Abigail Lisee Aesthetics Literature I have been hoping we touch upon literature this semester because literature is one of my absolute favorite forms of aft. I would consider poetry to be my favorite form of literature. But I think a lot of people don’t see literature really as art and sort of just separate the two. I did really enjoy the way the chapter talked about poetry saying that it is human speech at its most intense and musical. I think it definitely is the most intense form of literature because the author is sort of forced to pack a message and emotion into a few short lines as apposed to a novel where the message may be very clear and the author can explain everything. With poetry the reader is sort of forced to come to their own conclusion about what the author was trying to say but for stories the message is a lot of times pretty clear. Literature is fascinating because it gives you the ability to paint your own picture in your mind instead of having the picture or painting right in front of your face. Literature allows your imagination to take over and you end up sort of creating your own version of the descriptive places and characters in your mind. I think this is one of the reasons it makes literature one of the most creative forms of art and sometimes one of the most difficult. I don’t read a lot of novels but the ones I have read, I remember having a picture in my mind of the setting and what the characters looked like in my mind and then I remember watching the movie that was based on the novel and seeing the differences and similarities between what was on the screen and what I had made up in my mind.
Literature is a big part of my life. I enjoy reading, mostly novels or prose fiction in my free time and always have. I have never attended a poetry slam or anything like that, I am not very familiar with that style of literature and often do not understand it. When I read, I like to follow a story; usually I choose mystery or adventure novels. The stories I read often have a main plot with characters and that does not have much of a back-story. To me poems are always about finding the hidden meaning in them, I am not sure if that’s because I was always encouraged in school to look for that or for different reasons. When I am looking for a deeper meaning and trying to analyze what the author was thinking while writing, I stop enjoying the piece of literature as much. I find this true; not only for poems, but also in novels I had to read for classes. Having to analyze the meaning and think in a different way makes the story less interesting to me. I enjoy finding a connection to a piece I am reading just as I do when I am looking at a painting or drawing but having to look into one specific meaning takes away from the piece.
When you look at a piece of art, people are encouraged to find a connection to the piece, in class and in our book, we discuss that there are many different connection possible for one piece. Each viewer can see a piece of art differently. Considering literature is considered art, it should be viewed just as all the other art types are viewed. Being restricted to thinking only one meaning is behind writing, such as a poem limits the literatures connections.
I usually read books of the same genre and with the same authors. Once I read one story that I like I start to become used to the authors writing style and find it hard to switch to a different author. Therefore when I do pick a different author it is often an author that has a similar writing style. The style or genre of novels I usually stick to is mystery, crime and detective. I think the action keeps me thinking about the story frequently and makes me read the novel quicker. These stories are often straight forward, unlike poetry, and do not have a hidden meaning to them. I am often able to connect with certain characters or situations but the novel itself does not create meaningful art. I often read for pleasure, which is what I see most novels are created for. Although all art is created for some purpose, this is more entertainment like a movie would bring than entertainment/enjoyment a painting would bring.
I agree that literature should be classified as art because it takes talent, has meaning and is created for a purpose. I think poetry is more artistic than other writings. All forms of writing take talent on the artist’s side, poetry often creates more emotion and feelings.
Nicole Marmo Literature In my personal opinion I do not like literature. I don’t see a point in reading something so carefully that you find out what will happen before the book is over or something that uses a bunch of literary devices to convey a message. I’ve never been into that type of stuff, whether it be reading or writing it. If I really wanted to I could get into a good book, but I would look for the certain types of devices within them like I’d have to reading literature. Another reason I’ve never been able to get into the reading of literature was because every time we were assigned to read a book in high school it was always some boring old book that were always sad. I can’t say I’ve read one book in high school that I enjoyed. I remember my junior year we were forced to read this book, Beloved, and it was the worst book I’ve ever read in my entire life. It had a bad concept as well as a bad storyline. The book made absolutely no sense to me, and it was so complicated to read I wouldn’t even understand what would go on throughout the chapters. In one chapter there was a scene where the main character saws off her own infants head, and I completely missed it. Then when we began to learn about it in class it made no sense to me that 16 year olds were being forced to read a book so obscene and inappropriate. When it comes to reading I will only read what interests me. For example, I like to read books where they turn them into movies this way when I’m done reading I can get better visuals of what happened in the book, but usually the movies are so bad compared to the books because they leave stuff out or add in extra. I can’t say literature is art, unless there are illustrations involved. Writing is writing not art. How can writing a story be art? I can see how it can be considered creative, but no art skills are involved. If a story of any kind can be considered art then anything can be considered art. Jokes can be considered art, newspapers, the saying of McDonald’s, “I’m loving it,” etc. To me literature just can’t be considered art because it clearly crosses a line. If literature requires so many factors like literary devices and following a plot chart to be written, how can it be considered art? A lot of creativity is taken away in order to make literature literature. I understand how a poem can be considered art and that’s because a poem is basically a song that isn’t sung. Poems have a beat and rhyme, most of the time, just like music. Therefore, if music is art poems are art, but literature is not. Poetry is the only kind of literature that can be considered art in my opinion.
In my opinion this was the best chapter I have read throughout our entire semester. I have always been fascinated with the way literature came to be. Simply starting from the very beginning this chapter explains the evolution of literature in a way that makes the most sense. We began forming words as a scientific mutation. Our minds began to develop and speech began to form. This has always been an extremely interesting concept due to the complexity of language and the way it has formed. I always wondered who came up with letters, syllables, and ultimately words and sentences. The book explains that, “Words became the primary vehicle of human wisdom” which I find amazingly true. This is the perfect definition and the most accurate one I have ever heard. Eventually humans desired to record the words they had written down and this is where literature comes into play. Starting at a very young age I found myself very interested in poetry. Of course I read the less sophisticated versions of poetry such as Shell Silverstein. However this hobby for reading poetry developed into some more sophisticated versions of poetry such as William Blake and Shakespeare. What truly grasps my attention and makes me fall in love with the poem is the imagery that is provided by the poet. As I read each poem I envision a scene that is dictated by the literature I read. This aspect of poetry has always been so amazing to me, the fact that a poet can create an entire image just by writing down and combining simplistic or complex words has always bewildered me. The complexity that goes into literature blows my mind. The fact that the human race can go from non verbal, to uttering sounds, and eventually speak to one another not only orally but through the writing of words is such an amazing concept. Simply reading literature (whether I enjoy it or not) puts into perspective the kind of development humans have gone through over time.
