported Aristotle’s

view when he maintained that literature cannot deceive anyone

because it does not claim that it is literally true (NAEL 1: 947).

However, the boundary between fact and fiction does not allow

a foolproof definition of literature. Non-mimetic literature, such

as fairy tales, fantasy or science-fiction, does not stick to the

rules of probability and usually does not pass for reality. A fa-

mous exception proves the rule: when H.G. Wells’s (GB, 1866-

1946) novel War of the Worlds (1898) was broadcasted as a radio

play in the US (1938), thousands of listeners panicked, fearingan attack on the US from Mars. – Travel writing, historiography

and the essay may cross the border into fictional territory, shap-

1.1 |

Aristotle: mimesis

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5W H A T I S L I T E R A T U R E ?

ing characters and events according to aesthetic criteria, where-

as novels and plays sometimes cannibalise reality for their char-

acters, stories and settings, even if the fictional frame changes

their function. – How can we understand the ways in which lit-erature imitates reality? Literature transforms conceptions of re-

ality with the help of aesthetic means, such as particular im-

ages, constructions of characters, sequences of action, etc. Liter-

ature creates possible worlds that can serve as a comment about

the “real” world.

2 The Roman writer Horace (65-68 BC) claimed that literature

serves the readers’ need for pleasure and/or profit (Latin aut delectare

aut prodesse). To define literary pleasure in more modern terms:

literature provides an aesthetic experience (Greek aisthesis: percep-

tion; ästhetische Erfahrung ). This experience can be described as an

emotional and imaginative involvement in literature, which

often takes the form of sympathy, delight in beauty, amuse-

ment, suspense, terror, horror, often accompanied by an intel-

lectual stimulation to reflect on the language, order and mean-

ing of art. “People mutht be amuthed. They can’t always be

a’learning and a’working”, says the lisping director of the circus

in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854: 308). Dickens’snovel, which resembles contemporary soap operas, is not only

sentimental and entertaining but appeals to the reader’s moral

and political judgement. Hard Times criticises the heartless and

greedy employer and the furious and manipulative unionist

alike, opting for a mutually respectful and humane cooperation

between capitalists and workers: literature, the school of the na-

tion? Some genres often carry explicit moral messages: fables,

didactic poetry, satires or Christian literature, such as John Bun-

yan’s (England, 1628-88) Pilgrim’s Progress (1678/84), which shows

the model way to resist temptation in order to enter heaven. In

reverse, Puritans have argued that plays and novels corrupt peo-

ple because they present examples of immoral behaviour. Even

recently, Harry Potter came under Christian fire for allegedly

leading children astray by promoting interest in magic, occult

and evil forces. However, literature does not claim to serve as a

guidebook to practical life. The famous Spanish author Cer-

vantes (1547-1616) ridiculed Don Quixote (1605/15), who seesthe early modern world according to medieval romances and

mistakes himself for a knight in shining armour in heroic strug-

Horace: pleasure

and profit

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gle against giants, which are nothing other than windmills. The

fictional character Joe Savage, whose values of love, manners

and dignity are based upon Shakespeare’s plays, cannot cope

with the futurist Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley (GB,1894-1963) and would be lost in today’s permissive and con-

sumerist society. – Books or films may influence what people

think about but do not determine how they think about it. We

can hardly claim that “readers of literature do it better”, that

they are per se superior human beings and citizens or that litera-

ture presents universal values. Contemporary western female

readers would not accept the gendered norms of Hard Times,

which idealises very gentle, submissive and selfless women. Due

to historical and cultural changes in taste and in values, con-

temporary readers may find neither delight nor instruction in

literary works which were bestsellers in their time. Thus, the pro-

vision of entertainment and learning is not a steadfast criterion of liter-

ature itself but subject to changing attributions. While the mimetic

model of literature stresses its function as a mirror of reality

and the pragmatic model its effect upon the reader, the expres-

sive model emphasises the role of the author as the origin of art

(Abrams 26).3 The English Romantic William Wordsworth (1770-1850) regard-

ed literature primarily as the author’s subjective expression of his/her

emotions and imagination, and in turn read literature as an

image of the author’s personality (NAEL 2: 250). If the sponta-

neous and true expression of the inner self was the goal, the

perception of external reality, the conventional literary rules

and the traditional expectations of the audience were rather in

the way. The individual genius created poetic rules of his/her

own and was his/her own best reader. The poet ignored or tried

to shape the taste of the reader, who could appreciate the text

and share the subjective experience in an imaginative response.

