Defining a Literary Work Author(s): Stein Haugom Olsen Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art

Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter, 1976), pp. 133142 Published by: Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/430371 . Accessed: 27/09/2012 01:35
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STEIN HAUGOM OLSEN

Defining

Literary

Work

shared ground. (2) Realizing this, theorists have, according to the anti-essentialists, THE SO-CALLED REVOLUTION in philosophy which was started by Wittgenstein and placed the real literary work, its "essence," in the author's/reader's mind. Theorists Ryle, had one important consequence for feel compelled to do this because they are literary theory. The mentalistic view of litthe victims of the illusion that a class of erature, which attempted to define the objects referred to by the same word must literary work in terms of either the author's have something in common which makes it or the reader's mental states, was defeated. reasonable to refer to them all by the same With the advent of Wittgensteinian and word. (3) Wittgenstein is then invoked to Rylean theories of mind it became clear establish the point that the blanket use of that mentalistic definitions had a weakness a term for a group of objects may be based which it was impossible to overcome: while on no more than a "family resemblance" insisting that the literary experience is between them. That is, between every logically independent of any outward member of the group and at least two other manifestation (a text), they failed to exmembers there hold two different relations plain how it is possible to identify an of likeness. "Literary work" is a term with imaginative entity or a class of experiences this type of "logic" or "grammar." It reas being literary in character rather than fers to a heterogeneous group of objects being of some other type, without referring between which there is no more than a to the text. This criticism was widely acfamily resemblance. Once this is realized cepted, and the field was left free for other the urge to postulate and search for an types of view to take over. Two such views impossible and meaningless essence which became particularly influential: the antiis the distinguishing feature of the literary essentialist view and the object theory. work will disappear. And this philosophBoth these views lead the literary theoical problem will have been dissolved in the rist into grave trouble from which it does manner. not seem he can extricate himself if he typical Wittgensteinian The first weak spot in this argument is stays within any of these views. I shall that the notion of "family resemblance" therefore here offer a critique of the views fails to explain certain obvious features of and briefly sketch an alternative. the usage of the term "literary work." It The anti-essentialist argument applied in fails to explain that there are correct and literary theory would run something like incorrect uses of the term. Family resemthis: (1) there are no characteristics com- blances may be found between poems and mon to all literary works other than trivial plays, plays and novels, novels and shortones. This is taken for granted and as stories, short-stories and essays, essays of a more general kind and more narrowly techSTEIN HAUGOM OLSEN is a r-esearch fellow at the nical essays in history, philosophy, science, University of Bergen, Norway.

134 technology, engineering; between novels and detective stories, detective stories and crime reports, crime reports and sociological essays on crime, between sociological essays on crime and other essays in sociology etc., etc. However, somewhere along these separate lines we pass a fuzzy border where we would cease to apply the term "literary work." Without such a border we end in a comparative madness where everything, in the end, belongs to the same group as everything else. The second weakness of the argument is that (1) is taken for granted. When the mentalistic view was defeated, an attempt was made to establish an object theory, which was based on the assumption that there exist features in texts which are what constitute these texts as literary works. Object-theories of various kinds have become widely influential and failure to consider the challenge presented by these theories to the anti-essentialist approach makes the latter seem perfunctory and irrelevant to the theoretical needs of literary
criticism.

O LSE

Thirdly, the anti-essentialist approach overlooks the fact that even if we grant (1) and reject (2) (i.e., if we refuse to place the real work in the mind of the author/ reader) we are not forced to the conclusion that "literary work" is a term which is applied to a set of objects on the basis only of family resemblances. There are a number of terms which are names of what we may call function-classes: the identity of the objects which are members of such a class being defined through the function they serve in a community of practitioners using the objects, and not by any observable characteristics they possess. The function which these objects serve may, of II course, partially or wholly determine their In the last decade, less has been heard physical shape, but this shape cannot itself be a criterion (though it may be circum- of the anLi-essentialist view and objectstantial evidence) for the object's being a definitions of different kinds have dominmember of a function-class. Only the exist- ated the field. These fall broadly into two ence of a practice involving the object can categories: semantic (textural) definitions determine its function. A typical example and structural (structuralist and phenomof such an object would be a chess-king (or enological "stratification") definitions. The a tennis-racket, a banknote, a word). The former locates the distinguishing features chess-king is defined by its starting posi- of the literary work primarily in its use of