This chapter is so easy to relate to. Even though technology is a huge part of today’s society, writing is still a major part of our everyday lives too, whether we realize it or not. For this week’s Art I Make project, I wrote a poem, which is what this chapter discusses. My main topic is puzzles and my poem was about a friend of mine, who is the final, missing piece of the puzzle in my poem, who passed away last year in a car accident. Going into it, I just wrote a poem the way I knew how, but after reading this chapter in the book, I was able to go back and actually see what type of poem I wrote. I was able to find out that I wrote a free verse, rhyming poem. I also used personification in my poem and the entire thing was a metaphor. This chapter unexpectedly taught me a lot of my own project for this week. My favorite type of literature is definitely a novel. I really liked the way this chapter talked about reading. Instead of just saying literature is something we read and understand, it discusses how the reader must stop paying attention to whatever else they’re doing and to give in to the book. Especially today, when there’s cellphones and social media to distract a person, they must find the time to actually find a good book and read it. I am also not a big fan of electronic literature. Kindles and other electronic reading devices have become so popular within the last couple of years, but in my opinion, physically picking up a book and sifting through it before reading it is part of the enjoyment. I believe that literature is better on paper rather than on electronics. Overall, this chapter was very enjoyable for me, simply because I love to read and so learning about the history and structure of what I read was interesting. I didn’t like the part of this chapter called “The Power of Reading.” This section was all about how a person should go about reading literature, but in my opinion, there shouldn’t be any structure. A person should be able to read a novel in any way that they want, and then depict what is happening based on their own views of the book. I do not think they should have to follow guidelines while reading.
I definitely feel as though literature is a form of art. Even thoughtI do not get to read leisurely often, I really do enjoy it. There are very few things better than reading a great piece of literature. I feel as though this chapter was pretty inclusive of literature whether it be poetry, a novel, etcetera.
One of my favorite parts of the chapter is when it mentioned letting yourself take in the work as opposed to thinking about the fact that you are reading. If you let yourself enjoy the words, it becomes a much more enjoyable experience. With that being said, I just felt like i enjoy the way that part was worded. I do not however like how the chapter talked about how people should be reading literature. Everyone does things in their own way and enjoying literature is included in that. There is no right or wrong way to read and intemperate this form of art.
I personally enjoy novels, as opposed to poems or anything else. I am a history major and if there is one thing that I am required to do it is read. I have become a quick reader, however the pace at which I take in literature truly depends on the content. If I am reading a historical novel about some war or figure, I tend to chuck and skim the reading. I am pretty good at deciphering the meaning of things without touching on every single page. When I am pleasure reading however, I like to spend more time enjoying the text, taking in every last detail.
I suppose I do enjoy poetry as well. I used to really enjoy participating in poetry slam back in high school. I think if I find the right poems by the right authors, I enjoy it much more than just reading boring poems because I am being told to.
Usually when I am reading a chapter, the author convinces me of what I didn’t consider an art to be an art. It wasn’t the case in this chapter. As much as writing impresses me I don’t think of it as an art form. I think of it more as a passion, a hobby, a career, but I don’t consider it an art. I never really liked writing personally; I liked creative writing when I was a kid because I liked making little storybooks with illustrations, but it never grew into a passion for me. I did however, when I reached junior year in high school, grow an appreciation for Shakespeare and his tragedies and comedies. Even though Shakespeare was so good at what he did and his works were truly amazing, I wouldn’t consider it an art. I do appreciate writing. I am a big reader and I love to delve into a good book, but what writers do, even though I think it is amazing, I don’t think it is an art. I don’t really think the book went into a good enough argument to why literature is an art. It seemed to have just told the different parts of literature, different genres of literature, and provided some example poetry. The chapter was rather short as well. It didn’t seem that even the author believed that literature was an art. He even said that literature came out of a necessity. Before people wrote down stories they would just repeat them and these stories would just get passed down. The stories would be easier to remember with a rhyme or rhythm to them. So literature grew out of necessity. I think it is interesting how different art and literature seem to me. In the art world people are inspired by history and create things based off history, but they also jump out of the box and create questions and question society. I feel like literature goes to what’s popular. I feel like they fill more of what people want and expect where art is more unexpected and shows you something new. I am not saying that every piece of writing is unoriginal because then all of our books would be about werewolves and vampires. But if art is about pushing the boundaries, I don’t think literature falls into that category. I think an argument can be made for how literature is art. I think I am in the minority thinking that literature is not art. I can see how people would think it is art. It’s manmade, it expresses emotion, and there are many different types.
This next chapter, chapter nine, is about literature. To be completely honest I do not like literature. I have never liked reading or writing and I will probably never like to read or write. My reasoning behind not liking to read or write is because I am not very good at it. I am a slow reader and I can not spell for my life which is why I do not like literature.
I especially do not like poetry. I do not like trying to decipher something, I would rather just have the author say what he he wants to get across to the audience. For example, in the chapter there is a poem written by William Blake called The Sick Rose. After reading this five times I still did not understand what the author was saying. He was talking about a sick rose; who cares about the rose. What does the rose symbolize? I do not know because the author never says within the eight line poem that does not make any sense.
