On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Nicole Youngman wrote:
> Would some kind soul please explain the concept of "literary silences" to
> this budding sociologist? I had a feminist lit crit course a while back but
> it seemed like the whole thing was about Foucault...I had a hard time paying
> attention. ;-)
As Baudrillard said, "Forget Foucault"! On second thought, better forget
Baudrillard, too (if you are irritated by some ideas of postmodernism,
and/or are an incurable modernist like me)... Coming to what a "literary
silence" is (if I have not misinterpreted the concept):
First of all, I believe it may be used both by postmodernist and
modernist literary analyses. In the case of "non-thrash" (once again
referring to the Strugeon's Law) SF, throughout the whole structure of the
narrative, the writer always places, or integrates her/his ideological
values/biases/creations, etc. To search for such ideological elements, a
suggested method (not by me) is to try to spot, to "read" where the writer
is silent about a subject, or an event, or whatever, whose integration
into the matrix of the narrative will discomfort the writer.
For example, if you were a writer devoted to the (former) Communist
Party of the Soviet Union back in, say, 40s or 50s, you would be careful
if you were writing a novel about village life. You would feel that you
should be silent about certain aspects of poverty or inequality in rural
life. There were supporters of "proletkult" drwing pictures of all-mighty
commune villagers, handsome, over two meters, intellectual, etc.
Literary silence can happen either in conscious avoidance or unconscious
neglect of the disturbing elements.
Hope I have not wrongly explained the concept.
Also please note that I am not an expert on literature, only a curious
reader of some theories about literature and of sociology of literature.
So please CORRECT ME.
EMRAH
-"Insgiht! Insight! My kingdom for an insight!"
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