tion on the chess-board and the possible moves it may make, and not by any physical characteristics it may possess. A game of chess may even be carried out simply by giving a sequence of numbers and letters to represent the moves of the "pieces" as is done in a radio-chess-game. And though, when it has physical shape, the function of the chess-king may put certain limits on this shape, these limits cannot be used in the definition of a chess-king. The chessking is an institutional object. Its existence is dependent on the existence of a practice (the playing of chess-games) involving the movement of pieces on a board (or some other way of registering a change in the relationships between the pieces), a set of conventions governing the moves of the game, and a set of concepts ("chessboard," "king," "queen," "chess-piece," "remis" etc.) to describe the objects and the moves (actions) of the game and relate these to each other. Apart from an institution comprising all these elements there is no chess-king.1 The possibility that the term "literary work of art" is the name of a functionclass constituted by an institution of concepts and rules defining a practice, is not discussed by any of the theorists favoring the anti-essentialist approach. Together with the failure to consider objectively given features of a text as a possible basis for a definition, and the inadequacy of the notion of family resemblance when it comes to distinguishing between literary works and what are not literary works, this weakness in the anti-essentialist attitude leaves us practically with all the problems of definition still unsolved.

Defining a Literary Work language, the latter looks for identifiable structural patterns in the overall organization of the work as well. According to the semantic theory local linguistic features give the literary work a peculiar linguistic texture or opacity. The function of language in literature is not, as it is in ordinary and scientific discourse, instrumental and the linguistic unit becomes itself objectlike. This view is expressed in a series of metaphors: the work is said to be "semantically dense" (M. C. Beardsley), it is a "verbal icon" (W. K. Wimsatt), or a "well wrought urn" (Cleanth Brooks). The local linguistic features which distinguish the literary work from other texts are objectively observable by all speakers in the language. No reference to occult mental faculties is needed in criticism and consequently criticism avoids the charge of subjectivism. Semantic density is constituted by ambiguity, irony, paradox, metaphor, and in general by the connotations (associations) which an expression has. Empson is, of course, the critic to go to for an example:
'The new deputy is very strict' Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness (Measure for Measure, I, ii, 59.) 'or because he thinks it best to show his strength at once, and make sure of his prestige.' The fault of newness would be simple, and have for grammar, 'this mistake isn't the deputy's fault, it's Newness's fault.' The glimpse of newness would be fairly simple; 'He is dazzled with the brightness of his position, and still self-conscious, with a suggestion of peeping, because of its novelty.' The first 'of' would thus mean 'belonging to,' the second, 'caused by.' But to impose one on top of the other puts the reader at some distance from either meaning; makes fault convey a meaning of 'discontinuity' (the sense 'gap' which led to the geological use) so as to be more like glimpse, glimpse suggest 'spying' and a wilful blindness so as to be more like fault, and leaves various ways of making them both grammar floating about in one's mind; 'this isn't the deputy's fault, it's the fault of his glimpse of newness'; or separating 'the' fault from the rest of the phrase. 'This is original sin coming out, as it often does when a man changes his circumstances.'2

135

stop and contemplate it almost like an aesthetic object. He is forced into looking for grammatical and contextual relationships to grasp the full meaning instead of being able to rely on his linguistic intuitions as he can do with any normal utterance. He must look at the phrase as a linguistic fact instead of looking through it to its purpose. Unfortunately, the semantic definition of the literary work as a text displaying semantic density, suffers from the weakness that poetic language (semantic density) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for something being a literary work. Novels, plays, and poems need not use semantic density to achieve their artistic effect. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is an accepted literary work and it is significantly similar to other literary works when looked at from a certain point of view, but this similarity does not consist in an objectively observable "poetic use" of language. The opening passage of Heart of Darkness, which contains sentences typical of the vast majority of sentences in certain forms of literature, cannot be criticized for being inartistic:
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

Yet this passage has no semantic density, no local textural features which turn the language into "literary" language. More important, the presence of semantic density is not a sufficient condition for something being a literary work. The following passage from Eliot ("East Coker," III) displays semantic density of a kind pointed out in the quoted comment:
O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,

The phrase Empson here analyzes becomes semantically dense by carrying so many implications that the reader is forced to

