1. What is literature?

One way is to define "literature" as everything in print.

As Edwin Greenlaw has argued, "Nothing related to the history of
civilization is beyond our province". According to Greenlaw's
theory, and the practice of many scholars,
literary study has thus become not merely closely related to the
history of civilization but indeed identical with it. Such study is
literary only in the sense that it is occupied with printed or
written matter, necessarily the primary source of most history.
It can be, of course, argued in defense of such a view that histo-
rians neglect these problems, that they are too much preoccupied
with diplomatic, military, and economic history, and that thus
the literary scholar is justified in invading and taking over a
neighboring terrain. Doubtless nobody should be forbidden to
enter any area he likes, and doubtless there is much to be said
in favor of cultivating the history of civilization in the broadest
terms. But still the study ceases to be literary. The objection
that this is only a quibble about terminology is not convincing.
The study of everything connected with the history of civiliza-
tion does, as a matter of fact, crowd out strictly literary studies.
Another way of defining literature is to limit it to "great
books," books which, whatever their subject, are "notable for
literary form or expression." Here the criterion is either aesthetic
worth alone or aesthetic worth in combination with general intel-
lectual distinction. Within lyric poetry, drama, and fiction, the
greatest works are selected on aesthetic grounds; other books are
picked for their reputation or intellectual eminence together. This
is a common way of distinguishing or speaking of lit-
erature. By saying that "this is not literature," we express such a
value judgment; we make the same kind of judgment when we
speak of a book on history, philosophy, or science as belonging
to "literature."
The study of isolated "great books" may be highly com-
mendable for pedagogical purposes. We all must approve the
idea that students — and even beginning students — should read
great or at least good books rather than compilations or historical
curiosities.
These distinctions between literature and non-literature—
personal expression, realization and
exploitation of the medium, lack of practical purpose, and, of
course, fictionality — are restatements, within a framework of
semantic analysis, of age-old aesthetic terms such as "unity in
variety," "disinterested contemplation," "aesthetic distance,"
"framing," and "invention," "imitation." Each of them de-
scribes one aspect of the literary work, one characteristic feature
of its semantic directions. None is itself satisfactory. At least one
result should emerge: a literary work of art is not a simple
object but rather a highly complex organization of a stratified
character with multiple meanings and relationships.

2. Literature as “organized violence committed on ordinary

speech”

Perhaps literature is definable not according to whether it is

fictional or 'imaginative', but because it uses language in peculiar
ways. On this theory, literature is a kind of writing which, in the
words of the Russian critic Roman Jakobson, represents an
'organized violence committed on ordinary speech'. Literature
transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates
systematically from everyday speech.
What was specific to literary language, what distinguished it from
other forms of discourse, was that it 'deformed' ordinary language
in various ways. Under the pressure of literary devices, ordinary
language was intensified, condensed, twisted, telescoped, drawn
out, turned on its head. It was language 'made strange'; and
because of this estrangement, 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'. By
having to grapple with language in a more strenuous, self-
conscious way than usual, the world which that language contains
is vividly renewed. The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins might
provide a particularly graphic example of this. Literary discourse
estranges or alienates ordinary speech, but in doing so,
paradoxically, brings us into a fuller, more intimate possession of
experience. Most of the time we breathe in air without being
conscious of it: like language, it is the very medium in which we
move. But if the air is suddenly thickened or infected we are
forced to attend to our breathing with new vigilance, and the
effect of this may be a heightened experience of our bodily life.
We read a scribbled note from a friend without paying much
attention to its narrative structure; but if a story breaks off and
begins again, switches constantly from one narrative level to
another and delays its climax to keep us in suspense, we
become freshly conscious of how it is constructed at the same
time as our engagement with it may be intensified. The story, as
 the Formalists would argue, uses 'impeding' or 'retarding' devices
to hold our attention; and in literary language, these devices are
'laid bare'.
The idea that there is a single 'normal' language, a common
currency shared equally by all members of society, is an illusion.
Any actual language consists of a highly complex range of
discourses, differentiated according to class, region, gender,
status and so on, which can by no means be neatly unified into a
single homogeneous linguistic community. One person's norm
may be another's deviation.