This class is all about decided what is art and what is not art. I believe that there are many different types of art. But I do not believe that literature is an art. I believe there is more to art than just words and all that literature is, is words. Maybe if I actually enjoyed literature I would have more of an appreciation for it, but I do not like it and I do not think I ever will. I understand that a lot of time and effort goes into creating literature. You need to create characters, a plot, imagery and many other things, but I do not think it is enough to just write a story to be considered art. This is only just my opinion and I am sure that those who enjoy literature will say that literature is an art form, but I will not be convinced until I actually like to read literature.
John Yusza Chapter 9 I have been told literature is a form of art my whole life. But I don’t know if I really believe that even after years of literature class analyzing poetry and stories for their true meanings. I mean I guess it makes sense in the way we have been interpreting art where our own interpretations are just as valid as the artists. I was always taught with literature there is one interpretation and you better learn it because everything else is wrong. Easy enough to say this makes literature very boring if there is only one interpretation. I think it wouldn’t be so bad if we all were allowed our interpretations for the deeper meanings. However I still do not like poetry. I don’t know why but I just don’t like to read it or write it. I know poetry is behind almost every song but I feel like that is completely different from just regular poetry written down and read. Most of us have had more exposure to literature than any other form of art. Because most of us in high school and before were required to take literature classes in some form. Most of our time studying literature was spend on “good” literature. But is it really good literature if only scholars can appreciate it. Why isn’t a good story that everyone likes considered good literature. Does it have to have this deeper level to it that scholars want for it to be an art? Or can it just be a well told story and still be art. I feel like more limitations are put on literature on what can be art and what cannot be art and I don’t think that’s fair seeing how in other areas of art basically if you make or do anything it is considered art. If we went by this model with literature instead of being so strict I think more people would appreciate it instead of just shunning it away and saying that they do not like literature.
Kristin Portsmouth Aesthetics Response 10 November 9, 2015
I have always thought writing took skill and creativity but I never really thought of it as an art form. Like the book said, “writing became necessary when memory proved unable to store humans’ verbal treasure.” I do not think art is something that is necessary to keep life going which is why I feel literature is not an art. Of course creating literature is creative and expresses emotion like an art, but because it is writing it doesn’t seem like art. When an author writes a play is the script art? I think it becomes art once it is performed and you can visualize the events taking place. A piece of work needs a visual aspect in order to be considered an art for me.
In school I was never a fan of reading because I could never guess the hidden meanings behind the text the author wrote. There is a joke about how teachers make some crazy meaning to something simple like the color of the curtains and I completely agree with it. If the author states the curtains are blue, the only meaning I see behind this is that character likes the color blue. A teacher trying to analyze the book would say the character picked the color blue because they were depressed and blue represents the sadness they feel. That seems crazy to me and I never understood why someone would try to complicate something as straight forward as curtain colors. Literature seems more like a puzzle if it is formatted to have so many hidden meanings. Another reason I was never a fan of reading in school is because we would also read the classic novels like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Scarlet Letter. In almost every case, I was never able to read the book fully. I always got bored of reading and start to skim through it or simply look up the summary of the chapters I was supposed to be reading.
Despite not liking being forced to read in school, I actually really enjoy reading on my own in my free time. Being able to choose whatever book I want to read makes the experience more enjoyable. The same thing goes for writing. Being forced to write an essay on whatever boring topic is not going to be as enjoyable as writing some crazy story you came up with. Even doing that, I still do not consider writing an art. In art classes do you see kids writing poems and stories? No, that is left to the to the English classrooms.
Literature is a difficult one when it comes to deciding whether it is an art or not. One side of me says that it is an art because of the elements used to creating it, but another side of me says that it can't be art because it is just writing and not something you observe.
The last chapter was about the printed image which can show a thousand words in itself through visually examining and interpreting with imagination, but literature is limited and does the imagining for the reader. You don't see written work hanging up in an art museum like you do with paintings and sculptures. Yet at the same time, literature is what makes up other arts such as plays and theatrical performances. For example in class when we went over the play about the cats, we read the literary piece first and then watched the performance. If it wasn't for the literature being written, then the play itself may not have existed. The same goes with many movies coming out today which is discussed in the next chapter. Movies such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and many others were first stories from literature that someone imagined and wrote out for those to read. If it wasn't for those works of literature created by the mind of someone, then many plays and movies today would not existed either. Also in school growing up we didn't read random stories, we read what is believed the best example of literature with many literary elements such as To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies because within these stories there is a larger scope and theme to comprehend, sort of like what we are doing with our Art I Make projects.
So in a way, literature is an art, just one that is difficult to understand. Sometimes it takes time to read an entire piece and other times its confusing to the reader. But literature can present many different options and meanings that in a way are artistic.
I am a person who sometimes likes to read books. I will admit that I normally choose anything else over picking up a book and thats partly because of all of the required reading I have done and still do for school. I hope that once I am finally free of homework, I can start reading for pleasure once again. In the style guide section of the chapter, the author listed the "Varieties of the Novel". The title "Brave New World" stuck out to me because I remembered reading it in my English class sophomore year of high school. It was the only book I have ever read front to back without really understanding anything that was happening. Maybe if I had spent a few more years in school studying different kinds of sophisticated literature, I would have appreciated the novel more and understood the author's message. I personally loved Harry Potter when I was in middle school. I classified it as a fantasy novel but the author of our textbook called J.K Rowling's series a coming-of-age novel. This simply means that the author tells a story about the characters life from when they were a child until they grow up to be an adult.
I never classified literature as an art. The definition of art to me before this class was pretty basic. To me, art was the visual art that I made in class and saw in museums. Art was music I played and heard every day. Maybe this was my definition because these are the forms of art that I practiced. Now I accept that theater is art and dance is art. You will have a harder time convincing me that literature is art just like a painting. The definition of art keeps becoming broader and broader. As I sit here now on my bed, pondering once again what is art...is my comforter art? Is my shirt art? And my rings? I would consider jewelry making art before I would consider literature art.
