- There is evaluation, in which you discuss the merits or flaws of a specific piece of work. This tends to be practiced by book reviewers.
- There is historicism, in which you discuss the historical context of the literary work in order to clarify its meaning for modern audiences. Historians do this quite well.
- There is biographism, in which you situate a specific work into the context of an entire authors oeuvre. Much of the literary criticism done today on famous authors--say, Shakespeare and Joyce--is done in this mode.
- There is structural analysis, in which you consider the structural apparatuses used by the specific literary format and analyze it in those terms; for example, the formal analysis of metered poetry is a good example of what I would like to call structural analysis.
These are, of course, caricatures of work that is never one of any of these and always a mixture of many modes.
By the way, these are my coinages that more or less resemble other conceptualizations more formally defined by historians of literary criticism.
But in this post I want to briefly talk about a specific type of literary criticism: aesthetic analysis.
Before proceeding with my micro-discussion I need to answer this question: what relevance does this topic have for aspiring weird fiction writers? Fair enough. Just how is this important in terms of the purported focus of this blog: the writing of science fiction, fantasy, horror?
Hmm...
Here's my argument put briefly: in order to create good literature you need to be able to identify, describe, and distinguish between good and bad writing. You need to be a literary critic to be a literary artist.
This belief is obviously underpinned by a primal, perhaps more controversial belief: I believe that writing is a skill that can be honed and mastered as opposed to the more romantic view of writing as a miraculous expression of singular linguistic/narrative genius.
For me, writing is just as much like carpentry as it is an inherited gene. In order to produce good writing, you not only need to be talented and creative but you need to be able to identify good writing and discuss its features.
I don't deny that innate artistic skill and inspiration are *the* key elements of writerly success; nevertheless, I believe with enough commitment and enthusiasm and input, writers can more fully reach their artistic potential. With that said, developing a strong "literary critical" sensibility is a must.
O.k.. Back to aesthetic analysis. I'm not sure what the most proper term is for what I mean by aesthetic analysis as a mode of literary criticism; and so, this is what I mean by it: aesthetic analysis is an attempt to understand the effect of art on the audience of art.
In other words, it is the study of *drum roll* how art moves us.
Some folks might call this reception analysis or cognitive poetics. These terms are too precise for me. I'll spare you my many reservations.
Here's the major premise of aesthetic analysis: art effects people in specific ways. In other words, fantasy fills people with wonder! Science-fiction stirs people with a feeling of the sublime! Horror horrifies! Thus, we can think of each type of art as connected to a specific--let us say "emotion."
Fantasy: feelings of the "fantastic."
Science-fiction: feelings of "science-fictionality"
Horror: feelings of "horror."
Articulating things in this way then lets us imagine how each genre sets out to stir within its readers a specific bodily reaction.
And here is where I get to let loose my scandalous though hopefully thought provoking slogan: weird fiction, by which I mean science-fiction, fantasy and horror (by which I mean genre fiction), is fundamentally pornographic.
Why?! How?! What?!
Well, let me answer this is a roundabout way by indulging in a little literary historical syllogism:
Premise 1: Because science-fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror are often cited as 20th century phenomenon, "genre fiction" is often defined in contradistinction to the other 20th century literary phenomenon: "high modernist literature" or "pure literary art."
Premise 2: Modernism attempts to create in its audience a kind of negative emotional state, a kind of emotional, cerebral detachment. Thus, it is considered pure art.
Conclusion: It's "opposite," genre fiction, attempt to stir its audiences emotions. It quickens their pulse, takes their breath away, boggles their mind.
Pornography acts on the body, too.
I'm opening up a big can of worms here and I'll follow up it tomorrow. I'm thinking this may be a 3 or 4 parter.
But we have taken are first step into understanding precisely how weird fiction works. Understanding how something works then allows us to speculate on its effectiveness. And with effectiveness we then have a means by which to sharpen any value judgments we might deploying in evaluating genre literature.
"It is good or bad?" becomes "is it effective or ineffective?"
I'm sure there is payoff here.
