[lrivero83]

Hi! Eagleton tries to find a definition of literature. In a part of "what is literature?", he says: It was language made strange and because of this entrangement, the everyday world was also suddenly made unfamiliar. In the routines of everyday speech, our perceptions of and responses to reality become stale, blunted, or, as the Formalists would say "automatized". LITERATURE BY FORCING US INTO A DRAMATIC AWARENESS OF LANGUAGE, REFRESHES THESE HABITUAL RESPONSES AND RENDERS OBJECTS MORE PERCEPTIBLE. What does he mean in the sentence written in capital letters? Thanks

[vingogly]

Familiarity breeds contempt; the shock of the unexpected breeds appreciation.

Here's a short example from Bob Dylan's song "Simple Twist of Fate" (I'm sorry, I'm an old guy so I don't know a lot of the newer music :)):

He felt the heat of the night
Hit him like a freight train

Dylan "wakes us up" by taking three everyday images: a hot night, a troubled relationship, the violence of someone being hit by a freight train - and by placing them together makes something new & strange, and we can experience that hot night (and perhaps the violence of freight trains, and of the feelings in doomed relationships) in a very real & direct way.