Literature and Philosophy class notes- 4th oct.2011

Literature and philosophy notes – 4^th Oct 2011.

Today the last chapter, “Towards a Critical Theory of Literature”  from The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory by Peter Zima, was discussed in the class. This chapter concludes with the ideology of Literature and Philosophy and he conveys the concept of literariness; that every idea has a philosophical background. In the poststructuralist view, it’s asking questions to its own very foundation therefore it’s a theoretical improvement of questioning the literary text. Through this chapter Zima suggests how to build up a new theory and shows the dialectic between openness and closure, polysemy and monosemy; and the relationship between expression plane and content plane. Research therefore is primarily meant to build theory. It synthesises the literary theory which aims at certain degree of universality that can be obtained by permanent dialogue between heterogeneous and particular positions..

 The objectives of a research is to build up theory, by this, one may reject the existing theory, find gap in the existing theory and propose a new theory. A good research, essentially be a construction of literary text, with its multiple possibilities that distinguishes and analyses to verify  in what extent it is relevant. Each literary theory comes out with its own ideology, constructed to convey its truthful representation. In this process the reader has a multiple engagement, he engages himself with the theoretical text very closely. So, for a scholar any text is a material to analyse, justify, categories  and find something new

Although the book The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory began its chapters with Kantian concept; that one literary text cannot anchor itself to other concept. But as per Jameson and Jacobson’s’ view that one can keep one’s own ideology and  stand on its own field, at the same time  it’s possible to appreciate the ideology of the others, so it’s moving away from Kantian ideology. This sheds new light on the conceptuality of literary structures that exists in literary texts with in particular theoretical perspectives.

Then we moved on to the topic of how to make the class room teaching and learning, interesting and alive.  In the class room, discussions may be one of the solutions, where interactions, sharing ones ideas, and asking questions. Thus every participant actively participates in the   discussion and learns something new from the work that is being read and the teacher would be totally engaged and alert in the class.

Prepared by  Gracy Simon
Citation

Pinto, Anil. Literature and Philosophy. Christ University. 4 Oct. 2011. Lecture.

Zima, Peter. The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory. New Jersey: The Athlone Press, 1999. Print.