136
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach ile Gotha And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors, And cold the sense and lost the motive of action. And we all go with them, into the silent funeral, Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury. "Chairmen of many committees" is a particularly telling example of the urndermining effect of using plural forms of descriptions usually rcserved for giving the accolade to a single individual. "Captains" seems to hover between contemporary language (compare the phrase "captains of in(lustry") and(l the semi-biblical (compare, in Kipling's Recessional, "The Captains and the Kings (lepart") and, similarly, in the phrase "the statesmen and the rulers," the rulers appear to belong to an older and less secular stratum of language, that of the Bible and of the writings of (livines. The "industrial lords" look one way to "press lords" and similar usages in which "lords" meanis magnates and the other way to the lords temporal and lords spiritual who constitute the Upper House of Parliament (with the implication that modern life has introduced a third category-those whose command of industry has helped them to the peerage) and the word "lords" is even further complicated by its juxtaposition with '"petty contractors"; this latter, though a standard occupational classification, gives to "lords," by contrast, the sense of lordliness, and takes to itself the sense of pettiness.3

O LSE

a piece of discourse as a literary work we shall consider the language of the following passage in the same way as the above quoted commentator considered the language of Eliot's lines.
All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS. The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness wvith which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness.5

A possible approach to this passage is to note that the first sentence strikingly juxtaposes three normally overlapping terms. "Impressions" is not ordinarily used complementary to "ideas," nor are they both thought of as species of perception. The sentence is an apparent definition by a speaker who wants to say something about the human mind, but the definition is not neutral. The speaker characterizes the human mind by implication. By using the words "perceptions," "impressions," and "ideas" to set up two relations of complement and inclusion, the speaker characterizes the content of mind as being passive, fleeting, and subjective. "Perception" as in "a keen aesthetic perception" and "his The commentary draws attention to fea- powers of perception" refers to an act of tures of the language of the passage and the mind. But here perceptions are exexposes its implied meanings and evalua- haustively subdivided into "impressions" tions. The assumption behind this analysis and "ideas." Impressions are subjective as is "that a verbal structure is literary if it in "my impression of London was . . . or presents its topic at more than one level of "he made a deep impression on me" and presentation at the same time-or, alterna- fleeting or elusive as in "I got only a vague tively, if one and the same utterance has impression of him" or "I cannot really remore than one function in the structure member what impression he made on me." of meaning in which it occurs."4 The Ideas are subjective ("A blind man can passage from Eliot is literary to the extent have no idea of colour") but more perthat it has a multiple function and it would manent ("He formed his ideas on the subbe recognizable as having literary qualities ject over a number of years"). Both ideas and values if it was considered by itself in- and impressions are passive: impressions dependent of the context provided by the are inflicted on the mind in the way we rest of the poem ("East Coker," and, ulti- stamp an impression in wax, and ideas are mately, the Four Quartets). So this analysis stored there ("He has his own ideas on the contains no reference to this greater con- subject"). By subdividing perceptions into text: the textual features that constitute it impressions and ideas the active part of as literary are seen as exclusively local in the mind is by implication emasculated and the mind becomes a receiving organ character. To show that such local features of and repository only. Instead of relating semantic density are insufficient to identify perceptions outward to their objects they

Defining a Literary Work are here related inwards to the subjective content of mind. And this is done by invoking the associations of the terms involved. This sentence is in fact as semantically dense as any line in the quote from Eliot. Though we could carry further an analysis of this passage in terms like paradox, ambiguity, metaphor, connotations, and point out how this use of language expresses a complex vision of the metaphysical nature of the human mind, this analysis would seem forced and unnatural. This is not because such ambiguities, metaphors and connotations cannot be identified as being "at work" in the passage. But we should feel, I think, that we had mistaken the aim of the passage if we treated it in this way. We are likely to know that this is the opening of a regular philosophical treatise, that the author intended it as such and that it has been fruitfully interpreted on the basis of this assumption. The difference between the passage from the Treatise and the passage from Four Quartets is not that the one has features of ambiguity, tension, and paradox, and the other lacks these. The difference is that in the case of the Treatise we cannot see the point of hunting for such features, and if they force themselves on our notice this damages the proper function of the passage. Ambiguity and paradox are valuable features of a literary work but out of place in philosophical argurrment.6This is not to imply that literary and non-literary texts carry the same amount of semantic density. They do not. Semantic density is a typical literary feature as is plot and character. But plot and character can be found outside literature. They become aesthetically significant only by serving some aesthetic function in literary works, and they are not themselves constitutive of aesthetic significance. In the same way, semantic density can be found (if one looks) in non-literary texts. But its presence, which is not normally noticed because it serves no function in the text, does not make the text into a literary work. The weakness of the semantic theories is that they point to certain objectively given