While all literature is expressive in the restricted sense that it must have

been experienced in the author’s mind before it is written down on

paper, the question is whether the search for the author’s expression

finds or rather constructs the personality that is assumed to be behind

the text . Apart from the three extrinsic models mentioned above,

the intrinsic one deals with the text itself.4 The American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) proclaimed that litera-

ture is a purely aesthetic object with no reference to reality: it is art


Wordsworth:

expression

Poe: art for art’s sake

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for art’s sake. Poe’s “Poetic Principle” (1848) rejects the mimetic

and moral functions as criteria of literary value: “this poem

which is a poem and nothing more – this poem [is] written sole-

ly for the poem’s sake” (NAAL 1: 1470). Poe stressed the musicallanguage and “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty” (NAAL 1: 1472) in

poetry. The English poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-88)

underlined the “synthesis and exposition” of ideas in “beautiful

works” (NAEL 2: 1516). In turn, the critic’s task was simply “to

see the object as in itself it really is” (NAEL 2: 1514) and to con-

template the ideas revealed in great literature in a disinterested

way. While Arnold said that we read poetry “to interpret our life

for us, to console us, to sustain us” (NAEL 2: 1535), to form and

to cultivate us, he maintained that we should not draw any con-

clusions that concern practical behaviour in the material world.

His assumption that unique works of genius embody universal

values corresponds to his demand to leave personal likings and

historical preferences out of “objective” literary judgements

(NAEL 2: 1536).

In sum, the four traditional perspectives on literature as aesthetic

imitation, effect, production and object hardly reveal any self-evi-dent essence of literature but contradictory as well as complemen-

tary attributions of its nature, function and value. – As an aesthetic

object, every literary text is bound to a genre and to a medium.

Genres form a system of groups or families of texts defined by sets of con-

ventions, which guide both the writing and reading of texts. Genres are

often distinguished by the form of communication (e.g. narrative,

drama), mood or attitude (elegy, satire), content (crime, science-fic-

tion), the relation to reality (mimetic vs. non-mimetic) and aesthet-

ic effect (comedy, horror) or a combination of these criteria. For ex-

ample, besides content and aesthetic effect, Aristotle used the form

of communication in order to distinguish between three basic lit-

erary genres: in poetry, only the poet speaks; in drama, actors/char-

acters act and speak, and in epic narrative, the author reports

other characters’ actions. A genre is a useful if fuzzy model of a text,

which is distinguished by differences from other genres of its time, but which

also changes over time. Contemporary poetry, for example, often ig-

nores metre and rhyme, which have been hallmarks of the genrefor centuries. Individual texts follow a genre or deviate from mod-

els by combining genres (e.g. verse novel, epic drama) or by intro-

Literary genres

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ducing new elements to a genre (physical love, three quartets and a

couplet in English Renaissance sonnets in contrast to the Petrar-

chan model of idealised love, two quartets and two tercets; see

2.4.2, 48-49). The function of the medium cannot be reduced to the mere mate-

rial form of literature because it is closely related to the ways of

communication. Orality ( Mündlichkeit ) is based on contact, partici-

pation and community. Oral literature or orature takes place in

face-to-face interaction and therefore includes voice, facial expres-

sion, gesture and movement to support understanding. Oral pre-

sentations of poems or stories take into account the kind, situation

and response of the audience, a fact that results in unique per-

formances, which vary the topic, length and complexity of the

texts. Orature has existed since time immemorial and is still of

great importance in many cultures in Africa, Australia, New

Zealand and among Canadian and American Indians. In Anglo-

American cultures, radio plays use one-way oral communication

at a distance. Poetry slams revive the communal experience of the

oral tradition.

In comparison to oral texts, the texts of written literature in

print (versus manuscript versions) are much more stable. The riseof literature is related to a market of literate customers served by

publishers. Print allows the distribution of a text among a large

circle of readers even beyond its contemporary culture and history,

which considerably increases not only an author’s potential read-

ership but also his/her distance from it. In turn, individual readers

often need considerable aesthetic knowledge in order to relate to

the position of the potential addressee of a text and may want ad-

ditional cultural and historical knowledge in order to understand

it.

