Wednesday, April 21, 2010

As I was tooling through the news this morning, I ran across this small article/call for submissions on a topic you may occasionally have mulled over yourself: can a blog be literature? Regarding my own blog, I don't feel qualified to say. For the most part, I think of what I write here as a series of letters; and while letter collections can certainly become literature (Keats's, Woolf's, etc.), they feel, in the present tense, more like snapshots or scrappy suggestions of the future . . . and, far too often, like self-indulgence. But you, the recipient of these letters, may have another opinion on the matter.

I do know that I hate the word blog and that I wish someone would invent a word for what I'm doing that sounds less like blurt. For despite all my self-indulgence, I do try not to blurt; I do try to listen to the words I choose for you, the sentences I accrue for you. I do try to respect the yearnings of your ear, though the subject itself may or may not matter to you. Here, of course, I find myself compelled to ask, "Does your ear yearn for grammar's rhetorical care?" Or is this authorial fret merely another self-indulgence? I'm not necessarily requiring you to answer; more, I'm once again second-guessing my intentions, which itself seems to be an element of my urge to write. Malcolm X didn't second-guess himself, but I can't seem to stop.

Dinner tonight: baked beans, baby lettuce, skillet cornbread. Possibly chocolate pudding with whipped cream, but possibly not.

3 comments:

Sheila Byrne said...

I agree with you that "blog" is a heinous word. It evokes a choking sound, somehow.

As English teachers, we hear all the time that students read and write more than ever, sending emails, text messages (the antithesis of writing IMHO) and reading facebook pages. Are THOSE literature? Personally, I think most of those are not. However, this is the milieu in which the children are being instructed. So perhaps this is where "literature" is headed- some Fireman Montag-type,Kindle-toting, Twittering, bookless future, where your work cannot exceed 140 characters.

*Steps off soapbox.*

Blogs most certainly can qualify at literature. I've read many online sources (that aren't a part of a print source) that fall into poetic literary criticism- like yours- or are reminiscent of a diarist, like Boswell or Pepys. These blogs often write about literature in a literary manner, much as you do.

There are blogs which publish poetry, either by the writer or poetry of others, like a miniature literary anthology.

Lastly, there's the literary-inspired blogs, like: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, found at: http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/

Dawn Potter said...

My son, in response to my question about blogs beings literature, asked, "Are journals literature?" I don't know. Was Anne Frank's diary literature as she wrote it, day by day, or has it become literature for reasons of history and hindsight? There are arguments to be made either way, I think.

Lucy Barber said...

In one iteration, there were called Live Journals, and I tend to think of "b*ogs" as think pieces for a relatively narrow audience. I try to write both personally and responsibly, but I will only try to be authoritative if I now something. In the 19th century, many diaries were written to be read by others == a spiritual diary. So the notion that journal = private = not literature seems too simple. But I do like to think of them as bogs, which can catch you up in unexpected ways and house frogs, one of my favorite animals.