History

Monday's class discussion about bias in literature got me thinking about one of my other loves, history. Some people I know spend hours on Facebook or webforums, but I spend hours clicking around to different websites on different historical topics. A history professor I've had at MCLA once quoted Winston Churchill: "History is written by the victors." Hello, bias. For instance, in ancient times if an emperor was deposed then his usurpers probably wouldn't allow stories that showed the previous ruler in a positive light. Sometimes those biased references are all we have to look to when we research those ancient times, although a good historian will always take such reports with a grain of salt. To create a more modern example, nowadays if one group of people visits a great tragedy upon another, then the victims are usually portrayed in a more sympathetic light. It is nearly impossible to escape bias, no matter how a person tries, so caution must be exercised in all reading.

Value of Literature

This is a response to Stacy's post about the value of literature. I definitely agree with her that catharsis is a vital aspect of literature. However, the release that catharsis provides would not be possible if a text did not connect with readers on an emotional level. I think that a work of literature must convey real truths about life to enable people to connect with it. In other words, it all connects back to felt reasons. This just re-proves my point that felt reasons are a cornerstone of literature and are a requirement for a work to be literature.

Felt Reasons

There was a lot of discussion in class this past week about felt reasons. According to our reading for this week, felt reasons have the power to move people because of way they are portrayed. Therefore, felt reasons are just regular reasons, but dressed up a little. I think that felt reasons are important and vital parts of literature. Felt reasons allow readers to become more attached to a work. If a person is emotionally attached to a work of literature than he/she might derive different and more intensive meaning from that work than someone who did not connect to those felt reasons. I think that the presence of felt reasons is part of what makes literature separate and special from other forms of writing. It makes it distinctive and I don't think literature would be literature without felt reasons.

Dostoyevsky

Reading The Brothers Karamazov is bringing back memories. Three summers ago I was in a used bookstore and I spotted a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. I've always been a voracious reader and I had heard of the author and the novel and decided that it might be a fun an interesting thing to read. I was eighteen at the time, entering college in the fall, and I brought it with me when I went to work at a sleepaway camp, intending to read it on my breaks. I don't know what it was about The Idiot, but I simply could not get into it. Today I don't remember anything about it except that I couldn't wrap my head around any of it. I don't even remember getting past the first one or two chapters. I gave up and never went back to it. So, to be honest, I was dreading reading The Brother's Karamazov when I saw it pop up on our required books list. However, I've been pleasantly surprised because while I maybe don't understand everything about it, it doesn't drag for me the way The Idiot did. Maybe it's because I'm older and semi-wiser? I don't know.

"Good" Interpretation

What makes one interpretation "better" than another? I'm not exactly sure. It seems to me that so long as there is nothing in an interpretation that is blatantly at odds with the text then it should be considered a valid interpretation at the very least. There are certainly interpretations that are more widely discussed than others. Are those the "better" interpretations? How did they come to be considered such? I think it is difficult to place one interpretation above another and call it "good" or "better" or even "true and correct" as critical monists strive for.

Critical Monism

Earlier this week Kelsey posted about critical monism. Critical monism argues that there is only one true, correct interpretation of a particular work of literature. I share her difficulties with the concept. I do not see how it is possible for there to only be one interpretation that is correct. As long as there is sizable proof for an interpretation within the text, then I think it should be accepted as a valid interpretation. Different people can draw different things from a text so there are a great variety of interpretations that can be produced. Equal weight should be given to all interpretations unless they are clearly faulty because they contradict the text. Or at least that's what I think.

Metaphors & Meaning

Today when Bret was reading his essay, he brought up the point that metaphors must have a meaning. I totally agree with that statement. I would also go a little farther and say that it is impossible for a metaphor to not have a meaning. Even if some careless student was writing a piece for a creative writing class at the last minute and thoughtlessly throwing in metaphors willy-nilly, perhaps because the assignment required the use of metaphors, those metaphors would still have meaning. The student might not have been thinking about what meaning readers would glean from those metaphors, but that doesn't stop readers from gleaning those meanings. Not everything an author does is intentional, but that does not stop readers from deriving meaning in writing.