Talk:Literature
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see bottom of Talk for my rather serious problem with the introduction. Big/Little-L issue... seems like an obvious placeholder for a lack of a better introduction. Tricky, perhaps impossible, to define literature, and the intro. should make more note of this--Stefankamph 04:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
DEFINITION OF POETRY My remark on the difference between poetry and narrative text has been removed for reasons I don't know. In Germany it is unthinkable nowadays to confound narrative fiction with poetry. There also seem to exist contradictory statements: epics are used as examples for poetry, later on tehy are mentioned again with regard to narraive prose. It is generally acknowledged that form is not decisive for determining the genre of a work of literature. Tis is true not only for modern art, but also for works of he past. What I wrote about the communicative structure (lyric I, epic 3rd-person narrator, drama-dalogue) is more essential. Everyrthing said about poetry in the present version is also to be found in narrative fiction, even in prose, and in dramatic fiction. Perhaps terms are used in a different way in English. But I can`t imagine that "poetry" is used in the same sense for an Arthurian legend and for a poem by Yeats. In German the first would be "epic fiction", the second "lyric" fiction (= poetry). Whatever your point of view, I think the article needs a deeper look into the aesthetic nature of literature. As it is, it reminds me of dull definitions without insight into the heart of the matter. martingabel1960@gmx.de (Im new to Wiki, I apologize for possible offenses against rules I don't know yet)
ScienceFiction as a separate Literary Art form? That doesn't sound right to me.... If it's good, it fits in literature, if not, it doesn't even fit in art...
Also, Literature separated from TheNovel? I'm not sure who made that list knows what is he/she talking about...I don't correct it because i don't feel competent enough.
Well, the list was obviously just thrown up there for you to edit!
Here's a suggestion...
- Literary styles: Novel, Poetry, Short Story, Dramatic Literature (see theatre)
- Literary Genres: Buldingsroman, science fiction, biography, etc.
- Literary figures: authors, poets, critics, dramatists, etc.
(I would throw this in there myself, but I am not sure how to rename a page without losing its contents. Sorry-still learning.)
What's the difference between Literary Art and Literature? Seems the same to me....I think there is some serious renaming-refactoring to be done.
well, i made a stab at it. seemed a reasonable enough suggestion, so i took it.
how do folks feel about "{fill in your favorite Language name} literature" entries? --MichaelTinkler
We should have them. --KQ
What do people think about including public domain texts by the authors that we are creating entries for? It seems that Wikified texts might be of value as part of this project. It's clear we aren't quite producing an encyclopedia... something better. This is one of those things that might make it better. However, I don't know what all of the implications would be and I wonder what others think.---Trimalchio
It seems inappropriate to mention individual authors and educational programs on the top "literature" page. Literature existed before IA and will continue to exist afterwards (btw, does anybody know if they actually eiminated the MFA there, or was that simply rumor?) -- perhaps a summary of the literature/fiction/pulp debate would be more appropriate, or simply a genre summary plus a brief history of the academic traditions that introduced the word...
hyhhhsection 'literary movements' or 'literary history' as the 'cultural movement' section doesn't suffice.
is there a convention for individual novels? some are subpages of the author, some (eg those of Jane Austen) are top level pages.
I would be bold. Make the Novel title the top level name. If the name of a book is also the name of something else, then just append the article to the page, making for a split entry. Ultimately that will have to be sorted out, but better you get the page up then worry overlong on naming conventions. Just be clear about separating articles. Mostly, novel titles are distinct and will only be shared by derivative works anyway (like Cider House Rules would be both a novel AND a movie). In those cases, it makes sense to have the entries closely linked if not on the same page anyway. Avoid subpages. They can get too easily lost. -T
Where do books on history fit into the category of literature...I'd say it does...Gibbons/ Boorstein/ Zimms etc.
- Biography IMO falls under literature also. Boswell on Johnson, definitely. --KQ
The 3rd sentence of this definition is impenetrable to me: "It is commonly held that a literature of a nation, for example, is the collection of texts which make it a whole nation." If I understood its meaning, I would fix it, but I don't so I can't. Help! - Pheff
- A nation is defined by its cultural output, in particular by its verbalized cultural output? (My gut reaction.) --KF 17:55, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)
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- Sounds credible (not to mention sensical!). Thanks. - Pheff
... (e.g. romance, crime, science fiction) is sometimes excluded from consideration as "literature". I think, here is some confusion. We should distinguish between "literature" as "written texts" and "Literature" as a special kind of written texts. I'm not fluent enough in English to describe it in the Wikipedia. But I think: "romance, crime, science fiction" are part of the literature in the sense of the definition. If not, there should be two definitions for literature. The second one: "Literature - is a special part of the literature, including only high level texts of a special kind." Best regards Bernd from Dresden
Newbie here so I want to talk out a huge change before I jump in and ruin something or make enemies: The "Literary Analysis" subsection doesn't strike me as quite useful - and I think my sense is confirmed by the number of dead links it contains. Literary analysis in general is a subset of literary criticism (so for instance Aristotle's relatively formal description of the structure of a tragic play belongs in the "classical" sub-section under literary criticism). In formal terms, literary analysis (like scansion of poetry, for instance) was popularized by New Criticism in the US, or the more sophisticated Structuralism internationally. In other words, powerful critical theories that propounded studying literature analytically (breaking it down into its component parts) rather than reading it contextually - i.e. socially, historically, culturally, psychologically, etc. - are responsible for cultivating the idea that "literary analysis" is a discourse that can - empirically and objectively - dissect a literary text: however, this is a debatable point, and as such belongs with the other debatable theories delineated in the "Literary Criticism" entry. (The ongoing strength of New Criticism may be noted less in American universities and more in American high schools: it often came as a surprise to my freshman students that they had been schooled in New Criticism for four years and yet never knew it by that name). So here's what I'd like to do:
1. Remove the "Literary Analysis" subsection. 2. Replace it with the Literary Criticism article 3. Piece the Literary Criticism article out into stand-alone pages listed under the new "Literary Criticism" subsection. 4. Bulk out the survey of literary criticism so that each school/theory/period can be a stand-alone article.