137 linguistic features in a text as the distinguishing features of the literary work, ignoring that these features (of ambiguity, paradox, tension, irony) are noticed only when they serve an independently defined function. Otherwise features of this type are noticed only when they cause a failure in communication, and then we do not talk about semantic density but of vagueness and impreciseness (verbal sloppiness). In other words, to identify a feature "semantic density" in a text which has some artistic significance, the decision must already have been reached that the text is to be treated as a literary work. Only then can such features be treated as artistically relevant. A decision as to whether a text is a literary work or not is thus logically prior to identification of semantic density. Structural theories suffer from the same weakness as semantic theories, and perhaps more obviously so. If the literary work is "a structure of norms, realized only partially in the actual experience of its many readers," 7 then one quickly finds oneself in the same dilemma as with semantic theories: one identifies features in thle literary work as if it were an object independent of human institutions and purposes. But if the literary work is to be seen as an object at all, it must be seen as an intentional and institutional object. The problem for structural theories is that while it is possible to describe an endless series of structures in a literary work, only some of these structures will be artistically relevant. To decide which structures these are, one needs certain strategies defined by convention, strategies which in the end rest on the assumption that the text in question was intended as a literary work and thus intended to be susceptible to an approach through these strategies. The "objectively given" structure is given only for those who can use this special approach, i.e. only for those who know how to deal with a literary work as an intentional object. III The feature of object-theories which brings them into trouble is that they make

138

O LS E N

no reference to anything else than the text of the work. But an adequate definition of a literary work must make some reference to the social context which creates the possibility of identifying and describing literary works; to the fact that there is a community of authors and readers in the sense that they share a set of concepts and conventions which enable them to deal with a given text as a literary work of art. Authors and readers possess a common institutional framework which allows authors to intend texts as literary works and the reader to interpret them as intended to be taken as literary works. To identify a text as a literary work is to accept that the interpretive and evaluative conventions of this institution should be used in dealing with the text in question. It is to assign a role to the text in an institution of which one knows the rules.8 Furthermore, the model must stress that in addition to a framework of conventions and concepts, it is necessary also that the institution should involve actions and objects governed by the conventions and described by the concepts: if texts were never intended to be interpreted as literary works and never assumed to be thus intended, literary conventions and concepts would serve no useful function and fall into disuse. There is some reason to believe that literature is a social institution and literary works institutional objects defined by the function they serve in the institution, seeing that in our culture there has always been a literary practice along the lines of the suggested model, involving notions of
artistic unity, artistic function, artistic

value, and so on. Given this background, it may be maintained that an inquiry into the "nature" of the literary work should be an inquiry into the concepts and conventions shared by the community of readers, rather than an inquiry directed at the object itself. Institutional conventions and concepts will determine the answer to such questions as what is artistic significance, what is artistic unity, what is artistic value, what is the cognitive status of literary discourse, what is a correct interpretation of a work, etc. All in all such conventions

would determine not only what features of a text are literary artistic features, but they would also create the possibility of the identification and description of such features. They would be rules constitutive of the practice in the same way as the rules of chess are constitutive of that game, and apart from the institution or practice of literature there would be no literary works, no artistic features, no artistic unity or design, no structural elements, or any other such features we recognize as having to do with the aesthetic nature of the literary work. It is not possible to prove that literary practice is an institution in the way that chess, or the money-system, or the judicial system is an institution. But it is possible to suggest that the reader tries out this approach in his own experience; to illustrate through an example some of the logical presuppositions a reader makes when approaching a literary passage; and to give a sketch of such concepts and conventions as one believes to be constitutive of literary practice, thus providing some sort of account of the literary institution. As an example let us look at an episode from Tom Jones. On their way to London, in pursuit of Sophia, Tom and Partridge run into a rainstorm and seek shelter with some gypsies who are having a celebration in a barn. During their visit, Partridge gets drunk, starts making advances to a gypsy woman and is apprehended by the woman's husband. He is brought before the Gypsy King to be punished and Tom immediately offers money to the husband to avoid further trouble. They reach agreement on a sum to be paid but the Gypsy King intervenes and exposes the husband as having arranged the situation in which Partridge was discovered with his wife, to be able to ask for money as reparation. The husband is duly punished and the innocence of Tom and Partridge established. The reader who meets this episode in the text of Tom Jones will have a problem about how to approach it. One step in the solution to this problem is to assume that Tom Jones is a literary work. That is, the reader must approach

