Difference between revisions of "2007-08 BM1: Session 4"

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Back to 2007-08 BM1 Introduction to the Critical and Scholarly Discussion of Literature, Part 1

Received Notions on

Second Thoughts

More complex or differentiated perspectives

What do we do with...

Argument 3: Literature has become the object of pluralistic national debates since the 1750s

• The creation of what is now literature in the different languages is basically a 19th century development, it began in Germany in the 1750s and it reached the Anglo-Saxon world only in the middle of the 19th century.
• Literature - as a field of the nation's poetical and fictional works - invited

• an appraisal of the nation's art and character - to be developed out of the appreciation of poetry
• interpretations of hidden meanings and cultural significance - to be developed out of the theological interpretation of biblical texts
• a critical scholarly debate of the progress and use of new literary works - to be developed out of the preceding critical evaluation of scientific publications as works of literature
• a division between works which deserve to be discussed as high literature and a broad market of low materials anyone with an understanding of true literary merits will openly detest.

• The nations supported and adopted the debate of literature in attempts to generate fields of a basically national and secular text based education.
• The public embraced the new literatures as fields of extremely pluralistic and open debates.