The Empirical Study of Literature. How Empirical can it be?

1989 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Freundlieb
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Constructive Process ◽  
Ideological Background

This article addresses some of the problems of an empirical study of literature resulting from the fact that it cannot, qua empirical science, engage in the evaluation of literary texts and the moral issues those texts exemplify as well as the further fact (if it is a fact) that statements about textual meanings in the context of literary interpretations are not empirically true or false. Traditional interpretive literary criticism has always played a significant part in the reproduction and modification of culture. From this point of view, an empirical science of literature must appear severely limited. However, it can be argued that such an empirical study of literature can show that interpretation is necessarily a constructive process and therefore always, to a large extent, determined by (often ideological) background assumptions. An empirical study of literature would make interpretation one of its objects of study and explanation. Such investigations would further our understanding of processes of text comprehension in general, but it would also allow us to reconstruct the background assumptions guiding traditional interpretations.

The role of stylistics in Japan: A pedagogical perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masayuki Teranishi ◽  
Aiko Saito ◽  
Kiyo Sakamoto ◽  
Masako Nasu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Teaching Method ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
English Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Efl Students

This article surveys the history of English studies and education in Japan, paying special attention to the role of literary texts and stylistics. Firstly, the role of literature and stylistics in Japan is discussed from a pedagogical point of view, including both English as a foreign language and Japanese as a native language. Secondly, the way in which stylistics has contributed to literary criticism in the country is examined, with reference to the history of literary stylistics since 1980. Finally, this article considers further applications of stylistics to language study in Japan, offering two examples: analysis of thought presentation in Yukio Mishima’s Megami (2006[1955]), and the teaching of an English poem and a Japanese haiku to Japanese EFL students. The overall aim of this article is to demonstrate that literature as language teaching material and stylistics as a critical and teaching method are significant not only in understanding English, but also in appreciating our own native language if it is not English.

SEMANTIC COUNTERPOINT AND THE POETRY OF GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-119
Author(s):  
Dennis Sobolev
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Practical Criticism

IT IS WELL KNOWN that both traditional, historically orientated, literary criticism and new-critical studies were inseparable from a belief in the “unity” of meaning – a belief in the existence, below the multicolored surface of the literary text, of a single semantic center, which unifies the text and turns it into an “organic whole.” Similarly, Russian Formalists and Prague Structuralists, though critical of the notion of the “organic whole” and its use in art criticism by the Neo-Romantics and the Symbolists, never questioned the alleged semantic unity of the literary text. An alternative approach to the problem of meaning was developed in the early books of Michel Foucault and conceptualized in his Archeology of Knowledge; he described meaning as “dispersal” and “dissemination.” A little later, in Dissemination and On Grammatology, Jacques Derrida radicalized Foucault's position by questioning the existence of clear-cut boundaries for Foucault's semantic “dissemination,” and he applied this notion in both philosophy and literary criticism. The resultant polemics between the two major approaches to the problem of the organization of meaning in the literary text caused the extreme polarization of literary studies; moreover, this polemics was often based on the tacit assumption that there exist only these two possibilities of the formal description of such organization: it should be described as either “unity” or “dissemination.” At the same time, from the logical, a priori, point of view, these terms describe only the poles of possible organization of meaning; moreover, practical criticism tends to show that both pure “unity” of meaning and its pure “dissemination” are very rarely found in literary texts. Thus, it seems to me, that those scholars who work in the field of literary criticism and cultural theory should attempt to create more complex and more precise models of the organization of meaning, which will transcend the dichotomy of “unity” and “dissemination.” One of these such models, the model of “semantic counterpoint,” is described and exemplified in this paper.

scholarly journals Annotation of Toponyms in TEI Digital Literary Editions and Linking to the Web of Data

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Frontini ◽  
Carmen Brando ◽  
Marine Riguet ◽  
Clémence Jacquot ◽  
Vincent Jolivet
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Automatic Annotation ◽  
Web Resources ◽  
Web Of Data ◽  
Geographical Point ◽  
Large Corpus ◽  
The Web

This paper aims to discuss the challenges and benefits of the annotation of place names in literary texts and literary criticism. We shall first highlight the problems of encoding spatial information in digital editions using the TEI format by means of  two manual annotation experiments and the discussion of various cases. This will lead to the question of  how to use existing semantic web resources to complement and enrich toponym mark-up, in particular to provide mentions with precise geo-referencing. Finally the automatic annotation of a large corpus will show the potential of visualizing places from texts, by illustrating an analysis of the evolution of literary life from the spatial and geographical point of view.

Explanatory Annotation of Literary Texts and the Reader: Seven Types of Problems

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Bauer ◽  
Angelika Zirker
Keyword(s):  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Structured Information ◽  
Digital Methods ◽  
Common Problems

While most literary scholars wish to help readers understand literary texts by providing them with explanatory annotations, we want to go a step further and enable them, on the basis of structured information, to arrive at interpretations of their own. We therefore seek to establish a concept of explanatory annotation that is reader-oriented and combines hermeneutics with the opportunities provided by digital methods. In a first step, we are going to present a few examples of existing annotations that apparently do not take into account readerly needs. To us, they represent seven types of common problems in explanatory annotation. We then introduce a possible model of best practice which is based on categories and structured along the lines of the following questions: What kind(s) of annotations do improve text comprehension? Which contexts must be considered when annotating? Is it possible to develop a concept of the reader on the basis of annotations—and can, in turn, annotations address a particular kind of readership, i.e.: in how far can annotations be(come) individualised?