Defining a Literary Work the text with a generic conception of what sort of text this is, and consequently with a set of strategies for dealing with it which he knows to be appropriate. The assumption that Tom Jones is a literary work involves automatically the assumption that the above episode has some artistic significance which it gains by contributing something to the general artistic design of the novel. So the reader must look for two things: an overall design and a design of the episode which will fit into the overall design. A hypothesis about the former is therefore necessary to identify the latter. And here the contour of a strategy appears: the significance of episodes or other structural elements and the overall artistic significance must be established together since they are interdependent. An attempt to grasp the artistic significance of an episode or other feature will necessarily involve the reader in an attempt to grasp the overall artistic design of a work. There is no artistic significance of elements apart from an overall artistic design and the reader must always move back and forth between the two to construct a coherent pattern of elements working together in an artistic unity. It is with these preconceptions the reader approaches the episode in question if he has decided that Tom Jones is a literary work. The reader who looks for some way to tie this episode to other episodes in a general structure will observe that it repeats a pattern which appears in most of the situations in which Tom and Partridge find themselves on their way to London: they are deceived by appearances because they are willing to accept other people's interpretation of events without question. This naivete repeatedly brings them into dangerous and unpleasant situations. In the episode in question the author provides numerous clues for Tom, Partridge, and the reader alike to enable them to see through the deception, and while the reader takes the hint, Tom and Partridge are fooled. The pattern of naivete leading to danger and unpleasantness is significant in the overall interpretation of the novel as a quest where the hero must learn to distinguish between reality and

139 appearances, honesty and deceit to overcome the obstacles which prevent him from marrying the heroine. It is worth noting that this pattern is not "given" in the episode in the sense that one would notice it no matter how one looked at the text. It stands out as the structure of the episode only when one looks at it from thle vantagepoint of an interpretive hypothesis about the overall artistic significance of the work. And one discovers these interlocking patterns as a result of applying certain interpretive conventions to the text. A reader is necessarily a member of a language-community with a cultural tradition which for the language-communities of the present "western world" is pretty similar. When he is faced with a text the reader will have a series of options, defined by the cultural context, how to approach it. Some of thle approaches will be well defined as is the case with historical, scientific, and philosophical discourse in our culture. These areas of discourse have developed into "disciplines" with standards of interpretation: what counts as premises, valid arguments, and conclusions, what such and such terms mean within the system which constitutes the discipline; standards of truth: what counts as relevant facts and what sort of relationship there must be between facts and statements; and standards of evaluation: what constitutes a precise, clear, and adequate argument and what are important problems. Other approaches to texts will be less well defined. There may be general expectations of other purposes to be served, of entertainment, instruction, amusement, arousal etc., but the fulfillment of these aims may not rest on very definite conventions shared by author and reader, though some conventional background there must be. When a reader shares in the institution of literature, he will have the possibility of treating a given text as a literary work in addition to his other options. The literary option is probably the most highly conventionalized way of treating a text, and while it does not exclude the possibility of using a text for different purposes, a double approach to the text may lead to a confusion

140

OLSEN

of literary and non-literary judgments which will disturb literary understanding (interpretation) and appreciation (evaluation). The conventions and concepts of literary practice determine how a reader is to deal with a text intended as a literary work. Though they cannot be exhaustively described in an article, a brief sketchl is possible. The conventions may be usefully divided into three categories. The first
type we may call genre-conventions. These

are concerned withi distinguishing literary discourse as a type by defining its relationship to the producer (author), receiver (reader), and the world. This cluster of conventions can all be accommodated
under the label autonomy conventions.