3. Literature as functional, unstable and ideology-related term

Perhaps 'literature' means something like the opposite: any kind of

writing which for some reason or another somebody values highly. As
the philosophers might say, 'literature' and 'weed' are functional rather
than ontological terms: they tell us about what we do, not about the
fixed being of things. They tell us about the role of a text or a thistle in a
social context, its relations with and differences from its surroundings,
the ways it behaves, the purposes it may be put to and the human
practices clustered around it. 'Literature' is in this sense a purely
formal, empty sort of definition. Even if we claim that it is a non-
pragmatic treatment of language, we have still not arrived at an
'essence' of literature because this is also so of other linguistic practices
such as jokes. In any case, it is far from clear that we can discriminate
neatly between 'practical' and 'non-practical' ways of relating ourselves
to language.
In many societies, 'literature' has served highly practical functions such
as religious ones; distinguishing sharply between 'practical' and 'non-
practical' may only be possible in a society like ours, where literature
has ceased to have much practical function at all. We may be offering
as a general definition a sense of the 'literary' which is in fact
historically specific.
The reason why it follows from the definition of literature as highly val-
ued writing that it is not a stable entity is that value-judgements are
notoriously variable. 'Times change, values don't,' announces an
advertisement for a daily newspaper, as though we still believed in
killing off infirm infants or putting the mentally ill on public show. Just
as people may treat a work as philosophy in one century and as
literature in the next, or vice versa, so they may change their minds
about what writing they consider valuable. They may even change their
minds about the grounds they use for judging what is valuable and
what is not. This, as I have suggested, does not necessarily mean that
they will refuse the title of literature to a work which they have come
to deem inferior: they may still call it literature, meaning roughly that it
belongs to the type of writing which they generally value. But it does
mean that the so-called 'literary canon', the unquestioned 'great
tradition' of the 'national literature', has to be recognized as a
construct, fashioned by particular people for particular reasons at a
certain time. There is no such thing as a literary work or tradition which
is valuable in itself, regardless of what anyone might have said or come
to say about it. 'Value' is a transitive term: it means whatever is valued
by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria
and in the light of given purposes. It is thus quite possible that, given a
deep enough transformation of our history, we may in the future
produce a society which is unable to get anything at all out of
Shakespeare. His works might simply seem desperately alien, full of
styles of thought and feeling which such a society found limited or
irrelevant. In such a situation, Shakespeare would be no more valuable
than much present-day graffiti. And though many people would
consider such a social condition tragically impoverished, it seems to me
dogmatic not to entertain the possibility that it might arise rather from
a general human enrichment. Karl Marx was troubled by the question
of why ancient Greek art retained an 'eternal charm', even though the
social conditions which produced it had long passed; but how do we
know that it will remain 'eternally' charming, since history has not yet
ended? Let us imagine that by dint of some deft archaeo- logical
research we discovered a great deal more about what ancient Greek
tragedy actually meant to its original audiences, recognized that these
concerns were utterly remote from out own, and began to read the
plays again in the light of this deepened knowledge. One result might
be that we stopped enjoying them. We might come to see that we had
enjoyed them previously because we were unwittingly reading them in
the light of our own preoccupations; once this became less possible,
the drama might cease to speak at all significantly to us.
It may also be that people have not actually been valuing the 'same'
work at all, even though they may think they have. 'Our' Homer is not
identical with the Homer of the Middle Ages, nor 'our' Shakespeare
with that of his contemporaries; it is rather that different historical
periods have constructed a 'different' Homer and Shakespeare for their
own purposes, and found in these texts elements to value or devalue,
though not necessarily the same ones. All literary works, in other
words, are 'rewritten', if only unconsciously, by the societies which read
them; indeed there is no reading of a work which is not also a 're-
writing'. No work, and no current evaluation of it, can simply be
extended to new groups of people without being changed, perhaps
almost unrecognizably, in the process; and this is one reason why what
counts as literature is a notably unstable affair.
The largely concealed structure of values which informs and underlies
our factual statements is part of what is meant by 'ideology'. By
'ideology' I mean, roughly, the ways in which what we say and believe
connects with the power-structure and power-relations of the society
we live in. It follows from such a rough definition of ideology that not all
of our underlying judgements and categories can usefully be said to be
ideological. It is deeply ingrained in us to imagine ourselves moving
forwards into the future (at least one other society sees itself as moving
backwards into it), but though this way of seeing may connect
significantly with the power-structure of our society, it need not always
and everywhere do so. I do not mean by 'ideology' simply the deeply
entrenched, often unconscious beliefs which people hold; I mean more
particularly those modes of feeling, valuing, perceiving and believing
which have some kind of relation to the maintenance and repro-
duction of social power. The fact that such beliefs are by no means
merely private quirks may be illustrated by a literary example.

