Introduction to English Literature

1. Introduction to English Literature AsihSigitPadmanugraha September 2011

2. THE PLACE OF LITERATURE IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

3. What is Literature? • Literary study is special: Prof. A. TEEUW • Why? • Compare it to other fields of study • Math • Chemistry

4. Literature or literature • Literature: Western Term • Literature: English • Literatur: German • Littérature : French • Literature means grammatika (Greek) • Litteratura and grammatika :littera and gramma meaning letter • Literature is anything written, the use of language in written form Latin: Litteratura

5. What is sastra? • Sastra Sanskrit • sãs-,  “directing, teaching, giving instruction” • –tra refers to tools, equipment, means • Sastra tools to teach, guiding book, manual or books used to teach • What about text book?

6. The Definition of Literature • Anything written • Dulce et utile • Performance in words • Spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling • Imaginative writings • Writing moving the readers’ hearts and emotions • Violation of language • Beautiful thoughts and ideas in beautiful expression

7. Literature is anything written • Too broad • What about books on engineering? • What about writings on the instant noodle wrapper? • What about oral literature?

8. Literature educates and entertains • It derives from “our inborn love of telling a story, of arranging words in pleasing patterns, of expressing in words some special aspect of our human experience” • Is it always useful and entertaining?

9. Performance in Words • Indicating literature is entertaining • What about Danarto’s “the box poem?” • What about “cyber literature?” • What about poems using audiovisual effects?

10. Spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling • Poets have extraordinary power, imagination and feeling. • What about logic and reason? It is the ultimate truth. • Romanticist vs. Neoclassicists

11. Imaginative writings • Comic book is imaginative but it is rarely considered as literature • Eagleton argues that history, philosophy, and also other sciences are also imaginative • The questions: • Is Darwin’s “The Origins of Species” imaginative or factual? • Is Bunyan’s prophecy imaginative or factual?

12. Writings moving the reader’s hearts and emotions • Is reading on Tsunami not touching the reader’s hearts and emotions? • Is the killing field in Vietnam not touching enough? • Is the bombing in traditional market in the end of May 2005 not making us “trembling”?

13. Violation of language • This idea argues that the literary language is peculiar compared to the one used by common people • This means that the “graffiti” might be included as literature.

14. Beautiful thoughts and ideas in beautiful expression • Shakespeare’s “Winter” expresses a simple theme, an ordinary life in a winter in England • The Glass Canoe contains many harsh languages which are far from being beautiful

15. Definition important to bear in mind • Sapardi Djoko Damono and Jonathan Culler define literature as “a cultural production which is in a particular place and time considered as literature” • This implies literature as a something not created in a vacuum condition • Literature is one era might not be considered as literature in another era

16. Literature and Culture • Based on the previous definition, therefore, as Eagleton argues, how is literature read means whose culture is privileged • This means literature and “power” is inseparable • Here comes Eagleton’s thesis called “political criticism”