The Work of Literature

Abstract

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called ‘literature’? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and capacity to give pleasure over centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments in an earlier text The Singularity of Literature. Beginning with an extended cross-examination in interview form addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to ‘do justice to’ a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of ‘singularity’, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. It then explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, the working of metaphor, the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, a welcoming of possibilities excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

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