As they are developed here they will be recognized as foci of controversy in literary theory. No arguments vwill be offered to settle these controversies or to underpin the present view, but reflecting on these genre-conventions, the reader should keep two things in mind: (1) they are supposed to be explications of what readers do when they deal with literary works, not what they claim they do; and (2) they are explications of a literary aesthetic approach to a text. Such an approach does not exclude other approaches which in their way may be valuable, and texts may be interpreted and evaluated also in such other ways even though an aesthetic approach is what makes them interesting in the first place. The first autonomy convention defines the relationship between the work and the author. An author is the final authority on what sort of text he meant to produce, i.e., in the question whether or not a text is meant as a literary work, but if he intends something as a literary work (or, from the other angle, if the reader assumes something to be intended as a literary work) then he takes responsibility for following the conventions of literary practice. Among these are rules for interpretation and standards for evaluating interpretations. What counts as good/bad interpretations is decided by institutional conventions. The only type of evidence these in-

terpretive rules can handle are features of the work itself. Utterances and behavior falling outside literary practice can therefore play no role in interpretation. It is quite possible that what an author pronounces his work to "mean," should claslh with the "meaning" found through an acceptable interpretation. And, logically, the author's utterance will have the status of an alternative interpretation and not of evidence to be used in interpretation. The same is the case for the author's beliefs and opinions at the time he wrote the work. So though a literary work is an intentional object there is such a thing as an "intentional fallacy": the use of the autlhor's independent utterances and behavior as evidence in interpretation. The second aspect of the autonomy of a literary work is the convention to treat it as non-serious or etiolated discourse. When a reader assumes a text to be a literary work, this includes the negative assumption that it is not to be construed as serving any of the normal goal-directed functions of language. Thus
Go, for they call you, shepherd from the hill; Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! (Matthew Arnold, "The Scholar Gypsy")

is not really a request (or a piece of advice or an order). If this poem was read to an audience among which there was a shepherd, and the further circumstances were such that this sentence could be understood with reference to these circumstances, the shepherd could still not take it as a request without becoming the victim of a ridiculous misunderstanding. And the opening lines from Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" ("Had we but world enough and time/This coyness, Lady, were no crime.") is not a real complaint. There is no situation to which this sentence can be referred in which it served its conventional function of expressing a complaint. Both this and the above quoted sentence retain their functions as request and complaint within the context of the poem, but there is no framework of facts to which these need to be referred (or to which they were intended

Defining a Literary Work

141

to be referred) in order to grasp their full association between the rural paradise to purpose. Their only context is the poem.9 which the characters have withdrawn, and Finally there is a third autonomy con- death, and thus suggests that the happiness vention which is really a consequence of experienced there is not of this world. It the last one, but whiclh is often debated as is part of a general pattern of association if it were an indlependent issue: the fiction- between happiness and death introduced ality convention. Language, in addition to when Oliver is first shot at the house of its many other functions of requesting, the Maylies and is seriously ill as a consecomplaining, warning, asking, advising, etc. quence. There will also be such whyalso has a fact-stating function, and state- questions to be answered concerning the ments are susceptible to judgments about language or diction of works (see the truth or falsity. However, when statements quote from Nowottny analyzing the pasoccur in literary works ("The sea is calm sage from "East Coker," III), the arrangetonight./The tide is full, the moon lies ment of words on the page, the development of the plot, the narrator's comment, fair/Upon the straits; . . . ") they, like other types of utterances, are etiolated. They speeches, characters, conversation, setting, have lost their assertive function and the parallels, contrasts, etc. A reader identifies lines from Arnold's "Dover Beach" de- an aesthetically relevant feature in a work scribe a non-existing situation. So this by answering a why-question about its ardescription is not susceptible to judgments tistic significance. Failure to find such a about truth or falsity since it was never question to answer in connection with a intended as a statement fitted to a real-life feature indicates that this feature is supercontext. It has no assertive function, oc- fluous; irrelevant to the artistic structure curring as it does in the context of a poem. and thus an alien and unnecessary element There has been violent theoretical disagree- in the work of art. To understand thle nature of artistic sigment about the role of reference, belief, and truth in literature, and this is not thle place nificance or artistic purpose one has to gain to offer an argument. But one observation insight into a series of complex problems: must be made: there is no debate about What conventions do we use to assign a factual issues in literary criticism as there "meaning" to an element? What are acceptis in philosophy, science, and history able reasons for preferring one "meaning" to another? What is it for a "meaning" of which focus as disciplines on issues. There are, in addition to genre-conven- one element to "harmonize" with the tions, interpretive and evaluative conven- "meaning" of other elements? How does tions. Interpretive conventions define the thle "meaning" of single elements conconcepts of artistic "meaning" or signifi- tribute to the overall artistic purpose? etc. cance. They serve the double function of The answers to these questions will give an enabling the reader to see a text as made insight into literary practice. However, we up of elements and to interrelate them in should not believe that this theoretical a pattern which is the artistic design. Thus knowledge is necessary for the existence of they sanction and provide ways of answer- the practice. A trained reader will know ing a special type of why-question in con- how to respond to a literary work, how to nection with literary works: why does Rose deal with it, and this is all that is required. Maylie (in Oliver Twist) become suddenly, He need not know, and most readers will dangerously, and unexplainably ill when not know, how to describe the practice in she is living happily with Oliver and her which he is engaging. There are, finally, evaluative convenaunt in the country? The answer to this question must establish a "meaning" of the tions which are also geared to deal with illness which harmonizes with the "mean- literary discourse in terms of artistic siging" of the other elements of the work: nificance. Presence of artistic "meaning" Rose Maylie's illness establishes a close will be positive, absence of such "meaning"

