Strategies to Approach

Contemporary Literature
TITIEN DIAH SOELISTYARINI
UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA
What makes Contemporary Literature
Contemporary ?

 May refer to certain literary period, especially

post WW II (but that’s not always relevant)
 Capture the anxiety of modern society
 Experimenting with new forms and genres as
well as new styles
Historical and Societal
Background
 “Objective truth does not exist; all we have
to rely on is our own perspective, on our
own truth, since that is all that we can see.”
 Pre-WW II most literature dealt with issue of
how people could go on living these
realizations
 After the atrocities of the war, it wasn’t so
hard to accept the idea that there was no
benevolent God watching over. Even in
the midst of joy and relief that the war was
over, the predominant attitude was
disillusionment.
Contemporary Fiction
 Allows for multiple meanings and multiple worlds, uses
nontraditional forms, and comments upon itself
 Yet, embraces traditional storytellers as well as
postmodern risk-takers.
 Features cultural diversity, crisscrosses the boundaries
between fiction and nonfiction, and uses subjects,
images, and themes from the past fearlessly.
Contemporary Nonfiction
 Has become a field equal to fiction, though questions
about terminology and accuracy still give rise to
controversy.
 New Journalism (or Literary Journalism) has added
personal and fictional elements to nonfiction,
enhancing its popularity with today’s readers.
Contemporary Poetry
 A more personal and accessible approach that
challenged complacency and convention
characterizing modernist poetry.
 Landmarks in the revolt against modernist poetry
included poems by Alan Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and
Ann Sexton.
Contemporary Drama
 Reflects modern (everyday) life
– Addresses societal problems
– Critical of society
– Has contemporary setting
– Characters: reg people, events: ordinary & realistic
 Developed in 20th and 21st century within the cultural and
historical context of aesthetic modernism and modernity
 Starts with the anti-realist manifestos of Bertolt Brecht and
Antonin Artaud, and the theatrical innovations of Samuel
Beckett
Strategies to Study Contemporary
Literature
 General Strategies
o Studying literature from diff periods, relevant to
studying contemporary literature
 Specific Strategies
o Dealing w/ contemporary literature to define
what is contemporary in literature
General Academic Strategies

 Close reading and contextualization of literary texts

 Preferring the study of texts in their original
languages rather than in translations
 Selecting texts – ‘literary canon’
 Presenting relationship between texts and readers
with minimal attention to literary industry
Close Reading & Context
 What seems contemporary for most literary texts has
as much to do with what close reading reveals as with
how, when, where and by whom the text is produced
and received.
 The importance of close reading is conditional on the
various contemporary contexts of a text.
 Texts, more or less closely, are considered within some
context of current relevance – in terms of when the
text was written, how it was made available to
readers, who reads it and for what purpose, etc.
‘Testimony’ by Seamus Heaney (2003)
‘We were killing pigs when the Yanks arrived.
A Tuesday morning, sunlight and gutter-blood
Outside the slaughter house. From the main road
They would have heard the screaming,
Then heard it stop and had a view of us
In our gloves and aprons coming down the hill. Two lines of
them, guns on their shoulders, marching.
Armoured cars and tanks and open jeeps.
Sunburnt hands and arms. Unnamed, in step,
Hosting for Normandy.
Not that we knew then
Where they were headed, standing there like youngsters
As they tossed us gum and tubes of coloured sweets.’
Original Language vs Translation

The presumptions:
 Literature is best studied systematically in terms of
particular linguistic traditions; and
 There is a close and inextricable relationship
between a particular language and a literary text
written in it – so that, to understand a literary text
fully, we need to pay attention to its distinctive use of
a particular language.
The Use of Translations
 Comparative Literature
 Through translations and adaptations, or through various levels of
influence, literary texts have often reached beyond obvious linguistic
and political boundaries
 Postmodernism, Postcolonialism & Globalization
 Focusing on the manner in which economic and social networks and
cultural exchanges associated historically with European colonialism,
and now with processes of global integration, affect literature.
 Literary Translation
 Taking into account the social political contexts as well as ideological
factors implicit in translating literature
Selection & Literary Canon
 Conventionally, studying literature is done through:
o ‘literary canon’– a selection of exemplary authors and
texts
o ‘touchstones’ – usually classics; used to measure other
literary works due to its durability (standing the test of
time)
 On the contrary, contemporary literature:
o is influenced by personal appeal
o often have an immediate appeal
Two Opposing Arguments on Classics
 On the one hand,
o Too focused on writings from dominant groups (white, middle-
class, heterosexual, male); thus, excluding writings from
minorities & neglected groups (immigrants, non-white,
working-class, homosexual, female)
o Determined by who is politically powerful or part of dominant
majority
 On the other hand,
o Have been exemplary for so long
o Have demonstrably influenced subsequent generations of
writers and their writings
“
… why contemporary literature is contemporary and
how it could be systematically studied, we need to
keep in mind the open-ended and shifting character
of the contemporary period.… literary texts that we
think of as contemporary now, and literary texts that

”
don’t exist yet and will become the contemporary
literature of tomorrow.
Specific Strategies

‘… contemporary denotes an open-ended period, up

to and including the present day, but there is a
marked lack of consensus about when the period
can definitely be said to have begun’ (Padley 2006)
The strategies …
 Padley’s Academic Strategies
o Affixing a period as contemporary period
o Limiting appraisal of contemporary period to a specific
language and/or territory
o Providing adequate and in-depth coverage for affixed
period and place
 Failed to exploit:
o Addressing specific forms or genres
o Focusing on some perspective or issue of
contemporary interests
Period and Territory
1. Mechanical periodization
o Based strictly on mechanical fashion,
e.g. periods of 100 years
2. Socially relevant periodization
o According to the content of the texts in relation
to the social circumstances and events,
e.g. rule of dynasties, developments in social
economic relations, historical events
Coverage and Intertextuality
 Reading consists very largely such intertextual
connections to make sense of a new text, sometimes
from the most distant precincts of the literature we
are familiar with.
 Intertextual references are legion in all sorts of literary
texts since classical antiquity.
 In contemporary period, the possibility of making
such references and connections is intensifying,
simply because literary texts can circulate now
across languages and territories more fluently and
speedily and widely than was possible.
World Literature
 Entails the study of how texts move across territorial,
linguistic and cultural boundaries (through translations
and adaptations, via the spread of dominant
languages such as English) and media (print,
electronic, audiovisual).
 Not be centered on original texts and close reading
as before. Instead, conduct ‘distanced reading’.
In reading literary texts…
 Taking note of intertextual references and allusions,
also any kind of cultural and linguistic boundary-
crossing
 Being aware of:
o The way of coming across the texts (through
recommendation, publicity, interest)
o Forms and adaptations of the texts, including
mediums, languages and territories
o Translations and adaptations related to the texts
o Social, political and cultural developments of diff
cultures and linguistic contexts
Genre and Change
 Genre as confusing term
 Hardening genres – popular vs. literary (serious)
 Mixing genres – hybrid to form distinct genres
e.g. mash-up lit
 Changing social circumstances
Issues and Perspectives
 Noteworthy Events
o Events receiving considerable attention in the news and current
affairs media, e.g. the 9/11 and ‘war on terror’
 Conceptual Perspectives
o Globalization or post-modernity
 Everyday Life
o Finding resonance in literary texts with everyday life as the key to
recognize them as contemporary
 Language and Idiom
o Every language is in a constant state of change according to
changing social circumstances.