I think that Amelia has raised some good and interesting issues in her posting, but I'll leave it to other folks to comment on it - I think you have already heard enough from me regarding the ending. I'm sure there are others out there who are grappling too with the ending in _Huck Finn_? Or with the humour?
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My posting is more interested in the relationship between literature and politics. I had followed a link to this website - http://www.kettering.edu/~mgellis/HANDT015.htm - from another blog, and there Dr Mark Gellis says
"It is important, by the way, to keep the political aspect of literature in mind. Nothing is more political than literature, even when it overtly makes an argument about a particular political issue, because so much of literature is concerned with power and morality, about what is true, good, and possible, about what is just and beautiful, about who has power and who should have power in society and in the family, and how that power should be employed, and for what ends. It is hard to find a work of literature that does not ask us to join with or join against certain characters (or the narrator); in doing this, a work of literature becomes an argument for (or against) a particular political, ethical, social, and/or moral agenda."
A compelling point of view. Now, look at this question from the Higher Level November 2004 paper:
“A writer cannot put literature and politics on an equal footing without failing as a writer.” How far does writing you have studied confirm or question this view?
!
:) What do you think? What is the quote in the HL question saying/implying/assuming? Whose view are you more inclined to agree with? Take a stab at it, go on.
J
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6 comments:
*grin*
I'm going to set up an argument for the sake of debate:
This, I think, is a classical view of literature, deriving from the concept of polis as the apex of human arete or virtue. Whatever is true, just, beautiful etc is echoed also in the New Testament epistle to the Philippians. From this perspective, classical literature had a duty to reflect not life as it actually was, but life as it ought to be - ultimately prescriptive and not descriptive, and a 'political message' in the modern sense. Shakespeare rebels against this, if you take a good look... which is why Harold Bloom attributes the 'invention of the human' to him.
hoho, i didnt think this was open to other chew-ren :)
I don't think that literature requires a political agenda so much as a social agenda, but then again what is politics?
If a text holds no meaning and no message, then like art without a context and an attempt to connect with the audience, it fails and ceases to be literature.
Then again, reflecting on the individual; the emotions and feelings of the self and not society, as is sometimes seen in Sidd. and Huck Finn, can be non-political in nature. *this is assuming politics have to do with society and nothing to do with the individual*
if you subscribed to the view that it is not the society but the individual who decides their own moral guidelines i.e conscience, then literature can be non-political when talking about moral ethics.
I think the question is quite vague, but i would rephrase it to mean:
A writer cannot place literature and politics on equal footing, or else he/she will fail as a writer.
I feel that this statement is fairly one-sided. It is true that in novels like Huck Finn, Twain may have failed as a writer because he covers up the effect of the political satire evident throughout the book with the disappointing ending. However, there are also writers that use literature to convey political messages quite successfully. Well, Orwell's '1984' can be an example.
But then again, this depends on how one defines politics as.
Then again, the question can be interpreted in another way: it may be asking whether a successful writer can place equal importance on how he constructs his novel (ie. the study of literature) and on his political message. In other words, does his political message compromise the quality of his novel?
Well, that's quite a technical question to argue, isn't it; so if i have only 2h to write an essy, i wouldn't go down that road...but it's something worth thinking about.
Who are you, toitle? And who just posted an anonymous comment? Please leave your name at the end of the post if your Blogger Name does not clearly identify you. Thank you.
i'm toitle! aristoitle
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