In what sense is literature a science? We might call the literary studies of science? To what extent can we say that the methods of literary study to be truly "scientific"?
The study of big science
Every study that the human being is part of the issue of an intrinsic curiosity about the world around him. The two areas are regarded as major in studies of science today seem to be: the sciences and the biological sciences. Although there are doubts about the fact that both areas are science, perhaps one could say that the sciences are indeed the place where man can more accurately treat and objectify their knowledge.
The physical sciences have shown us in for good measure as the entire visible universe (or understandable) works in a broad and general sense. The four forces of physics and their interactions explain a substantial portion of the events that happen not only on earth but also in more distant galaxies observed by the more efficient telescope ever built. The discovery of the strength of (i) gravity, (Ii) electromagnetism and nuclear forces (iii) strong and (iv) weak - that keeps the protons or electrons clusters in atomic nuclei, respectively, and despite their electrical charges - they allow us to understand and be able to provide a considerable part of the physical phenomena we observe, sometimes in a way absurdly precise. The motion of celestial bodies can be predicted centuries in advance and errors that can today be regarded as almost infinitely small. The development of Einsteinian physics and then particle physics has led to an even finer adjustment to the sacred pedestal of science inherited from Newton, had classically as the greatest scientist of all time.
The Milky Way, photo by NASA. Just as the physicist is interested in the ultimate nature of the universe and the biologist interested in the study of life, the scientist is interested in literary analysis of texts or modern history. Although the methodologies used and the objectivity of the work produced are different, all studies are serious and well-designed, well deserving the title of scientific .
have when dealing with calls sciences can not predict with precision so excels easily predictable regularities under the laws of physics. The emergence of life is directly related to the emergence of complexity and called complex systems, where there is an interplay of variables and so much information that the prediction of events becomes extremely difficult, often impossible . Nevertheless, also in biology have a general theory that satisfactorily explains the abundance of life and yes that is capable of generating predictions of a general nature that go both to the past and in the future, browsing the arrow of time. The Darwinism is the cornerstone of biological sciences and allows mounting of theories as firm as possible to explain the origin and spread of biological diversity. Also the advent of molecular biology and the concept of hereditary information in biology has allowed and has allowed accurate predictions to be made on biological organisms with remarkable correctness. Just looking at the DNA sequence of a fetus today you can know if he has certain genetic diseases in a clear and precise. It is said that since Watson and Crick, when DNA was understood as coded digital information chemically, biology has been able to use the rigor of the exact sciences in its methodology - though such rigor happen only in certain types of study where molecular analysis may be applied.
Navigating these points between the two sciences becomes clear that: (i) the object of study of the biological sciences and is different (universe versus life), so what does that (ii) the working methodology applied is different and that, logically concluding, (iii) the interpretation of results is made in a particular way in each case. And yet: (iv) the accuracy of work accepted into this or that area is invariably different. If we can confirm the statement (iv) that does not mean simply accept that their in biology are " less reliable" than the work in physics. That just means biology is a science where the regularities are more difficult to find , the study of life allows more exceptions to general rules of the universe that the study admits it - which makes the study of biology somewhat more complex and perhaps more beautiful, if less accurate. In addition, new methods of data analysis need to be developed for the study of such systems called complex, as is the life system, where so many variables must be considered to form a single result, and still other unknown variables are also involved interaction and must somehow be predicted in a general model and ideal. Such predictions are now made from just empirical observations associated with artificial intelligence algorithms that try to find an order and invisible to the human cunning. Chaos theory, which admits and tries to find patterns in chaotic systems originally thought has also been used in the arsenal of biological sciences to try to better understand the phenomena. And also in quantum physics such methodologies have allowed the universe to find regularities previously invisible to the scientific methods adopted by humans in their eagerness and curiosity understanding what goes on around you. It is worth noting that these new scientific methods for dealing with complex systems were developed largely in the second half of the twentieth century and are still maturing, and we can expect in the coming years new standards and knowledge continue to be discovered and that these methodologies will mature further.
