Amy Elmers Portfolio Reflections

[0:00] The questions “What is literature?” and “How do we understand it?” appear on the screen.

Throughout this course, I’ve learned a great deal about what literature is and how to understand it. I’m a journalism major, and when I think about literature, I usually think about novels.  I’m used to writing short articles and stories for my journalism classes, so I occasionally dread longer mediums, and therefore literature. But what I’ve learned throughout this class is that there is a much more fluid definition of literature than just words on a page. Poetry is literature, novels are literature, and it could even be possible for film to be literature. One of the great joys I have had in this class was making this discovery and understanding that literature takes many forms, which was something that really surprised me. 

[0:38] A web page showing Dugan’s article

In her article “Transactional Literature Discussions: Engaging Students in the Appreciation and Understanding of Literature,” JoAnn Dugan says, “Treating literature as information poses problems for students because it neglects the aesthetic elements of literature.” This echoes my own discovery that literature is not just about reading and interpreting written words. It’s not just information. It is also about incorporating elements of creativity or aestheticism to make or experience something of great value.

[1:18] A web page showing an article from John Hopkins

In trying to define what literature is, Jonathan Culler says, “Trying to identify the defining feature of works deemed literary leads to important discussions of literary works, such as their fictionality, their non-instrumental use of language, their high degree of organization that extends to levels and linguistic features usually regarded as transparent, their dependent, yet transformative relation to other texts regarded as literary;  but each of these qualities is likely also to be shared with works not usually regarded as literature…” He goes on to say, “...literariness is not confined to literature but can be studied in historical narratives, philosophical texts, and rhetorical and cultural practices of very different sorts.” Culler says that what makes something literature is the context in which it is read and studied, thus I think our poetry essays and e-poems have great literary significance. 

[2:04] Another article from John Hopkins

Frederick Aicken says, “The film should be capable of creating for the eye a sort of visual poetry, which would be a selection of the sight of ordinary men just as Wordsworth’s poetry was a selection of the speech of ordinary men.” He goes on to say, “The ideal film writer is, therefore, the man with the gift for composing vivid visual images with the minimum of dialogue or commentary. He is more likely to have been working as a painter or cameraman or even as a certain type of poet or novelist than as a playwright or radio script writer.” Aicken talks mostly about the interpretation of film as poetry, but in our class we proved that the inverse is also true. One can interpret the themes and aestheticism of poetry as film, just as one can interpret the themes and aestheticism of film as poetry.

[2:54] Footage from e-poem, starting with clock

By converting our poems to e-poems, we emphasized the fluidity of literature and demonstrate that poetry is enhanced and brought to life by visual representations. I hope that this is evident in my e-poem, where I use clock images and a moving train as metaphors for the transient sea of life that the poem that I used, “Cloud Fishing,” alludes to.

[3:19] Word Document showing essay

I hope that my poetry essay can bring to life valuable literary elements of poetry as well. I think poetry is often considered “poetry’s little brother,”  but poetry is a beautiful, expressive form that really capitalizes on aspects of literature, such as themes, fictional representation, motifs, sometimes plot, tension and conflict. Poetry is one of the most expressive forms of literature and should be regarded as such. My poetry essay highlights Langston Hughes’ use of poetry as a means of political activism on the issue of black rights. He helped create the Harlem renaissance, a cultural revolution that was committed to liberating African-Americans. Yes, his poetry is literature. After taking this class and realizing that literature can be a term applied more broadly to organized works of language and expression, I would consider the art of jazz music of the Harlem Renaissance to be literature as well. All of these modes of expression are valuable to teaching us to think critically, evaluate the world we live in, and decide what that means. I believe that is literature and it is powerful.

[4:24] The words “What is literature?” appear on the screen.

Before I took this class, I thought literature was a term that only applied to novels. Now, I feel that literature is a broader category than I could have ever imagined, and a fascinating one to discover.