The differences between literary texts and non-literary
texts and their implications on the understanding of truth
Anita
146332047
Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta
Abstract
The purpose of this short paper is
to distinguish literary texts with non-literary texts and their implications on the understanding of truth. An example from the opening of
Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel “Bumi Manusia” is used to illustrate how literary
texts may be understood differently from
non literary ones. They differ essentially through intention (literary texts
belong to the world of imagination whereas non-literary ones belong to the
world of facts) and through the fact literary texts are about persons while
non-literary ones are about objects. However, both of them are concerned with
the fundamental truths of translation, I called the understanding of truth such
as aesthetic, allegorical truth, logical and linguistic truth.
Keywords : Literary Texts,
Non-Literary Texts, Understanding of Truth
Introduction
In the context of new educational standards, there are many
students, particularly high school students, will be required to read an
increasing amount of non-literary and literary text. Is it really important to know about the differences between literary
text and non-literary ones ? How is understanding truth implied on both texts?
Simple distinction make a starting point. Literary texts
are found in novels, short stories, poems while non literary texts are found in
articles, newspaper, magazines, leaflets, advertisements, popular fiction, and
many more.
Literary Texts and
Non-Literary Texts
The two types of text tend to us different techniques, they
are considered in metaphors and analogies. Both of which compare one thing t
another. Analogies are used in non-literary texts to make things clearer. Non
literary text inform clearly about an unfamiliar topic, like a school text book, research project. In
contrast, non-literary texts seek to
entertain like a novel, adventure, procedure, science fiction, or romance.
On the other hand, metaphors and symbols with deep
figurative meaning are used in literary texts and perhaps puzzle. In my
previous class with Bakdi Soemanto, we discussed William Blake’s poem “The
Tyger” ( Rupert Hart- Davis, 1967, plate 42). The word “Tyger” is used to
describe “Strength” ( second of semiotic system, conotating), not tyger as an
animal ( first order semiotic system, denoting).
On the understanding of truth, like translation, striving
as it does to reveal the truth. The most important thing is accuration. In
non-literary texts, since it may only be pursuing the facts, rather than their
precise quality as well. It can be fairly accurate. In literary texts, it can only be
accurate to acertain degree, since it is looking for the connotative as well as
the denotative meaning, which has many aspects, of which it can only capture a
limited amount. Literary texts uses two languages as its tools, it has
different sound and grammar, different word-orders, different lexical gap and
deficiencies. Sometimes, it is difficult for peoples to take the implicit
meaning on the understanding of truth. Especially for tranlators, they juggle
with all these and attempt various compensatory procedures. It is only in
non-literary text that they can achieve anywhere near perfection. In my point,
poetry is the hardest one of all literary genre to translate or to understand
because it has so many more linguistic factors to account for ( such as sound,
rhyme, and the others).
I came to distinguish between literary and non-literary
texts with the opening of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel “ Bumi Manusia”:
Orang memanggil aku: Minke. Namaku sendiri ... sementara
ini tak perlu kusebutkan. Bukan karea gila misteri. Telah aku timbang: belum
perlu benar tampilkan diri di hadapan mata orang lain.
Pada mulanya catatan pendek ini aku tulis dalam masa
berkabung: dia telah tinggalkan aku, entah untuk sementara entah tidak. ( Waktu
itu aku tak tahu bagaimana bakal jadinya). Hari depan yang selalu menggoda!
Misteri! Setiap pribadi akan datang padanya. Mau tak mau, dengan seluruh jiwa
dan raganya. Dan terlalu sering dia ternyata maharaja zalim. Juga akhirnya aku
datang padanya bakalnya. Adakah dia dewa pemurah atau jahil, itulah memang
urusan dia: manusia terlalu sering bertepuk sebelah tangan ...
Tiga belas tahun kemudian catatan pendek ini kubacai dan
kupelajari kembali, kupadu dengan impian khayal. Memang menjadi lain dari
aslinya. Tak kepalang tanggung. Dan begini kemudian jadinya.
As a novel “This
Earth of Mankind”, this perhaps translates as follows:
My own name ... for the time being I need not tell it. Not
because I'm crazy for mystery. I've thought about it quite a lot: I don't
really need to reveal who I am before the eyes of others.
In the beginning I wrote these short notes during a period
of mourning: She had left me, who could tell if only for a while or forever?
(At the time I didn't know how things would turn out.) That eternally
harassing, tantalizing future. Mystery! We will all eventually arrive
there--willing or unwilling, with all our soul and body. And too often it
proves to be a great despot. And so, in the end, I arrived too. Whether the
future is a kind or cruel god is, of course, its own affair: Humanity too often
claps with just one hand.
Thirteen years later I read and studied these short notes
over again. I merged them together with dreams, imaginings. Naturally they
became different from the original. Different? But that doesn't matter!
And here is how they turned out.
If the readership is likely to overlook or misinterpret the “a kind or cruel God“ “claps with just one hand“. Firstly indicating the “hope for the future“ not a “God is kind or cruel for him“, and secondly that in fact the “claps with just one hand” not “claps by giving five first, or the sound with one hand”
but a “something that have no response’’, symbolizing a “unfulfilled something”.
On the other hand, if the passage were to rewritten as a
news item, it would probably be shortened ( the description of the ”hari depan
yang selalu menggoda“ and the “mau tak mau, dengan seluruh jiwa raganya“ )
passage would be removed.
The example indicates the basic difference between the two
genres of text, literary and non-literary and their implication on the
understanding of truth. Further, partly because the increase of non-literary
texts and literary texts have been so great and rapid. This has barely been
accounted for in the literature, it ilustrates the difference required both in
the translation ( understanding) and the annotation of the two types of text.
