Oh no! A Midterm!

I'm blogging from a classroom today (A classroom, not the classroom), in response to this post that my professor, Brenda, put up on the class blog.

The class itself is "Online Writing as Literature", which is how I ought to refer to the course, instead of saying "oh yeah, I've got a class on blogging" in that drawling sort of voice that implies an eye-roll, or lifting my eyebrows expectantly, as if to say, "you jealous?"

With this class, we're attempting to establish the importance of blogging in a "literature" sense, and I'm not exactly sure what that entails.  Let's see what wiki says.  (That's right, I'm calling up wikipedia during a midterm...you jelly?)

Wiki says:

• Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources.  
• The word "literature" literally means "acquaintance with letters".
• The two major classifications are poetry and prose.
• It is usually differentiated from popular and ephemeral classes of writing, and terms such as "literary fiction" and "literary merit" are used to denote art-literature rather than vernacular writing.

Hrm.  Wikipedia, I am displeased. I only agree with one of those points: the literal meaning.


I think literature goes beyond written works. I mean, we've got classes on graphic novels (they're comic books, people.  Just call them what they are.), and we've got a whole major devoted to film studies that deviates from the literature department.


As for the two main classifications, both of the words "poetry" and "prose" are pretty flexible, I've seen.  It makes submitting a piece to Jeopardy kind of a pain.  Can't they just have a section titled "Acquaintance With Letters"?


And that last one is the kicker, and probably where I'll begin my discussion.  The blog platform is often considered "ephemeral", but the internet also has a tendency to be referred to as "atemporal", meaning "independent of time" or "timeless" (I got that from this TEDtalk).


Personally, I don't consider blogs, or anything on the internet to be ephemeral.  The only way the internet is going away is for the entire world to lose power...permanently.
And anything you put on the internet even if you thought you deleted it, STILL EXISTS (I'm going to ignore the argument about whether or not the internet actually exists).


That said,

What makes a blog popular?
Definitely the fact that it's written in the vernacular.


Take this blog, or Natalie's blog, for example.
Both of us write in the vernacular.  Hell, Natalie swears in hers, and she's got a bigger readership than I do. And obviously, we're both "acquainted with letters".

Natalie's blog is successful because:
She's snarky.
She's brutally honest.
She writes about relevant topics.
She opens the door for other people's opinions.
Bottom line: she's hilarious, and easy to be around.


So why doesn't Wikipedia consider our blogs "literature" in anything but the literal sense?
I think they missed a valuable part of literature, that I've been learning about more and more in my time as an English major, and that is this:

Literature makes you stop and think.  Literature starts and continues a conversation.  Literature is idea-generating, and worth spreading.

I have to thank Mark Geisler for that one.  It's a paraphrase based on my memory of the 313 theory class I took with him.


Does popularity = quality?
I don't particularly think that popularity is a defining characteristic of a quality blog.  (and yes, I do have to say that because my readership isn't very big) But beyond that, take hyperboleandahalf for example.
I think the author of that blog is funny.  I think some of her cartoons are funny.  But I DO NOT think her blog is quality (but that is purely because I feel like I'm wasting time while I'm there.)


I should not feel like I'm wasting time on a blog.  But interest level shouldn't define literature.  I probably won't be the first, or the last to admit that I felt at least 50% of the classics I read in school were a waste of time.  And they're definitely supposed to be literature.

On the evolving nature of literature.
I think that the definition of literature has been changing over time, growing and molding to each new medium that is available to it.  The blog is merely a new medium.  And it's an ever-evolving one as well.


My own blog's evolution has been a fairly rapid one, to say the least.  The design changed at least a hundred times before I settled on what I've got now.  My content changed.  I was going to continue writing about the Once and Future King, but when I realized that it shut people out of my blog because they hadn't read the book, I changed topics.  I started blogging about my sister's nails instead.


On the "professional" nature of blogs
I've kept up with TEDtalk Tuesdays and Florence Fridays because they motivate me.  They continue some sort of conversation that I'm having with myself, with TED, and with all the other travelers out there.  And not only that, but yesterday I did an unheard of thing:

I gave out my blog URL to a potential employer at the career fair.  

So not only do I consider my blog good practice in keeping up with writing, and developing my own voice, I also consider it a professional space (apparently).


TEDtalk Tuesdays and Florence Fridays make me feel like my blog has some sort of continuity that sets it apart from the blogs that other people keep as a sort of "day in the life" blog.  But they are still both interesting topics for me to keep writing about--and passionately so.


Kyle's presentation blog "The Psychology of Video Games" is another such blog I would consider as a more "professional" piece of literature.  It showcases the author's intelligence and his experience with psychology, as well as with writing.  He's got a special kind of voice that has miraculously found the balance between internet snark and educated informer.
Potential employers could find his blog, think it informative and entertaining, and contact him for hire. A lot of other bloggers from our presentations have gotten book deals based on their blogs.
To me, that's pretty cool.


I'd love to be able to put my blog on a resume so my future employers can get to know me through my writing style instead of my facebook page, or my resume (although, the latter isn't so bad.  I've got a damn good resume).

MY DEFINITION OF LITERATURE:
So I think blogs (be it a TEDtalk, a travel blog, a day-in-the-life, a style blog, a professional blog--etc.) are just another part of the literature evolution--another part of the growing conversation created by the technologies that promote language, and, by proxy, encourage the growth of ideas.


And THAT, dear readers, is what I think the primary function of literature should be.


Although, I have to admit, I'm also in agreement with Tom's opinion on this topic as well.


So help me enforce this opinion and continue this conversation---WHAT DO YOU THINK?