4. Comparative, general and national literature

The term "comparative" literature is troublesome and doubtless,

indeed, one of the reasons why this important mode of literary study
has had less than the expected academic success.
Comparison is a method used by all criticism and sciences, and does
not, in any way, adequately de- scribe the specific procedures of
literary study. The formal comparison between literatures — or even
movements, figures, and works — is rarely a central theme in literary
history.
In practice, the term "comparative" literature has covered and
still covers rather distinct fields of studv and groups of problems. It may
mean, first, the study of oral literature. This type of problem can be
relegated to folklore, an important branch of learn- ing which is only in
part occupied with aesthetic facts, since it studies the total civilization
of a "folk," its costumes and customs, superstitions and tools as well as
its arts. We must, however, endorse the view that the study of oral
literature is an integral part of literary scholarship, for it cannot be
divorced from the study of written works, and there has been and still
is a con- tinuous interaction between oral and written literature.
Without going to the extreme of, we can recognize that written upper-
class literature has profoundly affected oral literature.
Yet the study of oral literature must be an important concern of every
literary scholar who wants to understand the processes of literary
development, the origins and the rise of our literary genres and
devices. It is unfortunate that the study of oral literature has thus far
been so exclusively preoccupied with the study of themes and their
migrations from country to country, i.e., with the raw materials of
modern literatures.
The term "world literature," is perhaps needlessly grandiose, implying
that literature should be studied on all five continents, from New
Zealand to Iceland.
According to Paul Van Tieghem, "general literature" studies those
movements and fashions of literature which transcend national lines. In
practice, however, it would be difficult to determine be- forehand
which movements are general and thus to draw a line of distinction
between the purely national and the general. Most of Van Tieghem's
own books are rather conventional investigations of a comparative sort.
Whatever the difficulties into which a conception of universal literary
history may run, it is important to think of literature as a totality and to
trace the growth and development of litera- ture without regard to
linguistic distinctions. The practical result of such thinking will be a
general history, especially of the Western tradition. One cannot doubt
the continuity between Greek and Roman literatures, the Western
medieval world, and the main modern literatures j and, without
minimizing the im- portance of Oriental influences, especially that of
the Bible, one must recognize a close unity which includes all Europe,
Russia, the United States, and the South American literatures.
Problems of "nationality" become especially complicated if we have to
decide that literatures in the same language are distinct national
literatures, as American and modern Irish as- suredly are. Are there
independent Belgian, Swiss, and Austrian literatures? It is not very easy
to determine the point at which literature written in America ceased to
be "colonial English" and became an independent national literature. Is
it the mere fact of political independence? Is it the national con-
sciousness of the authors themselves? Is it the use of national subject
matter and "local color"? Or is it the rise of a definite national literary
style?
Only when we have reached decisions on these problems shall we be
able to write histories of national literature which are not simply
geographical or linguistic categories, shall we be able to analyze the
exact way in which each national literature enters into European
tradition. Universal and national literatures implicate each other.
5. Literary theory, criticism and history

