The Function of Literature

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The Function of Literature
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1. Social and political function

• A subject of instruction in the colonies of
  British Empire ? the greatness of England

REPRESENTATION

• Literature is exemplary in its
• characteristics ? universality (telling
• us about human condition in general)

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1. Social and political function

• A powerful national function ?INFLUENTIAL
• Works of literature help to create national
  communities by their postulation of and appeal
  to a broad community of readers
• (Benedict Anderson)
• suggestion of idea

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2. The cultivating culture

• it originally referred to the cultivation of
  crops and animals (as in agri-culture)
• since the late nineteenth century culture has
  referred primarily to the arts literature,
  ballet, painting, theatre
• ?Cultivation is associated with improvement,
  taming, making civilized

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2. The cultivating culture

• Emerging capitalist economy ? offers alternative
  values
• The movement away from traditional religion had
  positioned literature to be the moral guardian of
  society
• Relegating the working class

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Individuals as liberal subjects
Social determinant

• Social determinant

Social determinant
Social determinant
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3. Ideological functions of literature

• as an ideological instrument ? seducing readers
  into accepting the hierarchical arrangements of
  society
• as a place where ideology is exposed ? revealing
  something that can be questioned

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• The function of literature, through all its
  mutations, has been to make us aware of the
  particularity of selves, and the high authority
  of the self in its quarrel with its society and
  its culture. Literature is in that sense
  subversive.  
• Trilling, Lionel

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• Literature is related to actions
• Literature encourages solitary reading and
  reflection
• Dangerous ? Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms
  Cabin

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CAUTIONNOT FOR PERSONAL USEIf splashed on skin
or in eyes, rinse immediately. If accidentally
taken internally give large amounts of milk or
water. Call a physician. Point mouth of container
away from you when removing cap. AVOID TRANSFER
TO FOOD OR BEVERAGE CONTAINERSKEEP CONTAINER
UPRIGHT IN A COOL PLACE TIGHTLY CAPPED.
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The Appointment In Samara- W. Somerset Maugham

• Death speaks There was a merchant in Bagdad
  who sent his servant to market to buy provisions
  and in a little while the servant came back,
  white and trembling, and said, Master, just now
  when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a
  woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was
  Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made
  a threatening gesture now, lend me your horse,
  and I will ride away from the city and avoid my
  fate.

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• I will go to Samarra and there Death will not
  find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the
  servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its
  flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he
  went. Then the merchant went down to the
  marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd
  and he came to me and said, Why did you make a
  threatening gesture to my servant when you saw
  him this morning? That was not a threatening
  gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.
  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had
  an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.