CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular

Literature

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN POPULAR LITERATURE

Literature is in crisis. Perhaps not all would agree on this premise, but they are
immersed in a literary world where Virginia Woolf conferences are a big deal and debates
over the existence of spondees are heated. People don’t read anymore.

There are a few hangers-on, but even we read less than others used to. Change is
inevitable; the question is, what changes are good, and which are to be fought? Literature is
worth fighting for, but the literati are contributing to their own demise in many significant
ways. Here are some factors and causes of the literary crisis that was noticed:

1. POST-MODERNISM

Ambiguity is a common practice in

postmodern literature. The proponents of
postmodernism are of the opinion that all
things may have two meanings at the same
time and these meanings are not
contradictory; rather they are integral parts of
reality.Postmodernists highlighted some
different views and established new discourses and theories.

The followings are some basic features of post-modernism:

i. Rejection of the ultimate faith on science

ii. Anti-positivist and anti-verificationist stance

iii. Individuality

iv. Truth as a matter of perspective and not universal

v. Blurring the old distinctions

 Postmodernism disregards binary opposition (like male vs. female,etc.) even

sex-oriented economic roles are dismantled

vi. Globalization and multiculturalism

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 1
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
 Because of huge globalization, different cultures are getting mixed;

vii. Information and media

 The huge access to information and media makes the postmodern life difficult
and different

viii. New literary trends

 Postmodern authors tend to use irony and black humor in their writings. They
present subject matters, even the serious ones, with playfulness and
fragmentation. Intertextuality in fictions, is a common practice in this era.
Pastiche, metafiction, maximalism, minimalism, temporal distortion etc. Are the
salient features of postmodern literary works. Moreover, dismantling of genres
is a common practice in their writings

2. MASS MEDIA

There is a lot more to do in our free

time than read, most of which is easier than
reading. Reading is a task that requires time
and effort (usually); you can’t pitch
convenience or speed to someone when
discussing literature. Movies are more action
packed (though usually watered-down); TV
entertains; video games excite; the internet
ways has a myriad of things to do. Why read? Sure, people in the 1800s and early
20thCentury read far more than we do, but they had fewer diversions.

Academics have come to the increasingly common conclusion that the transmission
and archival processes that make up its meaning must be properly examined and
understood in order to study and understand it. The convergence of media studies and
theory with literary studies is its most important ramification, and it can be seen as a
revolution in literary studies. The study of and comprehension of the many mediums that are
used to convey information is the focus of the fields of media studies and media theory. As a
result of these fields' effects, the mediums through which literature is delivered are no longer
viewed as subordinate to the literary form or substance, but rather as worthy of attention.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 2
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
The media of today can and frequently do have a significant impact on the substance
and structure of literature.

3. LOTS OF BOOKS ARE BAD

They just are. Sadly, it’s usually the

brain candy that sells because it’s so
sweet(and that’s fine), but it won’t satisfy.
Bad works of literature negatively affect the
works that have lasting merit; people who
have had a bad experience reading rarely try
again to enjoy it.

Foreign authors from all nations are

welcome, and we are constantly interested in translating and publishing them. We are
perhaps more interested in the perspectives of writers from other nations. It should come as
no surprise that we translate literature if we still think it has any significance.

Three key blocks to children developing an interest in reading:

1) Screen time with children's leisure interests dominated by screen-based entertainment.

The prevalence of devices makes it simple and compulsive to occupy free time with screens.
For youngsters aged 5 to 10, inparticular, internet time has been expanding swiftly, springing
forward in 2020 when the countrywas under lockdown. As a result, reading time has
considerably dropped in free time, and onemust deliberately create time for it each day. 32%
of four to five-year-olds and 69% of youngstersaged 0 to 17 think that screens are preferable
to books.

2) According to research, reading aloud to a child on a regular basis is the most effective
way to encourage them to read for pleasure on their own. However, children are not being
read to aloud frequently enough by their parents or at school, which is thought to be the
second reason for the decline in children's leisure reading.Currently, publisher Farshore is
advocating for daily reading time in classrooms.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 3
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
3) And finally,many parents at home mistakenly believe that "reading for pleasure" and
"literacy" are the same thing, failing to realize that the more reading is promoted as a topic in
school, the less likely it is that a child will want to engage in it. The national curriculum places
a higher priority on reading comprehension in the classroom setting. The opposite is also
true—children learn more when reading for pleasure.