Chandler Cobb Literature is something that I appreciate most when I’m not told to. My absolute least favorite is when were assigned readings for classes and how we had to read specific books all through middle school and high school because for me being told you NEED to read this made me have a bad attitude and closed mind going into the reading. There are very few assigned literature books that I enjoyed reading. However, I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy literature. I love reading. I’m the basic romance novel while sitting on the beach type of person, but I love mysteries and I love reading about real life situations. The Other Wes Moore was one of the most interesting pieces of literature I’ve ever read. That was actually an assigned reading that I did enjoy. “It gives us the power to imagine other people in other worlds and to understand truths we might not have imagined ourselves.” This is the quote that I most related to from the chapter. I really enjoy literature that is impossible for me to put down. I love books that I can’t put down, and the books that I can’t put down are the ones that I can imagine myself part in. In high school, there was a poetry class that once a year would put on a show referred to as the poetry slam. The poetry slam gave students an opportunity to take any piece of literature and make it there own or start from scratch and write a piece of literature that represents them. I would never have the courage to stand up in front of 200 people and throw myself into something that says things about me that I would never want anyone to know. I admire any one that has the courage to do that. Throughout these chapter I’m noticing that I write about wishing I was better at art or better at relating at a form of art, or wishing I had the courage to express myself through art, and I strongly believe that without these readings I wouldn’t have ever realized how many different parts of art there are.
Personally I don’t think literature is art. I know it takes creative thinking and a lot of time to write a book or poem but in my views it doesn’t stand out as art to me. Mostly because every since I was a kid I having been reading books, novel, poems, etc. and have never pictured them as art like I would see a picture hanging in a museum. I can see the books point of view that literature can have sound, form, and meaning. It nicely illustrates different ways authors can get meaning across. But after going through the list it started to seem like this chapter was more like an English homework assignment then a depiction of an art form. It explained writing technics that I have learned through my English classes, such as, what a metaphor and allusion is. Over all I was not a fan of this chapter.
I guess I would be appreciative of literature as an art form if I wasn’t always forced to read it. I don’t often read for fun even though it’s something I should do. In college I am usually forced to read short articles, chapters from textbooks, or even peer reviewed scientific papers. All these form of writing are interesting but I find them to be extremely boring. And I problem wouldn’t read them if I wasn’t forced to, but I guess that’s why im here I guess, for an education.
I find the easiest things to read are things that you personally enjoy. When reading a book or article that I am more interested I am more likely to read for a longer time. That’s also I think its not a form or art. Most art forms are something that you look at for a fairly short period of time. With a novel it could take you a few weeks to finish it which makes we question where we draw the line or art. Or if there is a line to even draw.
Chapter 9 Literature Matt Sutton 11-10-15 Aesthetics
Literature, no matter how much I may hate it at times, it’s one of the most important things in my life. I remember when I first started writing, by learning the alphabet back then I didn’t realize how much of an impact learning each letter would have on me later in life. When I think of literature as an art form poetry does make the most sense. Poetry is the most emotional part of writing or literature, so much can be described, foreshadowed, and personified in a six lined piece of writing. To me poems can sometimes make no sense, just like all of the other pieces of art literature is the same when it comes to understanding what the artist has composed. There isn’t just one singular meaning to the writing presented in a poem but multiple different ways to perceive it. I believe the reason why I hate writing, and reading so much is because of the amount of time it takes to complete a paper, or finish a book thee is a lot of words and thoughts to think about when writing a sentence, or trying to follow what is going on in a story there is a limit to the amount of words that you can absorb. I have noticed that the best writers say the most with very little words, what I mean by this is professional writers centralize their writing towards the papers purpose. I have been taught how to change my paper a certain way depending on the intended audience or the actual purpose of the paper there are a variety of different things you can do to either persuade, inform, or creatively think of to make your paper the best it can be. What separates the good writers from the great, is their use of creative words and persuasive points to help support their paper. Out of all the other kinds of art I do not believe that literature is one of the more artistic forms of art. Although what might be said could be more emotional than a painting or a piece of music literature doesn’t make me feel the same way. There are times though when I see a movie that is part of a trilogy or a T.V. show and am forced to read in order to find out what happens next. The difference between books and videos of the same thing is that books go more into detail than movies and T.V shows, in movies they the director is required to only include important parts and sometimes they have to forget about details and sometimes major parts that can actually impact the way you perceive the plot. Even though there are many people who love to write and read, that isn’t me. Literature is not for everyone and a personal thing, maybe in the future I will have more of an interest and respect for literature.
Personally, I don’t really read. But when I find a book thats fascinating, I’m hooked. Some of my favorite novels are sappy romance books written by Nicholas Sparks and John Green. Besides those books, there aren’t many that I like. The thing I hate the most is the assigned readings from school. Although I hate them, there have been some books assigned from school that I found very fascinating. Some of these books include To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby. Besides these books, there haven’t really been others that I’ve read or found interesting. Do I consider literature an art? Personally, I don’t read enough to consider it an art but I think there are some “artistic” forms of literature. Like the chapter discusses, poetry is considered an “artistic” form of literature. The reason poetry is considered art is because of its metaphorical messages that illustrate pictures in the readers minds. When I think of art, I typically think of going to a museum, looking at paintings or sculptures… not reading. I think that the only reason someone could argue that literature is a form of art is because compared to television and movies, it creates a visual in the audience’s head that is imaginary rather than real and straight forward.