lmost all estimates of the figure of Alexander Solzhenitsyn are not related to literary criticism. Most studies evaluate his role, intentions and results. His figure is assessed in the context of the fate of the country, public perception and attitude to the country, which is Motherland for some, and mental and political enemy for the others. And for this purpose it is not even important who is right from the historical and political point of view. The point is who and how perceived the USSR and the entire Soviet project. Solzhenitsyn is seen as the enemy of the USSR and the Soviet project by those who popularized and helped him, and also according to his self-evaluation. Therefore, for those who identify themselves with the Soviet Union, its heritage and the entire Soviet project Solzhenitsyn represents the enemy and bearer of evil. For those who are hostile to the Soviet Union and the Soviet project, Solzhenitsyn is an ally in their struggle and bearer of good. Which of these parties is right is the issue of history and morality. 66% of Russian citizens support the first point of view, and the second point of view is supported by 25% of the population. Nowadays 88 % of Russian citizens know who Solzhenitsyn was. 31% consider him to be moral authority for them. 8% of the people believe that Solzhenitsyn presented true facts in his books.

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Victor V.  Aksyuchits
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
Russian Intelligentsia

In the article the author studies the formation process of Russian intelligentsia analyzing its «birth marks», such as nihilism, estrangement from native soil, West orientation, infatuation with radical political ideas, Russophobia. The author examines the causes of political radicalization of Russian intelligentsia that grew swiftly at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and played an important role in the Russian revolution of 1917.

TRANSLATION AS MENTAL INTERPRETATION ACTIVITY IN LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (28) ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
Svitlana Gruschko
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Cross Language

In the article the phenomenon of translation is regarded as mental interpretation activity not only in linguistics, but also in literary criticism. The literary work and its translation are most vivid guides to mental and cultural life of people, an example of intercultural communication. An adequate perception of non-native culture depends on communicators’ general fund of knowledge. The essential part of such fund of knowledge is native language, and translation, being a mediator, is a means of cross-language and cross-cultural communication. Mastering another language through literature, a person is mastering new world and its culture. The process of literary texts’ translation requires language creativity of the translator, who becomes so-called “co-author” of the work. Translation activity is a result of the interpreter’s creativity and a sort of language activity: language units are being selected according to language units of the original text. This kind of approach actualizes linguistic researching of real translation facts: balance between language and speech units of the translated work (i.e. translationinterpretation, author’s made-up words, or revised language peculiarities of the characters). The process of literary translation by itself should be considered within the dimension of a dialogue between cultures. Such a dialogue takes place in the frame of different national stereotypes of thinking and communicational behavior, which influences mutual understanding between the communicators with the help of literary work being a mediator. So, modern linguistics actualizes the research of language activities during the process of literary work’s creating. This problem has to be studied furthermore, it can be considered as one of the central ones to be under consideration while dealing with cultural dimension of the translation process, including the process of solving the problems of cross-cultural communication.

Double Thoughts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dean
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Paul De Man ◽  
Literature And Philosophy ◽  
De Man ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Coetzee’s interest in destabilizing the boundaries of literature and philosophy is most evident in later fictions such as Elizabeth Costello. But as Andrew Dean argues in this chapter, this interest in moving across boundaries in fact originates much earlier, in Coetzee’s quarrel with the institutions and procedures of literary criticism. Coetzee used the occasion of his inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Cape Town (Truth and Autobiography) to criticize the assumption that literary criticism can reveal truths about literature to which literary texts are themselves blind. Influenced in part by such figures as Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, Coetzee posed a series of challenging questions about the desires at stake in the enterprise of literary criticism. Developing these thoughts, Dean explores the way in which Coetzee’s earlier fiction, including such texts as Foe (1986), is energized by its quarrelsome relationship with literary criticism and theory, especially postcolonial theory.

Bleibende Aufgaben einer phänomenologischen Literaturtheorie

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-273
Author(s):  
Eckhard Lobsien
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Theory Of Reading ◽  
Phenomenological Point

Abstract What sort of object is a literary text? From a phenomenological point of view - phenomenology considered as both a radical theory of reading and a theory of radical reading - a range of answers arise, many of them tinged with deconstructive momentum. This paper aims at pointing out some basic issues in reading literary texts, offering ten theses on the enduring tasks of phenomenological literary theory.

Romantic Capabilities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Goode
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Ecological Design ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Contemporary Media

Romantic Capabilities argues that popular new media uses of literary texts often activate and make visible ways the texts were already about their relationship to medium. Devising and modelling a methodology that bridges historicist literary criticism and reception studies with media studies and formalism, it contends that how a literary text behaves when it encounters new media reveals capabilities in media that can transform how we understand the text’s significance for the original historical context in which it was created. Following an introductory chapter that explains and justifies its approach to the archive, the book analyses significant popular “media behaviors” exhibited by three major Romantic British literary corpuses: the viral circulation of William Blake’s pictures and proverbs across contemporary media, the gravitation of Victorian panorama painters and stereoscopic photographers to Walter Scott’s historical fictions, and the ongoing popular practice of writing fanfiction set in the worlds of Jane Austen’s novels and their imaginary country estates. Blake emerges from the study as an important theorist of how viral media can be used to undermine law, someone whose art deregulates through the medium of its audiences’ heterogeneous tastes and conflicting demands for wisdom. Scott’s novels are shown to have fostered a new experience of vision and understanding of frame that helped launch modern immersive media. Finally, Austenian realism is revealed as a mode of ecological design whose project fanfiction grasps and extends.

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