Children are helped to love reading by three key things:

1. They are read to, which helps them like it and makes them want more of it;

2. having a large selection of books to choose from;

3. Freedom of choice: Children who choose their own books do so with the intention of
reading.

4. RISE OF OTHER ACADEMIC SUBJECT

English is a major in decline in most

places (I don’t have the stats to back this
up,but I think I’m right), partly for reason #1,
and partly because there are a lot more
options for a scholar these days. International
Relations, Biology, Art, Pol-Sci, Philosophy,
Languages, Women’s Studies, et al. I’m quite
pleased that there are so many other courses
for people to pursue, but it is taking its toll on
literature.

Mark Bauerlein provided a stunning (in both its breadth and depth) and damning
overview of the last fifty years (or more) of literary studies in a recent piece published in
FirstThings (in its accuracy). The historical trends in the subject of English are the focus of
the article"Truth, Reading, Decadence," but the facts and considerations Bauerlein makes
are relevant to all of the humanities and, perhaps, to all of higher education.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 4
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
Students are specialists at discussing a text's ideas, but they are becoming less and
less competent at discussing the text's vocabulary, style, sentence structure, rhetoric, and
technique. Literature is, after all, a language-based medium. Similar to how science has a
language and is a language, and similar to how math has a language and is its own
language, language is created by use and becomes a language that can be understood by
study and familiar

5. NO AUTOMATIC CONNECTION TO A JOB AFTER COLLEGE

This one really troubles me.

College, at its core, is NOT JOB-
TRAINING!! Go to college to learn,
young student, and become a better
person. Money is only money. If you
graduate and don’t have a job right
away, that’s fine. You will find one if you
apply yourself during school. The
disciplines that have an automatic field
ready-made for the graduate are few.
Sadly, I would posit that parents play a
major role in this category with the
obligatory “What are you going to do with that major?” question. If college is not the time in
one’s life when one can feel free to explore, learn and grow by trying out a variety of things
and find our who one is without worrying about benefits or salary,when is?

Have you given any thought to your ability to communicate clearly and cohesively
when debating significant problems at work? You'll be able to persuade and persuade
colleagues to adopt your idea, or even better, defend your notion if your audience objects.
Additionally, you will be able to write to top staff members with crucial demands, outside
organizations to negotiate agreement conditions, and customers to market and encourage
product sales.Additionally, you'll be more assured and at ease when writing reports and
documents, which will reduce the chance of receiving unfavorable feedback from others.
Your success depends on how well you can sell yourself in every situation.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 5
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
6. INACCESSIBILITY

This debate is one I’ve touched

on before: if a work of literature is
dazzlingly brilliant but no one can
understand it, is it good? This is the
question raised by books like Ulysses
(not to mention Finnigan’s Wake), The
Sound and the Fury, Gravity’s Rainbow
and lesser works like The Black
Envelope. I don’t have a good answer–
a balance is too much to ask perhaps. However, when the artist writes above the common
reader’s ability to comprehend, readers will be alienated.

If an author tries to use language in a way that is not possible with standard,
"clear"uses of language, it may result in "inaccessible" writing. Additionally, these comments
are frequently directed at underrepresented groups who write outside of the norm in an effort
to refute steadfast elitism. It can be more problematic than helpful for academics to "pass the
buck"between one another.

Example:

(a) Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera. In that book, not only does Anzaldúa blend
English and Spanish, but she takes up a mosaic style of writing—often nonlinear, blurring
genres, switching from autobiography to poetry to history—that can be inaccessible and
disconcerting.

(b) Consider work in queer theory: Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble provides a well-known
example, or consider Beatriz Preciado’s Testo Junkie. These texts take words like “woman,”
“man,” “gender,” “sex”—some of the most foundational and accepted, one might even say
“accessible,” terms in the English language—and demonstrate the huge network of obscured
assumptions upon which such terms’ “clarity” is founded.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 6
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature

7. OVERLY-ACADEMIC LANGUAGE

Academics have invented

complicated terminology for everything.
This is not necessarily something bad
terminology often aids specificity and
education; however, when academic
vocabulary gets out of hand (and it can),
then a piece loses its utility. I find this all
the time in literary criticism. Yes, one
must write intelligently and engage the concepts, but what I too frequently find is pedanticism
run wild. Critics like to condescend to their readers. The arrogance of this is outrageous and
wrong-headed. Critics, your very job is to educate those few who bother to read the meager
words you put down; make it worth their while. Make your points and enlighten where you
can.