Abigail Lisee
ReplyDeleteAesthetics
Literature
I have been hoping we touch upon literature this semester because literature is one of my absolute favorite forms of aft. I would consider poetry to be my favorite form of literature. But I think a lot of people don’t see literature really as art and sort of just separate the two. I did really enjoy the way the chapter talked about poetry saying that it is human speech at its most intense and musical. I think it definitely is the most intense form of literature because the author is sort of forced to pack a message and emotion into a few short lines as apposed to a novel where the message may be very clear and the author can explain everything. With poetry the reader is sort of forced to come to their own conclusion about what the author was trying to say but for stories the message is a lot of times pretty clear.
Literature is fascinating because it gives you the ability to paint your own picture in your mind instead of having the picture or painting right in front of your face. Literature allows your imagination to take over and you end up sort of creating your own version of the descriptive places and characters in your mind. I think this is one of the reasons it makes literature one of the most creative forms of art and sometimes one of the most difficult. I don’t read a lot of novels but the ones I have read, I remember having a picture in my mind of the setting and what the characters looked like in my mind and then I remember watching the movie that was based on the novel and seeing the differences and similarities between what was on the screen and what I had made up in my mind.
Literature is a big part of my life. I enjoy reading, mostly novels or prose fiction in my free time and always have. I have never attended a poetry slam or anything like that, I am not very familiar with that style of literature and often do not understand it. When I read, I like to follow a story; usually I choose mystery or adventure novels. The stories I read often have a main plot with characters and that does not have much of a back-story. To me poems are always about finding the hidden meaning in them, I am not sure if that’s because I was always encouraged in school to look for that or for different reasons. When I am looking for a deeper meaning and trying to analyze what the author was thinking while writing, I stop enjoying the piece of literature as much. I find this true; not only for poems, but also in novels I had to read for classes. Having to analyze the meaning and think in a different way makes the story less interesting to me. I enjoy finding a connection to a piece I am reading just as I do when I am looking at a painting or drawing but having to look into one specific meaning takes away from the piece.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at a piece of art, people are encouraged to find a connection to the piece, in class and in our book, we discuss that there are many different connection possible for one piece. Each viewer can see a piece of art differently. Considering literature is considered art, it should be viewed just as all the other art types are viewed. Being restricted to thinking only one meaning is behind writing, such as a poem limits the literatures connections.
I usually read books of the same genre and with the same authors. Once I read one story that I like I start to become used to the authors writing style and find it hard to switch to a different author. Therefore when I do pick a different author it is often an author that has a similar writing style. The style or genre of novels I usually stick to is mystery, crime and detective. I think the action keeps me thinking about the story frequently and makes me read the novel quicker. These stories are often straight forward, unlike poetry, and do not have a hidden meaning to them. I am often able to connect with certain characters or situations but the novel itself does not create meaningful art. I often read for pleasure, which is what I see most novels are created for. Although all art is created for some purpose, this is more entertainment like a movie would bring than entertainment/enjoyment a painting would bring.
I agree that literature should be classified as art because it takes talent, has meaning and is created for a purpose. I think poetry is more artistic than other writings. All forms of writing take talent on the artist’s side, poetry often creates more emotion and feelings.
Nicole Marmo
ReplyDeleteLiterature
In my personal opinion I do not like literature. I don’t see a point in reading something so carefully that you find out what will happen before the book is over or something that uses a bunch of literary devices to convey a message. I’ve never been into that type of stuff, whether it be reading or writing it. If I really wanted to I could get into a good book, but I would look for the certain types of devices within them like I’d have to reading literature. Another reason I’ve never been able to get into the reading of literature was because every time we were assigned to read a book in high school it was always some boring old book that were always sad. I can’t say I’ve read one book in high school that I enjoyed. I remember my junior year we were forced to read this book, Beloved, and it was the worst book I’ve ever read in my entire life. It had a bad concept as well as a bad storyline. The book made absolutely no sense to me, and it was so complicated to read I wouldn’t even understand what would go on throughout the chapters. In one chapter there was a scene where the main character saws off her own infants head, and I completely missed it. Then when we began to learn about it in class it made no sense to me that 16 year olds were being forced to read a book so obscene and inappropriate.
When it comes to reading I will only read what interests me. For example, I like to read books where they turn them into movies this way when I’m done reading I can get better visuals of what happened in the book, but usually the movies are so bad compared to the books because they leave stuff out or add in extra.
I can’t say literature is art, unless there are illustrations involved. Writing is writing not art. How can writing a story be art? I can see how it can be considered creative, but no art skills are involved. If a story of any kind can be considered art then anything can be considered art. Jokes can be considered art, newspapers, the saying of McDonald’s, “I’m loving it,” etc. To me literature just can’t be considered art because it clearly crosses a line. If literature requires so many factors like literary devices and following a plot chart to be written, how can it be considered art? A lot of creativity is taken away in order to make literature literature.
I understand how a poem can be considered art and that’s because a poem is basically a song that isn’t sung. Poems have a beat and rhyme, most of the time, just like music. Therefore, if music is art poems are art, but literature is not. Poetry is the only kind of literature that can be considered art in my opinion.
Shannon Smith
ReplyDeleteLiterature
11/2/15
In my opinion this was the best chapter I have read throughout our entire semester. I have always been fascinated with the way literature came to be. Simply starting from the very beginning this chapter explains the evolution of literature in a way that makes the most sense. We began forming words as a scientific mutation. Our minds began to develop and speech began to form. This has always been an extremely interesting concept due to the complexity of language and the way it has formed. I always wondered who came up with letters, syllables, and ultimately words and sentences. The book explains that, “Words became the primary vehicle of human wisdom” which I find amazingly true. This is the perfect definition and the most accurate one I have ever heard. Eventually humans desired to record the words they had written down and this is where literature comes into play.