-Lawshe 14 July 2004
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[edit] Explain this
- Popular belief commonly holds that the literature of a nation, for example, comprises the collection of texts which make it a whole nation.
Can anyone care to explain to me what this silly sentence mean? Mandel 13:02, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Improvement drive
The article on Franz Kafka has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia: This week's improvement drive. Add your vote there if you want to support the article.--Fenice 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Genre Fiction
"Genre fiction (for example: romance, crime, or science fiction) may also become excluded from consideration as "literature"." Is there anything to back this up? While many deride some works as "genre fiction", it seems to be at least as accepted as it was in the past. It has been said that "90% of science fiction is crap, but 90% of everything is crap". --RLent 21:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I encourage people to check out the Lit site on the French wiki fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littérature. They are using a great template that could easily be modified for a "Lit" series here, with subsections by genre, language and period, plus direct access to the category indexes. Suggestions? -- NYArtsnWords 17:27, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] literature and Literature
The opening supposed distinction drawn between 'literature' and 'Literature' strikes me as overly long and pretentious; also somewhat questionable. (I can't recall seeing the word Literature spelled in uppercase except possibly as an occasional pretentious way of saying something like 'great literature'. I haven't myself seen it often enough for it to be worth remarking on, at least in the introduction.) Ben Finn 19:47, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree... plus, the big/little-L distinction seems like one particular theory rather than something that should be stated matter-of-fact in the introduction. For a treatment of the "definition-of-literature" problem, see the introduction to the Britannica article on "literature". --Stefankamph 04:56, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
The definition of literature should be read in Terry Eagleton's: Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983/1996) and it becomes clear then that there is no clear definition of literature whatsoever. Andrej I.
I agree as well. I might go so far as to call it an implausible theory. My dictionary says (paraphrasing and condensing): "written works, esp. those of exceptional artistic merit." There is absolutely no suggestion that these are two distinct things, one named with a proper noun. I am working on a replacement for that section which should be more in line with mainstream thinking. I will install it when I finish, and then you guys can criticize and correct it instead. (Or revert it if you find it completely unacceptable.) - Xtifr 10:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
(Followup): I haven't gotten around to the promised rewrite yet. However, I still say that the section (now Terminology) is simply and plainly wrong. So I've tagged it as a disputed section in order to call attention to the problem. If I find the time, I may still go ahead and rewrite the section, but this way, it's more clear that there is a problem, and maybe others will be encouraged to address the problem before I get around to it (which would be great). Xtifr tälk 20:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Seven great stories in Literature?
What are the seven great stories of literature? I heard someone make a comment about 'trying to get home' is one of the 'seven great stories of literature'? I missed that day in lit class. What are the others?67.150.90.211 02:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
The comment was by Tom Hanks talking in a DVD documentary about the Apollo 13 movie, referring to "The Seven Basic Plots" by Christopher Booker (Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy and Rebirth)
[edit] The two meanings of the word literature
Meaning 1: A set of written texts, usually on a specific field (Medical literature).
Meaning 2: The art of written fiction. Note that this second meaning is pretty new, 18th century. According to Jacques Derrida, this concept of literature, together with the modern concept of author, is linked to a shift in the copyright laws in Europe by the 18th century. Aristotle in his "Poetics" referred to this kind of writings as Poetry. He states that poetry should be considered as such according to the type of content and not according to wether it's written in verse or prose. Many writers and chritics referred to what we now call literature as poetry, and theatre was known as dramathic poetry.
Well, I'm not competent enough to write about the development of the concept of literature, its relationship with the concept of fiction, the concept of poetry, etc. But I think we should work on this line and replace the amateurish current introduction. If someone starts this line, I might try to contribute with a chapter on the complicated boundaries between literature and other forms of writing such as history, filosophy, scientific texts and journalism.
BTW, you can't start an article on literature with the complicated concept of national literature (which is also poorly explained).--Rataube 16:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Terminology
In all seriousness, this section of the article lacks all worth and ought to be entirely stricken from the piece. The definition of literature is covered well nigh exhaustively in the introduction, and it contributes little to that discussion. Is there any way to form a consensus for deleting this? Matthew 22:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
- I added the dispute tag, so it should be obvious that I agree with you. Checking the comments above, I'd say it looks an awful lot like concensus. I think the Introduction is a bit dubious itself, but that could probably be fixed with some editing. The Terminology section—even if it could be fixed, no one has bothered to do it or even try. And it's been over a week since I added the tag. I say kill the section. With extreme prejudice. If you please. :) Xtifr tälk 08:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
haha, comic book guy from the simpsons was bored.
what really does it take to make a classical literature?
[edit] External links
I think that there are definitely too many external links. —ScouterSig 16:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't there are too many, but are there some that you think are inappropriate? I already removed about 2/3'rds of them a while back. -- Stbalbach 14:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Introduction
This contains several weasel words, and I have added the appropriate tag. If the section was sourced I would have attempted to fix the problem myself, but it isn't. The phrases that may need attention are:
- To some people, the term "literature" can apply broadly to any symbolic record which can include images and sculptures, as well as letters
- To others, a literature must only include examples of text composed of letters, or other narrowly defined examples of symbolic written language (Egyptian hieroglyphs, for example)
- whereas some tend to look down on the works of Jeffrey Archer as unworthy of inclusion under the general heading of "English literature".
Regards. One Night In Hackney 22:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
