Fredric Jameson: refashioning literature definition

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Literature - General, grade: none, language: English, abstract: This article tries to define literature according to Fredric Jameson methodology. Literature for Jameson is a particular form of narrative, not its supposed content. One consequence of this approach is that it allows the critic to analyse literature with an illuminating emphasis on the formal. He sees literature as being very precisely tied in with historical changes in the structures of capitalism out of which realist and modernist writing gets produced. The role of history is an ultimate shaping force on literature. Narrative is the key meditational category in contemporary society, with the consequence that the novel has become the most important mode of literature. An insistence on looking at the form (style, genre, etc.) of a literary work in addition to, or even in preference to, its apparent content (story, character, and so on). The particular form that Jameson is most interested in is narrative.