science literature
As the focus of analysis is the physical universe and the analytical focus of biology is life, the focus of analysis of the literature consists of texts that were written by humans since we can see the symbols assigned meanings clearly shaped by ancient artists on cave walls. Cuneiform is considered the first form of writing that emerged in the real world, and is estimated to date around 3000 BC. Since then Western civilization has accumulated a growing repertoire of symbols that predisposed to stones, paper or electronic media have told the story of our civilization and the lives of human beings living here and there over time. The writing is undoubtedly the main method of transmission and cultural values \u200b\u200bof our society and the Bible itself is one of the major texts studied in literature, just to save themselves a set of moral values \u200b\u200bthat have been (rightly or wrongly) applied in our society over the past two millennia. Texts of ancient Greece and the dramas of Shakespeare are also among the most studied works by writers.
The Holy Bible, one of the most studied texts and re-analyzed, interpreted and reinterpreted by literary critics. The literary science will, over time, adding more and more cultural notes on the classic texts. New interpretations of the most unusual arise and allow an increasingly comprehensive understanding of human culture in their glory and decay.
Likewise, therefore, that the physical universe and is interested in what the biologist is interested in life, the writer is interested in the writings. Just as the physical demand regularities can be observed in the universe, the biologist looking for regularities in the present life and the writer seeks regularities in historical texts. The object of study of the three sciences is different, as are the methods of work. Also the literature, such as biology, is a complex system derived directly from the way human beings with their brains apes can conceptualize the world and represented in the form of symbols linked in search of meaning. The science of literature, however, can not and should not be separated from other sciences that surround it, such as linguistics, philosophy and even psychology. The writer uses the regularities observed by other architects of the humanities and employs such regularities predisposed to textual analysis.
Humans, since the emergence of alphabets, have written freely, or the way they look more natural. With time, these curious regularities of texts written by scientists whose curiosity is not in nature or the universe, but in humans and their symbolic representations . These curious then wanted study how people write and have written over the centuries, since writing was invented, they tried and managed to find some conserved patterns in texts ranging from the emergence of the alphabet until the present day. These patterns are repeated and can be characterized was studied in detail and dedication. The study of such patterns exist in texts is often called " literary criticism" but I believe it should preferably be called literary science as the study of law in the universe is called an exact science and the study of life on Earth is called a biological science. The methodology of most writers is rather scientific, but as we have argued the subject matter is different and therefore require different methods of study. And the same way that biology was divided into genetics, biochemistry, ecology, zoology, botany ... literary criticism also divided into modernism, postmodernism, structuralism, critical, feminine, Marxist, gay, post-colonial, psychoanalytical, etc.. Several classical and modern writings of our literary history can be characterized and reread with such regularities as a guide, these regular patterns observed in the texts allow scientists to classify them and understand them in a generic and as accurately as possible.
Literary criticism is as scientific as it can be: it is curious and serious, she seeks, study finds patterns and describe them with accuracy and precision. It is however amazing to see how scientists of the hard sciences have neglected the science of literature.
Moreover, the same computer programs that are now used in studies of biology can also be applied to the study of literature, both to science where complexity is imminent and can never be discarded. Artificial intelligence programs have been produced and can be trained to recognize patterns in text certain authors. Such standards may be used, for example, to check whether a text should be signed even a classical author that picture. Also aspects macho in our society can be seen in classic texts, homophobia, dominatórios aspects of society, imposing moral critique differently, indium, the latino, author misconduct related to his life story and traumas that have or not experienced as a subject. That will all steeped in the pages of history texts, in Shakespeare, the Bible, parts of Nelson Rodrigues. The science of literature is also the science of the study cultures, their moral and rational, their mythologies and stories of domination and submission. All the cultural history of man can be reconstructed today through science literature, also trying to make travel time and the reader in understanding the situations of how people understand the season. The literature, as Carl Sagan said in his wonderful television series Cosmos allows us to travel into the past and try to understand how humans thought at one time today already dead.
literary criticism to science relativistic
A frequent criticism of the science of literature that is its main advocate heralds an epistemological relativism that would permeated the basis of his own science. That seems to have been given mainly to the development of post-structuralism and deconstructionism that the layman's view, seem to indicate that texts have no value per se and can always be deconstructed and reconstructed at the whim of the interpreter and the reader. This criticism is true only in a partial sense and instead of diminishing literary criticism, it just makes it even more complex, more beautiful and infinite, and that any text can be reinterpreted countless times, although it is clear that there will be interpretations that can be judged as better or worse by experts.
