Writing: Playing with Definitions
One of the things recently discussed: it’s even more difficult to define what is, and is not, good literature when our fundamental definition of the purpose of literature is radically different from another’s.
That’s not to say that I believe there is a single definition. I do not. I will only go so far as to posit that my own definition works for me-for how I read, and write. In the summer of 2000 I was conversing with one of my reading friends about various books, each of us issuing summary dismissals and inclusions of this or that book in our private pantheons of Great Literature. I asked the person for their definition of the purpose of literature because though we could agree on various superficials, we did not seem to find any points of agreement on deeper questions. After some thought I was told (and this is, of course, approximate as I was not taking notes and this was four years ago) that the purpose of literature, as opposed to “mere” popular writing, was to depict the irruption of the irrational into our false perception of order.
My own definition of the purpose of literature is not just to hold up a mirror to ourselves-we are endlessly fascinating to ourselves--but to posit how we can improve this civilization by extrapolating this or that idea through the form of entertainment. Jane Austen flicks her pen in this direction in Northanger Abbey:
Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens,--there seems an almost general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
That’s not to say that I believe there is a single definition. I do not. I will only go so far as to posit that my own definition works for me-for how I read, and write. In the summer of 2000 I was conversing with one of my reading friends about various books, each of us issuing summary dismissals and inclusions of this or that book in our private pantheons of Great Literature. I asked the person for their definition of the purpose of literature because though we could agree on various superficials, we did not seem to find any points of agreement on deeper questions. After some thought I was told (and this is, of course, approximate as I was not taking notes and this was four years ago) that the purpose of literature, as opposed to “mere” popular writing, was to depict the irruption of the irrational into our false perception of order.
My own definition of the purpose of literature is not just to hold up a mirror to ourselves-we are endlessly fascinating to ourselves--but to posit how we can improve this civilization by extrapolating this or that idea through the form of entertainment. Jane Austen flicks her pen in this direction in Northanger Abbey:
Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens,--there seems an almost general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.