Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART ONE INBETWEENNESS
- PART TWO LIBERATURE AND RELATED CONCEPTS
- Literature in the form of the book
- Conceptual metaphors in liberature
- Poetics of presence
- Liberature and multimodality
- PART THREE THE QUESTION OF GENRE
- Bibliography
- Author and subject index
Poetics of presence
from PART TWO - LIBERATURE AND RELATED CONCEPTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART ONE INBETWEENNESS
- PART TWO LIBERATURE AND RELATED CONCEPTS
- Literature in the form of the book
- Conceptual metaphors in liberature
- Poetics of presence
- Liberature and multimodality
- PART THREE THE QUESTION OF GENRE
- Bibliography
- Author and subject index
Summary
Presentification
In liberatic works, the metatextual and material devices create an impression of actuality. They attempt to make the reader aware of himself or herself as the reading self, and to suggest the author's “presence.” It is as if this is an attempt to fight back against the absence connoted by writing, which Derrida has pointed out. In other words, such devices may be understood as “presentification,” a term I borrow from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht to describe a set of strategies intended to produce this effect. Reflecting on contemporary culture, Gumbrecht notes a drive towards experiencing artefacts in a palpable, multisensory way. For example, with regard to history, he points to the desire to simulate or create an experience of historical events, an urge that has recently intensified and that is achieved through:
the presentification of past worlds – that is, techniques that produce the impression (or, rather, the illusion) that worlds of the past can become tangible again – [it] is an activity without any explanatory power in relation to the relative values of different forms of aesthetic experience (providing such explanations is what we used to think of as the function of historical knowledge in relation to aesthetics). (Gumbrecht 2004: 93–94)
As Gumbrecht explains, it is an activity that stimulates an affective response. He claims that its value lies precisely in the experiential potential, which facilitates feeling rather than understanding of the past. As he stresses, “presentification” is concerned with experiencing “moments of intensity,” and not necessarily with generating meanings that can be captured in words (hence, the subtitle of his book – “What Meaning Cannot Convey”). Even if meaningful sense is generated, this cannot be grasped in terms of precise, easily verbalised concepts. It is closer to deeply felt impressions, associations, and evocations.
With its emphasis on the affective response, this activity is related to catharsis. However, unlike Aristotle's concept, presentification is not limited to emotions with negative connotations. According to Gumbrecht, the intensity of the aesthetic experience connects with enchantment, rapture, elation, and the sense of being deeply moved. In my view, this may be related to the “immersion,” “absorption,” or “identification” experienced in literary reading. While recognising that these feelings are a facet of the encounter with art works, and constitute an important aspect of the aesthetic experience, Gumbrecht does not simply equate the feelings with the experience.
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- Liberature: A Book-bound Genre , pp. 77 - 86Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2016