Starting at a very young age I found myself very interested in poetry. Of course I read the less sophisticated versions of poetry such as Shell Silverstein. However this hobby for reading poetry developed into some more sophisticated versions of poetry such as William Blake and Shakespeare. What truly grasps my attention and makes me fall in love with the poem is the imagery that is provided by the poet. As I read each poem I envision a scene that is dictated by the literature I read. This aspect of poetry has always been so amazing to me, the fact that a poet can create an entire image just by writing down and combining simplistic or complex words has always bewildered me.
The complexity that goes into literature blows my mind. The fact that the human race can go from non verbal, to uttering sounds, and eventually speak to one another not only orally but through the writing of words is such an amazing concept. Simply reading literature (whether I enjoy it or not) puts into perspective the kind of development humans have gone through over time.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter is so easy to relate to. Even though technology is a huge part of today’s society, writing is still a major part of our everyday lives too, whether we realize it or not. For this week’s Art I Make project, I wrote a poem, which is what this chapter discusses. My main topic is puzzles and my poem was about a friend of mine, who is the final, missing piece of the puzzle in my poem, who passed away last year in a car accident. Going into it, I just wrote a poem the way I knew how, but after reading this chapter in the book, I was able to go back and actually see what type of poem I wrote. I was able to find out that I wrote a free verse, rhyming poem. I also used personification in my poem and the entire thing was a metaphor. This chapter unexpectedly taught me a lot of my own project for this week.
My favorite type of literature is definitely a novel. I really liked the way this chapter talked about reading. Instead of just saying literature is something we read and understand, it discusses how the reader must stop paying attention to whatever else they’re doing and to give in to the book. Especially today, when there’s cellphones and social media to distract a person, they must find the time to actually find a good book and read it. I am also not a big fan of electronic literature. Kindles and other electronic reading devices have become so popular within the last couple of years, but in my opinion, physically picking up a book and sifting through it before reading it is part of the enjoyment. I believe that literature is better on paper rather than on electronics. Overall, this chapter was very enjoyable for me, simply because I love to read and so learning about the history and structure of what I read was interesting.
I didn’t like the part of this chapter called “The Power of Reading.” This section was all about how a person should go about reading literature, but in my opinion, there shouldn’t be any structure. A person should be able to read a novel in any way that they want, and then depict what is happening based on their own views of the book. I do not think they should have to follow guidelines while reading.
Kirsten Hansen
ReplyDelete11/08
Literature
I definitely feel as though literature is a form of art. Even thoughtI do not get to read leisurely often, I really do enjoy it. There are very few things better than reading a great piece of literature. I feel as though this chapter was pretty inclusive of literature whether it be poetry, a novel, etcetera.
One of my favorite parts of the chapter is when it mentioned letting yourself take in the work as opposed to thinking about the fact that you are reading. If you let yourself enjoy the words, it becomes a much more enjoyable experience. With that being said, I just felt like i enjoy the way that part was worded. I do not however like how the chapter talked about how people should be reading literature. Everyone does things in their own way and enjoying literature is included in that. There is no right or wrong way to read and intemperate this form of art.
I personally enjoy novels, as opposed to poems or anything else. I am a history major and if there is one thing that I am required to do it is read. I have become a quick reader, however the pace at which I take in literature truly depends on the content. If I am reading a historical novel about some war or figure, I tend to chuck and skim the reading. I am pretty good at deciphering the meaning of things without touching on every single page. When I am pleasure reading however, I like to spend more time enjoying the text, taking in every last detail.
I suppose I do enjoy poetry as well. I used to really enjoy participating in poetry slam back in high school. I think if I find the right poems by the right authors, I enjoy it much more than just reading boring poems because I am being told to.
Usually when I am reading a chapter, the author convinces me of what I didn’t consider an art to be an art. It wasn’t the case in this chapter. As much as writing impresses me I don’t think of it as an art form. I think of it more as a passion, a hobby, a career, but I don’t consider it an art. I never really liked writing personally; I liked creative writing when I was a kid because I liked making little storybooks with illustrations, but it never grew into a passion for me. I did however, when I reached junior year in high school, grow an appreciation for Shakespeare and his tragedies and comedies. Even though Shakespeare was so good at what he did and his works were truly amazing, I wouldn’t consider it an art. I do appreciate writing. I am a big reader and I love to delve into a good book, but what writers do, even though I think it is amazing, I don’t think it is an art.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really think the book went into a good enough argument to why literature is an art. It seemed to have just told the different parts of literature, different genres of literature, and provided some example poetry. The chapter was rather short as well. It didn’t seem that even the author believed that literature was an art. He even said that literature came out of a necessity. Before people wrote down stories they would just repeat them and these stories would just get passed down. The stories would be easier to remember with a rhyme or rhythm to them. So literature grew out of necessity.
I think it is interesting how different art and literature seem to me. In the art world people are inspired by history and create things based off history, but they also jump out of the box and create questions and question society. I feel like literature goes to what’s popular. I feel like they fill more of what people want and expect where art is more unexpected and shows you something new. I am not saying that every piece of writing is unoriginal because then all of our books would be about werewolves and vampires. But if art is about pushing the boundaries, I don’t think literature falls into that category.
I think an argument can be made for how literature is art. I think I am in the minority thinking that literature is not art. I can see how people would think it is art. It’s manmade, it expresses emotion, and there are many different types.
This next chapter, chapter nine, is about literature. To be completely honest I do not like literature. I have never liked reading or writing and I will probably never like to read or write. My reasoning behind not liking to read or write is because I am not very good at it. I am a slow reader and I can not spell for my life which is why I do not like literature.
ReplyDeleteI especially do not like poetry. I do not like trying to decipher something, I would rather just have the author say what he he wants to get across to the audience. For example, in the chapter there is a poem written by William Blake called The Sick Rose. After reading this five times I still did not understand what the author was saying. He was talking about a sick rose; who cares about the rose. What does the rose symbolize? I do not know because the author never says within the eight line poem that does not make any sense.