Literature is transformed into an audiovisual spectacle in the

theatre and the cinema. In contrast to the individual reader of a

written text, who can determine the pace of his/her own reception,

the communal audience is subject to the rhythm and duration of

the performance. The relatively short duration of a show demands

the reduction of content and complexity in comparison to a novel.

The interplay of verbal and visual signs makes high demands on

the spectator. Films combine the audiovisual quality of the theatre with the telling of a story. In addition to setting, lighting, sound,

actors and performance, films mediate visual information by (1)


Medium: oral

literature

Medium: written

literature

Medium: audiovisual

literature

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camera work, its distance, angle and movement relative to the ob-

ject, determining the point-of-view, and (2) editing, i.e. the struc-

turing of the cuts, sequence and rhythm of shots. Modern video-

recorders and DVD-players allow the spectator to individualisehis/her reception of a film as if he/she was reading a book, winding

backwards and forwards, slowing down or speeding up the film. Fi-

nally, hypertext literature can integrate voice, text, image and film,

and create various options for the user to listen to, read, view or

even co-author the multimedia text.

The following diagram of literary communication adds the ele-

ment of the codes (rules, conventions) to the four traditional per-

spectives. The previous discussion revealed that the aesthetic qual-

ity of literature is hardly an inherent essence of the text but re-

sults from the historical negotiation of conventions that prescribe

how to write and read literature of various genres in various media

and cultures.

This model reduces literary communication to the author and the

reader, ignoring for the sake of clarity publishers, critics, teachers

and booksellers, who convey books to buyers and therefore enable

literary communication. Usually, literary communication is asymmet-

ric, excluding a dialogue between reader and author, and non-pragmatic,

ignoring immediately practical information, such as how to repair a bi-

cycle or to prepare mulligatawny soup. In contrast to the precise

factual information of a good newspaper article, which should

leave no doubt about its meaning, literature offers ambiguous

( vieldeutige ) aesthetic information, which is open to different interpreta-tions. The codes mean the rules of language and aesthetic conven-

tions of genres, which are closely related to cultural norms. The

| Fig. 1.2

Literary

communication

(compare Korte 79and Nünning,

Grundkurs 12).

Codes

Author —Y —Y Reader

Contexts

Literary text

Medium

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contexts are formed by cultural circumstances in a wide sense. In a

novel about contemporary life, the author, the text and the first

generation of readers share the social, economic and political con-

texts. If we want to understand historical literature written beforeour time, it is useful to relate the context of its writing to the his-

torical era referred to in the text: the play The Crucible (1953) about

the witch-hunt in 17th century Puritan Salem by the American

Arthur Miller (US, 1915-2005) can be read as a scathing comment

on Senator McCarthy’s persecution of left-winged Americans in the

1950s. The production of the text, as we have noticed, is not only

based on the author’s subjective imagination but also on aesthetic

conventions or codes, the medium and the historical context. In

turn, the reader needs to activate his/her everyday knowledge and

literary competence in order to understand the text in its particu-

lar medium, assuming the role of a listener, reader, spectator or co-

author as need be. Depending upon the expressive or mimetic

function of the text, the reader would consider biographical or his-

torical information useful. However, due to the mass of informa-

tion a detailed reading would usually focus on one of the concepts

or relationships of the model, the author and the production, the

text itself, the aesthetic codes, the mimetic relationship betweencontent and context or the reader’s response to the text.

Literary criticism

Editing is a form of literary criticism of prime importance because

it precedes our reading of books. A reliable text is fundamental to

literary criticism. Careful editors compare different versions of a

text, often in manuscript, in order to establish a critical edition of the

text that comes close to the author’s last intentions. Recently, edi-

tors have also returned to print the early versions of the text in

order to come close to the original intention. A critical edition

often records various versions of the text and the editor’s emenda-

tions in a critical apparatus. An annotated edition (kommentierte Aus-

gabe), which explains particular uses of words, references and allu-

sions to the historical context, supports an adequate historical un-

derstanding of a text.Literary scholars often make a difference between hermeneutical in-

terpretation, which tries to understand what a text means in terms of


1.2 |

Codes and contexts

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