Three great heroes of science fiction. From left to right: Umberto Eco in their limits of interpretation, Roland Barthes with its author's death, Jacques Derrida and , father of deconstructionism, here renamed as Reconstructionism.
The Italian intellectual Umberto Eco published a book called The Limits of Interpretation and get even with a good example, for memory fail me now, just another invention of similar content. The example might be a letter from a war-fighter to his wife who takes care of the homelands of their children. Eco suggests that this letter can not mean absolutely that (i) the Martians were invading the land, or (ii) the sun would have exploded, that (iii) the flies disappeared from the planet or other sorts of absurdities. However, one can read and interpret the same letter in different ways, we can focus on the affection of a husband by the wife, or the way in which patriarchal society is based, may be focused on education the same mistakes when checking syntax and grammar, etc.. The book is called "limits of interpretation" since it is precisely these limits, what can be interpreted from a text, Eco examines and elaborates throughout his work. Also
Roland Barthes in his essay "The Death of the Author ," presents the general argument that, in large measure, is the reader who creates meaning in the text read, especially in texts of a more literary - - ie, less thematic objective. A biography of the player and everything he has ever spent in your life, make it interprets certain text to see there gaping some aspects that would not be seen by other human beings living in other contexts. A fighter of the war by reading the above letter that will exemplify perhaps a different emotion than an employee of a notary who performs the same reading. therefore seem to be few texts so as to goals that may have only one interpretation. Often the author is unaware of some aspect of text that has been so clear and overt. It is possible however that he is able to understand it years later, to be reread. So even certain psychoanalytic theories assist in the interpretation of texts that in some respects may be presented differently.
science literature is slowly building cultural notes on classical texts, where critics will interpret and re-interpreting texts according to new views and ideas, always marked by socio-historical context of the interpreter. The texts of the great European philosophers and even the Bible has been interpreted so many times - and are always being added to such new interpretations modern texts about what they actually meant or what kind of moral or intended to demonstrate knowledge. At the time of the Crusades, for example, the adventures of those who catechized the Indians was seen as acts of heroism and courage while today unlike many perceive as acts of cowardice - given the indiscriminate killing of natives - and an ideological imposition of monotheism which surely not is the only or best way to understand the world. And for such slips historical interpreters is that the true writer must often forget the whole house already built on interpretations of a text and turn directly to the original text in search of new ways and means of reading the same work. The deconstruction of Derrida suggested exactly this approach. His idea is reinterpret classic texts there pursuing a thread that will guide the reading of an innovative and interesting, this thread would have gone unnoticed by most scholars of the work. Deconstruction is, in fact, a new building and might have been more prudent and intelligent author's name so his theory: reconstruction, because that is exactly what it is, ie, a new understanding and a new symbolic structure, logic and semantics of classical texts, seeking to verify that regularities were subliminal to the eyes of the ordinary reader . Another important concept
to the science of literature is called "close reading " and could be translated as "close reading" or "close reading." The writer does not accept simply read a text pages as if reading the morning newspaper. The reading of literary scientist is always attentive to the syntactic and semantic details, especially those kinds of meaning that can only give after reading a really aware, reflective and repeated on a text being studied. The reading should also provide new insight into the text, a clearer picture about the regularities observed initially only in a nebula, which then become concrete when it's finally found the thread of Derridean reconstruction.
Beautiful, interesting and useful is the science of literature to teach us our own prejudices and limitations, to understand the evolution of ideas and concepts during the development of humanity, so we can rebuild from the same base. Praise, therefore, science fiction.
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To learn more: *
A fleeting thought on feminist literary criticism
* ** On Wikipedia
Umberto Eco
** ** Jacques Derrida
Roland Barthes
** History of writing
** cuneiform writing
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