One of the main reasons academic writing is so awful is the use of terms with vague
or ambiguous meanings. People sometimes remark that academic writing is "obscure" or too
complicated and convoluted. However, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with either
complexity or obscurity in themselves; scientific research articles must be complicated and
specialized, and exposing people to obscure and foreign terminology or concepts can be an
important component of expanding human understanding. The issue mainly arises when
language is ambiguous and admits several meanings.Not all simplicity is clear-cut. Because
occasionally you're trying to communicate something fairly complex, it's not always
possible to utilize simple words. However, clarity relates to the understand ability of a term's
meaning; thus, if you don't use clear language, you aren't actually communicating. A word
isn't really helping someone understand if it might imply anything or nothing. Although
"perfect communication" is unachievable, better communication should always be the goal.

8. DEATH OF AESTHETICS

This problem became glaringly obvious thanks to Kyle’s post on the Washington Post
story about Joshua Bell playing in a Metro station. People –or should I say Americans?–do
not appreciate art. We are business people. Straightforward, earn a buck, get it done, work
on the weekends, open 24 hours, overtime, few holidays, work till you die people. Why does

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 7
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
art of any kind matter? Well, what else aside from art slows us down? What else shows us
beauty, beauty so amazing and alarming that we have to appreciate it? From where do we
gain insight into existence? Art does all these things, and its decline will mean the decline
of America in one way or many.

Is there a solution to all these problems? Yes, and it’s quite simple, as most good
answer is: literature itself. The very best thing a literary scholar or professor can do is get out
of the way of the works. So many books I’ve read have changed my life. There are
multitudes of brilliant novels, short stories, and poems out there to be read, and not all of
them are long or complex. The purpose of the literati is to make literature clearer,more
profound, and more able to be grasped.

And for heaven’s sake, we ought to make literature fun because…(gasp!)…the reason we
like to read is IT’S FUN! It’s enjoyable! If it’s not these things, one can just as easily find
something else that is fun. Perhaps this too is what is happening to literature,but the cure is
only one book, story, poem (or even painting, sculpture, musical piece, or song) away.

Important to note, that referencing artistic concepts or expressions inside a textual

work is known as "aesthetics in literature. It is a strategy used to inform or raise readers'
awareness of significant artistic expression in society. You can recognize flapper culture's
aesthetic, for instance, if you read Dorothy Parker's "The Flapper." Flappers were women in
the 1920s who made the decision to defy social expectations by donning short skirts, bold
makeup, and flirty behavior. The purpose of Dorothy Parker's poem was to express her
opinions regarding a woman's right to more freedom. Many literary methods will be used by
authors like Parker to accomplish this.

Do you know anything about the Harlem Renaissance, a well-known artistic

movement? It was an African American cultural movement beginning in the early 20th
century and lasting until the late 1930s. Through their artistic, literary, and musical
works, African Americans were able to convey their feelings and internal problems.

Langston Hughes' poem "Weary Blues" contains a number of aesthetic ideas.

Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, and his writings capture the traits of a
generation trying to throw off the constraints of the past. In the first few lines, Hughes is
using somber, melancholy imagery to provide the tone of the African American generation
(this allows us to understand that the events in the poem reflect not just the writer's feelings,
but the people collectively taking part in the Harlem Renaissance.)

The repetition of ''he did a lazy sway...'' followed by ''to the tune o' those Weary
Blues'' can be interpreted as the emotional and psychological turmoil experienced by
oppressed African Americans during this time period. (Could you imagine getting up day
LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 8
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024
CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR AND EMERGENT LITERATURE: Issues and Challenges in Popular
Literature
after day with little hope of a happy future? The man in this poem 'sways' lazily, saddened
about his state in life.)

Symbolism, or the use of objects or people or places to stand in for bigger ideas is
one of the most important devices used in this

Poem (The sorrow of the man who is bound by his role in life at the fate of the ''ivory
key'' can only make the best of things. The Harlem Renaissance often showcased jazz
music as an artistic outlet to find freedom and escape. The poem reminds us of the
symbolism of music but again capitalizes on the feeling of hopelessness and inevitability with
the image of the 'ivory keys'. Beat Generation in ''Howl'' Another great American movement
occurred at the end of World War II. The Beat Movement was the rebellion of intellectuals
against a structured culture. Followers of the Beat movement often experimented with drugs
and promoted sexuality as a way to promote freedom of expression.One popular poem that
dealt with the aesthetic concept of the Beat Movement was ''Howl'' by Allen Ginsberg.
The first two lines of the poem deal heavily with the emotions behind the Beat Movement.

LIT 001 FactSheet #5 |BALBUENA, LARGO, NAZARENO, OBUSAN, POBLETE, VALLE, VASQUEZ | 9
CNSC-CoEd |January 20, 2024