The Excluded Environment: Preliminary remarks towards a systems theory of literature

Journal: Cybernetics and Human Knowing: a journal of second order cybernetics, autopoiesis and cyber-semiotics

Volume: 13

Issue: 1

Pages: 19-33

ISSN: 0907-0877

Abstract:

This paper uses a close reading of some key passages in Wolfgang Iser’s The Act of Reading in order to discuss the theoretical groundwork for a general system’s theory of literature. It is the contention of the paper that the literature of fiction represents a system for the evaluation of excluded or marginalized systems. The canons of fictions thus represent the rejected states that various political/ social/philosophical paradigms have excluded in their move towards stability. The paper posits that the fictions represent states rejected due to their inherent instability. This view of literature provides us with a clear motivation for both the production and analysis of fictions—these excluded possibilities mark what the system might have been and therefore delineate what the system now is. The paper finishes with an attempt to place the literature system within a larger society system and thus points out that these excluded possibilities are forever included within this particular form of artistic feedback. Finally, some problems with this approach are examined.

Source: Manual