Within our "proper study," the distinctions between literary theory,

criticism, and history are clearly the most important. There is, first, the
distinction between a view of literature as a simultaneous order and a
view of literature which sees it primarily as a series of works arranged
in a chronological order and as integral parts of the historical process.
There is, then, the further distinction between the study of the
principles and criteria of literature and the study of the concrete
literary works of art, whether we study them in isolation or in a
chronological series. It seems best to draw attention to these
distinctions by describing as "literary theory" the study of the principles
of literature, its categories, criteria, and the like, and by differentiating
studies of concrete works of art as either "literary criticism" (primarily
static in approach) or "literary history." Of course, "literary criticism" is
frequently used in such a way as to include all literary theory ; but such
usage ignores a useful distinction. Aristotle was a theorist j Sainte-
Beuve, primarily a critic. Kenneth Burke is largely a literary theorist,
while R. P. Blackmur is a literary critic.
These distinctions are fairly obvious and rather widely accepted. But
less common is a realization that the methods so designated cannot be
used in isolation, that they implicate each other so thoroughly as to
make inconceivable literary theory without criticism or history, or
criticism without theory and history, or history without theory and
criticism. Obviously, literary theory is impossible except on the basis of"
a study of concrete literary works.
There have been attempts to isolate literary history from theory and
criticism. For example, F. W. Bateson 2 argued that literary history
shows A to derive from B, while criticism pronounces A to be better
than B. The first type, according to this view, deals with verifiable facts j
the second, with matters of opinion and faith. But this distinction is
quite untenable. There are simply no data in literary history which are
completely neutral "facts." Value judgments are implied in the very
choice of materials: in the simple preliminary distinction between
books and literature, in the mere allocation of space to this or that
author.
But usually the case for the isolation of literary history from literary
criticism is put on different grounds. It is not denied that acts of
judgment are necessary, but it is argued that literary history has its own
peculiar standards and criteria, i.e., those of the other ages. We must,
these literary reconstructionists argue, enter into the mind and
attitudes of past periods and accept their standards, deliberately
excluding the intrusions of our own pre- conceptions. This view, called
"historicism," was elaborated consistently in Germany during the
nineteenth century, though even there it has been criticized by
historical theorists.
In practice, no literary history has ever been written without some
principles of selection and some attempt at characterization and
evaluation. Literary historians who deny the importance of criticism are
themselves unconscious critics, usually derivative critics, who have
merely taken over traditional standards and reputations.

6. Some functions of Literature: delectare (delight) et prodese

(benefit), escape, psychological insight, catharsis and emotion
instigation of the literary

Poetry is sweet and useful.

The view that poetry is pleasure (analogous to any other pleasure)
answers to the view that poetry is instruction (analogous to any
textbook). The view that all poetry is, or should be, propaganda is
answered by the view that it is, or should be, pure sound and image —
arabesque without reference to the world of human emotions.
"Useful" is equivalent to "not a waste of time," not a form of "passing
the time," something deserving of serious attention. "Sweet" is
equivalent to "not a bore," "not a duty," "its own reward."
And as for "escape," Kenneth Burke has reminded us how facile a
charge that may become. The dream of escape may "assist a reader to
clarify his dislike of the environment in which he is placed. The artist
can . . , become 'subversive' by merely singing, in all innocence, of
respite by the Mississippi." 2 In answer to our question, it is probable
that all art is "sweet" and "useful" to its appropriate users: that what it
articulates is superior to their own self-induced reverie or reflection;
that it gives them pleas- ure by the skill with which it articulates what
they take to be something like their own reverie or reflection and by
the release they experience through this articulation.
It remains to consider those conceptions of the function of literature
clustered about the word "catharsis." The word — Aristotle's Greek, in
the Poetics — has had a long history. The exegesis of Aristotle's use of
the word remains in dispute; but what Aristotle may have meant, an
exegetical problem of interest, need not be confounded with the
problems to which the term has come to be applied. The function of
literature, some say, is to relieve us — either writers or readers — from
the pressure of emotions. To express emotions is to get free of them.
And the spectator of a tragedy or the reader of a novel is also said to
experience release and relief. His emotions have been provided with
focus, leaving him, at the end of his aesthetic experience, with "calm of
mind."