Lecture 2

Meaning making

What’s meaning making ?

How the reader develop a meaning of what’s he read?

1= readers respond to works of art via their worldview.

2= A Worldview is dynamic not static.

3= From this philosophical core of beliefs spring their evaluations of the goodness, worthiness, and value
of art itself.

4= readers respond to individual works of literature, ordering and valuing each separate or collective
experience in each text based on the system of beliefs housed in their worldviews.

“A reader brings to the text his or her past experience and present personality”

No metatheory

What is single over reaching theory?

It’s a theory that encompasses all possible interpretations of a text suggested by its readers.

What is correct literary theory ?

It’s a capable theory of exhausting all legitimate questions.

Both two kind of theories mentioned up are not really existed.

Why do literary theories differ ?

Because each theory focuses primarily on one element of the interpretative process.

Why do we need theories ?

Because the various schools of criticism ask different question about the same work of literature.
What is literature ?

Literature can be any creative written work such as :

1= a story.

2= an imaginative art.

3= a published work.

4= time test.

5= artistic elements.

6= aesthetic quality.

Written work (littera) = any written work exclude oral literature .(homer’s iliad and odyssey , the English
epic bewolf)

Imaginative art (wortkunst)= includes all types of art, exclude factual works,

A published work= excludes unpublished works. (the hyperprotected cooperative principle)

Time test = depends on social and cultural value only ( danti’s divine comedy)

By artistic elements: define by functional elements.

What is aesthetic ?

•Aesthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the concept of the beautiful and strives to
determine the criteria for beauty in a work of art.

Source of beauty

What is The source of beauty is inherent with ?

It’s inherent within the art object itself: Plato and Aristotle.

•the dynamic relationship between the object (the text) and the perceiver (the reader) at a given
moment in time: contemporary critics.

•beauty is in the eye of the beholder: David Hume.

Story : a defining factor.

What is the main aim of literary?

Although it includes all written works , but it’s primary aim is telling a story.
The work of literature doesn’t define specific words like courage and kindness, but it rather shows us
that in the story

What are the spheres of literature ?

The definition of literature depends on the particular kind of literary theory or school of criticism that
the theory or reader or critic espouses.

What are the two functions of literature ?

1= to teach ( extrinsic).. Plato

2= to entertain(intrinsic) ….. Aristotle.