I think your on and interesting tack, but I wonder if there's a better word than pornography meaning as it does (literally) "the writings of prostitutes." It also carries a fairly negative association that might only serve to obscure your ultimate point.
ReplyDeleteYour recitation of forms of genre fiction misses mystery or detective fiction, which has previously been cited by at least one critic as the "low-brow" counterpoint to modernist literature, with science fiction having a similar relationship to post-modernist literature.
Also, works that would be classified as horror and fantasy were certainly written in the 19th Century. Further, I think the use of "weird fiction" to encompass three genre's obscures the separate (but related) genre called weird fiction first identified by Sheridan le Fanu.
None of that is to say you're not going in an interesting direction here! :)
Just typed up a long response and I realized it was too long; and so it's now becoming the draft of tomorrow's post! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI really wanted to talk about detective fiction; I didn't, however, because the genres I cite are distinct in terms of their *deviations from reality.* The hard-boiled detective novel, does, however, stir our imaginations. Ex. *The Maltese Falcon*: Who killed Miles Archer? Just what *is* the Maltese Falcon?
This level of curiosity is really capitalized by H.P. Lovecraft, who takes a genre that stirs our imagination through offering an unknown--namely, who did it? what is that thing?--and it *answers* the question.
Re. the 19th century: a key development was the Gothic Novel and the fairy tale. Those include fantastic elements; however, I resist calling them outright fantasies because some gothic novels only contain things that only *seem* to be supernatural. Other gothic novels contain things that, in the world of the novel, are apparently scientifically feasible (e.g. Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein).
The gothic novel I imagine as a kind of Ur text for detective fiction, supernatural horror, science-fiction, all sorts of thing.
Modern fantasy is genealogically linked to fairy tales, folklore, mythology, the Chivalric tale that Cervantes reacted against in Don Quixote. You totally have a point! The *plot* elements that distinguish what I am calling *weird fiction* are definately not 20th century phenoms.
Re. le Fanu -- I didn't know that! I think it's ironic, though, because in Lovecraft famously gives short shrift to Fanu in his *Supernatural Horror and Literature* essay. I need to look into that!
Re. "pornography": I really want to distinguish this science-fiction, fantasy, and horror from "art-fiction". I want to do this in such a spectacular (and no doubt silly way) to point out the kind of aesthetic pleasure one gets from these genres is *SO* unlike the pleasure (if you can even call it that) one has when reading, say, Finnegan's Wake. They are fundamentally distinct aesthetic experiences.
I won't continue the discussion too much here as I want to wait for you next response. In regard to "pornography," again I think the danger is in shutting down the audience by potentially inflammatory wording so that they don't hear your argument. I'm reminded of the science fiction critic (can't remember his name) who wanted (innocently, so he claimed) to take a look at what appealed to people about modern series fantasy (what he called "fat fantasy"). He got a huge amount of negative (extremely so) feedback which he expresses befuddlement at: "he just wanted to figure out why people like this stuff!" he protested.
ReplyDeleteHe was oblivious to the fact he was calling it "fat fantasy" a title that sounds negative to the modern Western ear at the outset! He let his bias show (consciously or unconsciously) and it derailed whatever argument he would have made.
I wish I could remember who that was. The fantasy writer R. Scott Bakker had a very cogent (and civil) back and forth with him, as I recall.
You raise some serious points and I'm earnestly reconsidering the analogy.
ReplyDeleteTo some extent, this sort of *spetacularized* usage--mine and the one you cite---is a "three-ring-circus" strategy commonly used by academic as they title their journal articles or present at the conferences they hold: one titles journal articles or papers in a *provocative* way in order to get people to come to your session or to read your article! (Referring to this isn't an attempt to justify the practice--it's merely an explanation.)
Now that I reflect on it, I *don't* really feel comfortable emulating that practice. Hmm...
I get your point: you have a problem when your attention grabber subordinates and perhaps overshadows your content.
If your reasoning is to provoke and you end up alienating, the strategy obviously needs to be re-thunk.
Thanks for bringing my attention to this! This was a perspective I was ignorant too.