6. Gossip and literature Lingua Inglese 2 LM

Two ways of looking at the connection between gossip and literature  Literature as gossip (is literature a form of gossip?)  Gossip in literature (gossip episodes in literature)

 Authors use gossip as a framing device (narrative through letters etc,)  Action is described through gossip (not in narrative)

 Gossip is concerned with power; we gossip “up” and talk about people in power (celebrity gossip); only the poor have privacy (Johnson)  We take pleasure in the sufferings of the strong (schadenfreude)

 “perhaps pre-selectively, people think that there is something literary about this poignant human situation because giving people motives involves making narratives”. BY GOSSIPING WE ARE PRODUCING LITERATURE (NARRATIVE FICTION)

 Gossip gives people the same pleasure as literature does  Enjoyment of literature is an evolutionary by- product (virtual reality produces pleasure) and an evolutionary adaptation (we evolved circuits that give us pleasure from the arts)

 We allow ourselves to become absorbed in stories about people we have never met and never will in order to get large doses of the delicious social information we crave?  What better way to indulge in gossip than to hear about the doings of people we have no relationship to?

Fiction gave people the chance to practice their emotional connections with other people (Gallagher). This did not happen before the 18th century novel. How did emotional speculation affect people after the 18th century? Men – it was training for financial speculation Women – it was training for love and marriage

The Great Tradition = trash  Shakespearean comedies = Friends  The Faerie Queen = Terminator  Common themes of sex, commerce, scandal  Novels = human interest stories, news, advertising, social media?

 The gossip paradox - we enjoy gossip but we disapprove of it  Novels make use of the traditional themes of gossip for their content (money, sex, scandal) but they do not want to be regarded as gossip. Novels think they are superior. SO WHAT MAKES A NOVEL DIFFERENT FROM “HELLO” MAGAZINE?