This class is all about decided what is art and what is not art. I believe that there are many different types of art. But I do not believe that literature is an art. I believe there is more to art than just words and all that literature is, is words. Maybe if I actually enjoyed literature I would have more of an appreciation for it, but I do not like it and I do not think I ever will. I understand that a lot of time and effort goes into creating literature. You need to create characters, a plot, imagery and many other things, but I do not think it is enough to just write a story to be considered art. This is only just my opinion and I am sure that those who enjoy literature will say that literature is an art form, but I will not be convinced until I actually like to read literature.
John Yusza
ReplyDeleteChapter 9
I have been told literature is a form of art my whole life. But I don’t know if I really believe that even after years of literature class analyzing poetry and stories for their true meanings. I mean I guess it makes sense in the way we have been interpreting art where our own interpretations are just as valid as the artists. I was always taught with literature there is one interpretation and you better learn it because everything else is wrong. Easy enough to say this makes literature very boring if there is only one interpretation.
I think it wouldn’t be so bad if we all were allowed our interpretations for the deeper meanings. However I still do not like poetry. I don’t know why but I just don’t like to read it or write it. I know poetry is behind almost every song but I feel like that is completely different from just regular poetry written down and read. Most of us have had more exposure to literature than any other form of art. Because most of us in high school and before were required to take literature classes in some form.
Most of our time studying literature was spend on “good” literature. But is it really good literature if only scholars can appreciate it. Why isn’t a good story that everyone likes considered good literature. Does it have to have this deeper level to it that scholars want for it to be an art? Or can it just be a well told story and still be art. I feel like more limitations are put on literature on what can be art and what cannot be art and I don’t think that’s fair seeing how in other areas of art basically if you make or do anything it is considered art. If we went by this model with literature instead of being so strict I think more people would appreciate it instead of just shunning it away and saying that they do not like literature.
Kristin Portsmouth
ReplyDeleteAesthetics Response 10
November 9, 2015
I have always thought writing took skill and creativity but I never really thought of it as an art form. Like the book said, “writing became necessary when memory proved unable to store humans’ verbal treasure.” I do not think art is something that is necessary to keep life going which is why I feel literature is not an art. Of course creating literature is creative and expresses emotion like an art, but because it is writing it doesn’t seem like art. When an author writes a play is the script art? I think it becomes art once it is performed and you can visualize the events taking place. A piece of work needs a visual aspect in order to be considered an art for me.
In school I was never a fan of reading because I could never guess the hidden meanings behind the text the author wrote. There is a joke about how teachers make some crazy meaning to something simple like the color of the curtains and I completely agree with it. If the author states the curtains are blue, the only meaning I see behind this is that character likes the color blue. A teacher trying to analyze the book would say the character picked the color blue because they were depressed and blue represents the sadness they feel. That seems crazy to me and I never understood why someone would try to complicate something as straight forward as curtain colors. Literature seems more like a puzzle if it is formatted to have so many hidden meanings. Another reason I was never a fan of reading in school is because we would also read the classic novels like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Scarlet Letter. In almost every case, I was never able to read the book fully. I always got bored of reading and start to skim through it or simply look up the summary of the chapters I was supposed to be reading.
Despite not liking being forced to read in school, I actually really enjoy reading on my own in my free time. Being able to choose whatever book I want to read makes the experience more enjoyable. The same thing goes for writing. Being forced to write an essay on whatever boring topic is not going to be as enjoyable as writing some crazy story you came up with. Even doing that, I still do not consider writing an art. In art classes do you see kids writing poems and stories? No, that is left to the to the English classrooms.
Dustin Wade
ReplyDeleteChapter 9: Literature
Literature is a difficult one when it comes to deciding whether it is an art or not. One side of me says that it is an art because of the elements used to creating it, but another side of me says that it can't be art because it is just writing and not something you observe.
The last chapter was about the printed image which can show a thousand words in itself through visually examining and interpreting with imagination, but literature is limited and does the imagining for the reader. You don't see written work hanging up in an art museum like you do with paintings and sculptures. Yet at the same time, literature is what makes up other arts such as plays and theatrical performances. For example in class when we went over the play about the cats, we read the literary piece first and then watched the performance. If it wasn't for the literature being written, then the play itself may not have existed. The same goes with many movies coming out today which is discussed in the next chapter. Movies such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and many others were first stories from literature that someone imagined and wrote out for those to read. If it wasn't for those works of literature created by the mind of someone, then many plays and movies today would not existed either. Also in school growing up we didn't read random stories, we read what is believed the best example of literature with many literary elements such as To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies because within these stories there is a larger scope and theme to comprehend, sort of like what we are doing with our Art I Make projects.
So in a way, literature is an art, just one that is difficult to understand. Sometimes it takes time to read an entire piece and other times its confusing to the reader. But literature can present many different options and meanings that in a way are artistic.
I am a person who sometimes likes to read books. I will admit that I normally choose anything else over picking up a book and thats partly because of all of the required reading I have done and still do for school. I hope that once I am finally free of homework, I can start reading for pleasure once again. In the style guide section of the chapter, the author listed the "Varieties of the Novel". The title "Brave New World" stuck out to me because I remembered reading it in my English class sophomore year of high school. It was the only book I have ever read front to back without really understanding anything that was happening. Maybe if I had spent a few more years in school studying different kinds of sophisticated literature, I would have appreciated the novel more and understood the author's message. I personally loved Harry Potter when I was in middle school. I classified it as a fantasy novel but the author of our textbook called J.K Rowling's series a coming-of-age novel. This simply means that the author tells a story about the characters life from when they were a child until they grow up to be an adult.
