"a literary work is a communal act"
why?
when i first heard this, i sort of brushed it off as just another quote that was trying to get at the backbone of writing. but the more i considered it, the more it began to make sense for a number of reasons. the first one being that, our whole lives we are around other people, creating experiences and interacting with one another. the stories of these events are the basic material of our autobiography (as well as other genres of literature), and they undoubtedly include people other than ourselves. in this way, our writing would not have been possible without the effect of the community we live in. even if your a hermit and havent been in the company of others in 50 years, there would still be fundamental parts of yourself that would have come from the people you were raised by. as humans we learn everything by imitation, and so everything within you essentially comes from someone else.
not only does the society in which we live, influence the matter of our past experiences. they also help to recreate the stories of each literary work. the writer physically scribbles their intangible experiences onto a page, making it concrete between the two covers of the book. but if no ones eyes ever read over those specially arranged symbols - no ones mind ever contemplates each written word into meaning - no ones perception of 'now' is suspended so that they may listen to the 'then' . . . the writers story might have been better off free from the binds of text. without an audience or a receptive community of readers/listeners, the literary work fails to exist anywhere but between the white margins of pages never noticed.
and if no one acknowledges it, does that even exist?
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1 comment:
Ash, I love your posts! They always have a great quality of depth, and I feel like you always put into words so well some of the points that I think about but brush aside. I also feel the same way as you on both sides of the "communal act." Society and family both shape the writing of an autobiography. I think that is what Smith and Watson are really trying to get at with their five autobiographical areas of subjectivity. They also seem to revert back to the same point: autobiographies are crafted based on context. Case in point: Frederick Douglass' propaganda autobiography. Depending on when and where a person decides to craft his/her story actually effects the way the story is told. Societal values and familial values shape an autobiography.
I also agree with you on the point that an autobiography is not really complete until an audience (whether it be on person, or millions) acknowledges the person's story, reacts to it in some way. I think the audience is what really "brings the work to life," right off the physical page and into a public sphere of sorts.
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