To analize the
literary texts from non-literary texts need a different kind of approach
altogether. Perhaps literature is definable not according to whether it is
fictional or 'imaginative', but because it uses language in peculiar way.
The
literary texts was not distinguished from the non-literary texts by subject
matter, poetic inspiration, philosophic vision, or sensory quality of the
poetic image, but by its verbal art.
In the mean time, I came to discuss about Literary theory. Literary theory is
the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature. By
literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the
theories that reveal what literature can mean. Literary theory is a description
of the underlying principles, one might say the tools, by which we attempt to
understand literature. All literary interpretation draws on a basis in theory
but can serve as a justification for very different kinds of critical activity. Literary theory, sometimes
designated "critical theory," or "theory," and now
undergoing a transformation into "cultural theory" within the
discipline of literary studies, can be understood as the set of concepts and
intellectual assumptions on which rests the work of explaining or interpreting
literary texts. Literary theory refers to any principles derived from internal
analysis of literary texts or from knowledge external to the text that can be
applied in multiple interpretive situations.
Afterwards, the main intentional between literary texts and
non-literary texst is that the first comparises the world of the mind and the
imagination; the second, the world of reality of fact and events.
Denotationaly, literary text is (a) poetry, which covers lyrical, dramatic and
epic poetry, (b) fiction, which covers short stories and novels, and (c) drama,
which covers (1) tragedy, plays about life and death, (2) comedy, plays about
normal life, and (3) farce, plays that exaggerate the broad humour of life.
Literary text derives from the realm of world dictionaries, the general lower
case words, non literary text covers the topic of encyclopaedias, enciclopaedic
dictionaries, names, titles, upper case words. Literary is written both to
spoken and “sonorised”. For examples : the text is read out to oneself and
consciously heard in the ear, in natural speech-rhythms with a word-order that
only deviates in order to foreground (emphasise) or “background” (understate) a
segment of a text. In contrast, non-literary texts are written to be
soundlessly.
In literary texts, the word are as important as the
content. Whereas, in non-literary texts, this is only true of key words that
represent significant concepts, as well as objects, action and physical and
moral qualities, for all of which true synonyms do not exist. The word like
‘shrub’, ‘green’, ‘decent’ unfortunately translation ( on the understanding)
equivalents for the adjectives are often missing, since most of these
adjectives, including ‘green’, but not ‘black’ or ‘white’, and ‘decent’, they
require a degree of partly subjective evaluation.
Both in language and on the understanding the truthas has
been noted, tehre are no absolutes, no strict dogmas. Nothing is perfect, ideal
correct, except in a limited, context-free.
Between literary and non-literary texts, there is a middle
stream of topics, headed by the Essay, the prime example pf a genre with a
non-literary subject an a literary form, something like autobiography,
philosopy, religion, history, psycology, sociology, cultural studies whether
the words are as important as the content or how closely they should be
translated will depend on how well written and how serious they are. All these
medial topics are only discussed in non-literary language, the words such as “grasp”,
“claps”, “descry”, “ponder”, “forked” would not normally be found in such
texts, unless as quotation from literary texts.
When I read a novel, it is all about persons, implicit
dialogues between first and second person singular, with a first person plural
commentator or chorus, non-literary texts are
about objects, basically in the third person. Literary words are about
allegorical therefore moral truth.
Further, the core of literary texts is the original or
imaginative metaphor, the core of non-literary texts is the standard or the
plain word, academic. In contrast, literary texts are written to be read aloud
in the mind, to be slowly savoured, to be judiciously read repeatedly, and
increasingly appreciated, the sound of non-literary texts is often ignored, and
they are read quickly.
Here, there is a long history of mutual distortion and
hostility: the literary is viewed as traditional, old-fashioned, academic,
ivory tower, out of touch. While, the non-literary as philistine, market-led.
The dividing line is the word “engineer“, “engineer as an academic” or “mechanic”.
In literary texts. These are the faintly romantic, poetic. Obsolescent 19th
century words: alone, descry, brood, ponder,linger, rue,ease,all the personal
words, which when stripped of feeling and tenderness, may become non literary: single,
observe, mediate, contemplate, delay, regret, alleviate, the straight reporting
words.
Conclusion and
Suggestion
Thus, it is all of differences between literary texts and
non-literary texts based on the understanding of truth. One area is concerned
with knowledge, facts and idea, information, and reality, the other with human
individuals, nature and the occupied planet in the imagination. In addition,
the first with clarify of information while the second with style as a
reflection of character.
Then, there is a classical sense in which literary texts
and non-literary texts may be distinguished.
This distinction is important for those studying Literature, especially
for graduate students who want to take Literature’s major in next semester. In
the context of classical literature studies, literary texts and non-literary
texts refer to stylistic elements. This is also a distinction important to
those wishing to establish careers as literary authors.
One more, literary works are those that have significantly
complex and detailed literary devices particularly in metaphor and symbolism.
Also important are literary elements of chronology and psycological
characterization. Metaphor and symbolism are significant and distinguish
literary from non-literary because deeper meanings are embedded in the text
through these techniques. A text rich in metaphor and symbolism will impart
both literal and figurative meanings and will accomodate deeper and more
layered themes. On the other hand, non-literary texts refers to text that are
thin on metaphor and symbolism, these texts want to tell a story and to
entertain. The thematic elements and issues are simple and easily identifiable,
if there are themes rather than simple morals.
·
REFERENCES
Rupert,
Hart Davis. “Song of Innocence and Experience” . In Marsh, Nicholash “How to
Begin Studying English Literature” Palgrave. 2002
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996.
Rice, Philip and Waugh, Patricia. Eds. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader.
4th edition.
Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology.
Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998.
