Thursday October 7 2004.
Today we discussed the following criteria, which might be considered to distinguished literary from non-literary texts (not a clear boundary, of course). How might they be applied to the texts by Jane Austen or William Faulker? In particular we examined Linda Hogan's essay, "The Voyagers" (Essay Writing 263) which can be classified as a literary essay. But how far does it fulfil the criteria? Note the bias of the criteria towards what is fictional -- we have to adjust for this. Examples from the essay (by paragraph number) are discussed after each point.
1) Purposive selection of details -- become symbolic
A number of possible examples, but see para. 2, the dragonfly, the beetle; become symbolic of beauty and delicacy, as we realize the visionary nature of earth's properties related to the Voyager collection of artifacts.
2) Coherence, boundedness
Argue for this on the basis of the internal structure of the essay, its careful staging of issues and absence of diversions and irrelevancies, and continuity of thematic development. Also the circular structure, in that it ends where it begins.
3) See world through perspective of a character, intimacy with
The speaker begins in first person (first three paragraphs) with anecdotes, personal experience or that of a friend, establishing a distinctive character; engages interest, which is then maintained when discourse shifts to the plural first person ("we"), which seems to include us as readers.
4) World has moral meaning; raises questions of reader identity
A marked shift in interpretation of the Voyager records occurs in para. 14. If we have been sharing the vision up to then, this radically undermines our attitude, involving us in a much darker view of the world -- "what is wrong with our world" -- implicating our identity.
5) Unavailability of fictional world, non-verifiable; yet reader has real emotions?
This is an awkward one to apply. But perhaps there is an intentionally fictional connotation to some of Hogan's descriptions, such as para. 11, "a nearly perfect world" (which it manifestly isn't after para 14), or para. 24, "contains our dreaming." Our "vision" is perhaps a kind of fiction?
6) Relation of reader to (fictional) narrator
See point 3. The speaker is the narrator in this essay.
7) Special types of language (phonetic, syntactic, semantic effects, etc.)
Plenty of examples -- Hogan's is a poetic style. Para. 7 provides a good example, impressive phonetic effects such as assonance (passing . . . grasses), figurative use (song; living; burns). Note defamiliarizing effects (remember the leaf experience?).
8) Feelings placed in a critical relationship to each other
The marked shift at para. 14 calls into question our feelings about the earth evoked in us so far, calling that feeling into question. Are we deceiving ourselves (as, we now find, the Voyager records misrepresent).