Prompt 4
Any interesting and important piece of literature should have no one meaning or interpretation. The best works of writing are the ones that leave the message to be determined by the reader, the ones that are written by authors who do not force their perspectives and opinions on the piece on to the reader, but leave it so open to interpretation that no one definition of their work could ever be said to be the only one possible. This open-ended style of writing leaves much of the imagination to the reader, as they are tasked with creating the world they want to put what they are reading into.
Therefore, Foster is correct in his statement that "reading is an event of the imagination." With television and movies, everything you need to know about the characters and world you are watching is presented to you, and you can simply watch and observe without any deeper thought. Yet, to fully enjoy any piece of literature, the reader must be able to engage their creativity and find a way to connect their mind and understanding of the piece to that of the writer, just as Foster suggests. This same sort of open-ended creation can be applied to music as well. When listening to music, in most cases there is some sort of story or character present throughout the piece, whether it be the singer themselves or in some cases, someone the singer is talking to. The interpretation of the exact meaning of the piece is again left to the mind of the listener; the same engaging of two creative minds must take place.
This means that in any form of writing or music, the process that goes into both creating it and reading or listening to it must be a give and take relationship. The creators must be willing to give enough into the piece to allow it to be understood by many different types of people in many different ways, and at the same time have to take the interpretations created by their audience and see their own work in ways they may not have initially thought of. The readers and listeners have to give enough of their attention to the piece to be able to create some sort of meaning to what they are taking in, and not just simply take everything at a surface level. This sort of relationship makes the arts of literature and music more intimate and dependent on the audience than most other forms of media, and as a result, simply reading or listening to others' works and not necessarily creating them yourself can lead to a deeper and more mature understanding of the process as a whole.
Therefore, Foster is correct in his statement that "reading is an event of the imagination." With television and movies, everything you need to know about the characters and world you are watching is presented to you, and you can simply watch and observe without any deeper thought. Yet, to fully enjoy any piece of literature, the reader must be able to engage their creativity and find a way to connect their mind and understanding of the piece to that of the writer, just as Foster suggests. This same sort of open-ended creation can be applied to music as well. When listening to music, in most cases there is some sort of story or character present throughout the piece, whether it be the singer themselves or in some cases, someone the singer is talking to. The interpretation of the exact meaning of the piece is again left to the mind of the listener; the same engaging of two creative minds must take place.
This means that in any form of writing or music, the process that goes into both creating it and reading or listening to it must be a give and take relationship. The creators must be willing to give enough into the piece to allow it to be understood by many different types of people in many different ways, and at the same time have to take the interpretations created by their audience and see their own work in ways they may not have initially thought of. The readers and listeners have to give enough of their attention to the piece to be able to create some sort of meaning to what they are taking in, and not just simply take everything at a surface level. This sort of relationship makes the arts of literature and music more intimate and dependent on the audience than most other forms of media, and as a result, simply reading or listening to others' works and not necessarily creating them yourself can lead to a deeper and more mature understanding of the process as a whole.
What you say is very true regarding the writers giving some and the readers taking some. There is a lot of merit in the idea that there is a certain burden on readers to look deeper into the text. It is very sad when audiences or readers only look on the surface level and great pieces go underappreciated in their own time period. It seems that every generation has one genre of art that older crowds make no effort in understanding. Rock and roll and video games are two examples that come to mind. They see the surface as being harmful and refuse to dive in and actually listen to the meaning and symbolism behind them. Foster mentions something similar when he talks about the man who was executed because nobody understood or cared to understand the ironic nature of his work.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this book, I started looking for connections between tv shows and movies and tying them to other ones I have seen. I also tie them to books they remind me of. Before, I was unaware of how many connections there really were between different types of works. I like your idea of the give and take relationship because it makes sense; a reader cannot receive a message if the author doesn’t give one. That makes it important to keep that balance of symbolism and direct approaches in literature. If everything was symbols for something else, the story would be hard to understand, but only directly stating what is meant would be a boring read. That balance is crucial to a great story.
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