142 or lack of artistic purpose will be a liability in a work. Evaluation is directed at establishing a list of priorities for readers, thus in effect recommending that readers pay attention to certain works rather than others on the basis that some works will be artistically more worthwhile than others. Critical evaluation is thus not social evaluation. The latter can only be an evaluation of the institution as such while critical evaluation is concerned with the single work in relation to other works considered within the framework of the practice. The concepts of the literary institution are embodied in a critical vocabulary in which literary understanding and appreciation is expressed and which is therefore constitutive of literary insights. This vocabulary consists of a set of descriptive terms like "plot," "character," "imagery," "diction," "setting," etc. which helps the reader to identify devices which are known to be used as vehicles for artistic significance. Then there must be a set of interpretive terms. These are mostly borrowed from other spheres of life since literature deals with "central human concerns." And there exists a wide variety of evaluative terms which identify good-making features of literary works. The analysis of this vocabulary must go hand in hand with an analysis of the constitutive conventions of literary practice. It is through this type of analysis that we may gain some insight into the "essence" of a literary work.

OLSEN

1This notion of an institution or an institutional practice has been developed by John Rawls in "Two Concepts of Rules," The Philosophical Review, Vol. 64 (1955), reprinted in Philippa Foot ed., Theories of Ethics (London, 1967); by G. E. M. Anscombe in "On Brute Facts," Analysis (1958), and by John Searle in Speech A4cts, (Cambridge, 1969). 2 William Empson, Seven Types of Ambligllity, third ed. (London, 1953), pp. 92-93. 3 Winifred Nowottny, The Language Poets Use, (London, 1968), p. 35. 4Ibid. p. 2. 5 David Hume, A Treatise of H2,uman Natlure, ed. Sclby-Bigge (Oxford, 1888), I.i.l. 6" . . . the poet," says Northrop Frye, "does not define his words but establishes their powers by placing them in a great variety of contexts," Aalltotny of Criticisim, (Princeton, 1957), p. 334. Quite right. But this is not, as Frye and others seem to think, an empirical statement. It is rather a statement revealing something about the conceptual scheme with which *we approach a literary work; A poetic text is a text where the consideration of the po'wers of the words will be expectedl to contribute somethillg to all artistic purpose. In other texts no purpose is expected scvcdl by these powers, and it is therefolre meaningless to look for connotations and grammatical reclations (the "powers" of language). 7Wellek andl Warren, Theory of LieratliLrc, third revised ed. (London, 1966), p. 150. 8 Christopher Butler in an article "What is a
Literary Work?" New Literary History, \'ol. 5

(1973), makes essentially the same sort of suggestion, but does not specify what the rules andl concepts of the institution arc. 9An attempt to explore the loll-scrious use of language in literature iln terms of mimesis has been made by Richard Ohman ill "Speech Acts and the Definition of Literature," Philosophy and Rhetoric, \'ol. 4 (1971).