ReplyDeleteI never classified literature as an art. The definition of art to me before this class was pretty basic. To me, art was the visual art that I made in class and saw in museums. Art was music I played and heard every day. Maybe this was my definition because these are the forms of art that I practiced. Now I accept that theater is art and dance is art. You will have a harder time convincing me that literature is art just like a painting. The definition of art keeps becoming broader and broader. As I sit here now on my bed, pondering once again what is art...is my comforter art? Is my shirt art? And my rings? I would consider jewelry making art before I would consider literature art.
Chandler Cobb
ReplyDeleteLiterature is something that I appreciate most when I’m not told to. My absolute least favorite is when were assigned readings for classes and how we had to read specific books all through middle school and high school because for me being told you NEED to read this made me have a bad attitude and closed mind going into the reading. There are very few assigned literature books that I enjoyed reading.
However, I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy literature. I love reading. I’m the basic romance novel while sitting on the beach type of person, but I love mysteries and I love reading about real life situations. The Other Wes Moore was one of the most interesting pieces of literature I’ve ever read. That was actually an assigned reading that I did enjoy. “It gives us the power to imagine other people in other worlds and to understand truths we might not have imagined ourselves.” This is the quote that I most related to from the chapter. I really enjoy literature that is impossible for me to put down. I love books that I can’t put down, and the books that I can’t put down are the ones that I can imagine myself part in.
In high school, there was a poetry class that once a year would put on a show referred to as the poetry slam. The poetry slam gave students an opportunity to take any piece of literature and make it there own or start from scratch and write a piece of literature that represents them. I would never have the courage to stand up in front of 200 people and throw myself into something that says things about me that I would never want anyone to know. I admire any one that has the courage to do that.
Throughout these chapter I’m noticing that I write about wishing I was better at art or better at relating at a form of art, or wishing I had the courage to express myself through art, and I strongly believe that without these readings I wouldn’t have ever realized how many different parts of art there are.
Max Kraimer
ReplyDeleteChapter 9: Literature
Personally I don’t think literature is art. I know it takes creative thinking and a lot of time to write a book or poem but in my views it doesn’t stand out as art to me. Mostly because every since I was a kid I having been reading books, novel, poems, etc. and have never pictured them as art like I would see a picture hanging in a museum. I can see the books point of view that literature can have sound, form, and meaning. It nicely illustrates different ways authors can get meaning across. But after going through the list it started to seem like this chapter was more like an English homework assignment then a depiction of an art form. It explained writing technics that I have learned through my English classes, such as, what a metaphor and allusion is. Over all I was not a fan of this chapter.
I guess I would be appreciative of literature as an art form if I wasn’t always forced to read it. I don’t often read for fun even though it’s something I should do. In college I am usually forced to read short articles, chapters from textbooks, or even peer reviewed scientific papers. All these form of writing are interesting but I find them to be extremely boring. And I problem wouldn’t read them if I wasn’t forced to, but I guess that’s why im here I guess, for an education.
I find the easiest things to read are things that you personally enjoy. When reading a book or article that I am more interested I am more likely to read for a longer time. That’s also I think its not a form or art. Most art forms are something that you look at for a fairly short period of time. With a novel it could take you a few weeks to finish it which makes we question where we draw the line or art. Or if there is a line to even draw.
Chapter 9 Literature
ReplyDeleteMatt Sutton
11-10-15
Aesthetics
Literature, no matter how much I may hate it at times, it’s one of the most important things in my life. I remember when I first started writing, by learning the alphabet back then I didn’t realize how much of an impact learning each letter would have on me later in life. When I think of literature as an art form poetry does make the most sense. Poetry is the most emotional part of writing or literature, so much can be described, foreshadowed, and personified in a six lined piece of writing. To me poems can sometimes make no sense, just like all of the other pieces of art literature is the same when it comes to understanding what the artist has composed. There isn’t just one singular meaning to the writing presented in a poem but multiple different ways to perceive it. I believe the reason why I hate writing, and reading so much is because of the amount of time it takes to complete a paper, or finish a book thee is a lot of words and thoughts to think about when writing a sentence, or trying to follow what is going on in a story there is a limit to the amount of words that you can absorb. I have noticed that the best writers say the most with very little words, what I mean by this is professional writers centralize their writing towards the papers purpose. I have been taught how to change my paper a certain way depending on the intended audience or the actual purpose of the paper there are a variety of different things you can do to either persuade, inform, or creatively think of to make your paper the best it can be. What separates the good writers from the great, is their use of creative words and persuasive points to help support their paper. Out of all the other kinds of art I do not believe that literature is one of the more artistic forms of art. Although what might be said could be more emotional than a painting or a piece of music literature doesn’t make me feel the same way. There are times though when I see a movie that is part of a trilogy or a T.V. show and am forced to read in order to find out what happens next. The difference between books and videos of the same thing is that books go more into detail than movies and T.V shows, in movies they the director is required to only include important parts and sometimes they have to forget about details and sometimes major parts that can actually impact the way you perceive the plot. Even though there are many people who love to write and read, that isn’t me. Literature is not for everyone and a personal thing, maybe in the future I will have more of an interest and respect for literature.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don’t really read. But when I find a book thats fascinating, I’m hooked. Some of my favorite novels are sappy romance books written by Nicholas Sparks and John Green. Besides those books, there aren’t many that I like. The thing I hate the most is the assigned readings from school. Although I hate them, there have been some books assigned from school that I found very fascinating. Some of these books include To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby. Besides these books, there haven’t really been others that I’ve read or found interesting.
Do I consider literature an art? Personally, I don’t read enough to consider it an art but I think there are some “artistic” forms of literature. Like the chapter discusses, poetry is considered an “artistic” form of literature. The reason poetry is considered art is because of its metaphorical messages that illustrate pictures in the readers minds. When I think of art, I typically think of going to a museum, looking at paintings or sculptures… not reading. I think that the only reason someone could argue that literature is a form of art is because compared to television and movies, it creates a visual in the audience’s head that is imaginary rather than real and straight forward.