What's the point of literary analysis?

[BlackKnightX]

What I said.

 

[TotallyHuman]

to literally analyze. Or, in english, sodomize, idk

 

[GlassRose]

Do you mean literary?

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Definition of ANALYSIS

a detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features : a thorough study; a statement of such an examination; separation of a whole into its component parts… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

In short: The point is to better understand something.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Do you mean literary?

Misspelled. Thanks.

 

[Tempokai]

to find why the piece is good/bad/whatever, and learn something from it (maybe)

 

[HungrySheep]

The classics are usually centered around motifs and themes, using literary imagery to represent common struggles or vices during the era in which the work was written. Literary analysis is generally useful for uncovering and deepening the understanding of such themes.

Honestly, literary analysis is as useful as a piece is deep. You probably wouldn't get as much value out of analyzing a work like the vending machine isekai as opposed to the Divine Comedy. I suppose you could make an argument about consumerism or vending machine culture in Japan, but I don't think the vending machine isekai has as much literary depth as the Divine Comedy.

 

[LilRora]

It makes more sense in regards to older stories that were supposed to tell the readers something. Their purpose was not entertainment, as it is with majority of modern literature, but education, sometimes satire or warning or praise. Literary analysis is dissecting those stories and learning what the author wanted to convey, especially in regards to social and political situation at that time.

In modern stories though, especially popular web- and light novels, there's usually no such thing, hence literary analysis serves little to no purpose. You could perhaps try to learn how they build tension or analyze the characters, but, unlike in older stories, those are mostly internal components of a story, not things to ponder and learn from.

 

[MintiLime]

It makes more sense in regards to older stories that were supposed to tell the readers something. Their purpose was not entertainment, as it is with majority of modern literature, but education, sometimes satire or warning or praise. Literary analysis is dissecting those stories and learning what the author wanted to convey.

In modern stories though, especially popular web- and light novels, there's usually no such thing, hence literary analysis serves little to no purpose.

I would say that literary analysis is important in modern stories to understand the why’s -it’s th way to answer the “Are loser characters really relatable?” Thread and such. It’s just a lot more of the symbolism and such may be unintended

 

[LilRora]

I would say that literary analysis is important in modern stories to understand the why’s -it’s th way to answer the “Are loser characters really relatable?” Thread and such. It’s just a lot more of the symbolism and such may be unintended

Yep, exactly, cause it's entertainement authors are after.

Also, just in case, I edited the post.

 

[SailusGebel]

The point is to show that you are better than others.

 

[Corty]

So people could tell you what the author meant about something without asking the author him or herself.

As to how correct they are with their "professional analysis" is a different topic. If you ask me it's like this:

 

[AliceShiki]

I think it might not have a purpose tbh.

I went to history university before, and one of the professors once said that like... History was kinda like research for the sake of research at times.

Like, there were useful things to learn from history, and especially from teaching history at schools. To help contextualize things for children/teens and help them understand how much the world has changed and how so much of what we take for granted wasn't always the case. And stuff like it.

But... Studying how something specific happened in a small community in a small place that has been basically forgotten? That's mostly research for the sake of research.

I wouldn't be surprised if that applied to literary analysis to some extent. There might be useful stuff to be taken out of it, but there might be a lot of stuff that serves no real purpose.

You would probably need to ask someone who works on the field to get a better idea of what they think about it though.

 

[NineHeadHeavenDevouringSerpent]

to literally analyze. Or, in english, sodomize, idk

Could you sodomize my lit-rear-ry please, I feel it's too tight and in need of attention. Could use some expert's hand, or pen... (Idk)

Lately I feel it has been very hard to express myself through it, i always feel it clogging and unable to keep pace with my desi... sorry I mean ideas.

I can't help but feel I'm lacking something very vital, I've contemplated loong and hard but is not comming within my grasp, it is probably big... reason why I'm unable to satiate my viewe...*cough* readers.

 

[Alfir]

To appreciate the classics, the ancestors of the never-ending regenerating literature from all sorts of media. In my case, I always liked Jose Rizal Exiled in Dapitan. Here in the Philippines, we were required to study Jose Rizal's novels: Noli Me Tang Ere, and El Felibusterismo. It was also because of those two works that I learned Exiled in Dapitan. Never finished either of Jose Rizal's works, but had to do Literary Analysis anyway. Still, I was thankful, if not for those two works, I'd never have imagined how the Philippines were under Spanish rule.

The funny thing was I never knew who even wrote Exiled in Dapitan but I finished reading it. I think it was a novel based on a true-to-life story, which could be historically inaccurate considering it was a novel, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I wasn't sure if it was really a novel, because the person who wrote it might be a historian hahaha... In fact, I had forgotten the plot progression now since it was half my age since I read that thing. That was the first book copy I read, so it had a special place in my heart. Just to share, The Novel's Extra by Jee Gab Song was the first web fic I read.

In fact, I had been enjoying Cast Under an Alien Sun, and the Destiny Crucible series this past semestral break. That novel is lit. It resonates quite a lot with the Spanish colonial rule and their competition with Britain. I imagined Caedellium quite similar to the Phillippines during the Spanish Colonial Rule except Caedellium has a hero.

 

[HelloHound]

improve reading comprehension

 

[TsumiHokiro]

What I said.

Having studied Literature in University, I can tell you something: it is as much fart as you make of your own fart.
Does it tell you how healthy your body is? If you're a doctor, sure. But it can also be complete nonsense to those who don't know what any of those posh words mean. The idea behind is remarkable, the execution, however, can be lacking.
Whoever tells you that you can not analyse any story is being the most snob of all, because stories are stories in the end. In any given time, you will have the great classics, but that does not mean other stories do not have interesting things to be seen. In the end, however, due to time limit, people are limited to studying only a few things in their life, and that is usually only the most "brilliant" of the works. Hence, those that don't have more relevant features are forgotten.
In the end, however, I would tell you the most interesting of it would be: to try to find common traits that were shared among authors of a common time period, language, region, religion, etc. What you do with this, however, is up to you.
You will end up with a lot of ways to describe the way that humans like to tell tales, in diverse forms. It is all fart, though. Not everyone get why it is important to understand it, nor why we should understand it. But they all love to smell it. Or complain when they smell someone's else.