For Wednesday: Culler, Chapter 7: "Performative Language"

NOTE: Don't forget Paper #2 (The Sonnet Drama) is due today (Monday) by 5pm! You can turn it in as late as Wednesday, but you lose -10 a day, so be careful! 

ALSO: We'll start reading Pride and Prejudice for Friday, so make sure you have a copy, and preferably the Broadview edition I ordered in the bookstore. Feel free to start reading to get ahead and if you're a slow reader like me...otherwise, read Chapter 7 of Culler for Wednesday's class.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: What does Culler mean when he writes, "no one would have ever thought of being in love if they hadn't read about it in books, and the notion of romantic love...is arguably a massive literary creation" (96)? How could love, something which is so essential to the identity of being human, a creation of books and literature? Or is he talking about something slightly different than simply 'love'?

Q2: Culler argues that language is performative, meaning that, like a play, it has to be staged, repeated, and performed 'by rote.' He gives the example of a wedding, where the groom and bride are asked, "do you take this man/woman...?" and the answer is always, "I do" (if they do, that is). Does this also suggest that the nature of language is derivative, and that to speak is to merely rehearse the language and actions of everyone who has gone before you? Is it possible not to repeat and not to rehearse previous language?

Q3: Using the work of Judith Butler, a prominent theorist of queer identity, Culler explains that "categories of identity are cultural and social productions, more likely to be the result of political cooperation than its condition of possibility" (102). Does this suggest that language itself creates the idea of being male or female? Is gender also a product of language? (assuming, of course, that gender is separate from sex).

Q4: If we define literature as "an act or event," how does this further limit the role of the author in determining meaning? And if so, who decides what "act" or "event" is produced from a book? Can a book create any act a reader wants it to? Or are there limitations?