The aesthetic approach to literature

pp. 125-144

in: Anders Pettersson, The concept of literary application, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

In Chapter 1, I mentioned two arguments against the aesthetic relevance of application, namely, the textual-supremacy argument and the aesthetic argument, and the time has now come to discuss these in depth. The discussion takes up five chapters — the rest of the book, more or less — and touches upon many different aspects of literary theory. The textual-supremacy argument, according to which only elements contained in the text itself are proper objects of literary response, is addressed in Chapter 8. The present chapter and Chapters 9 to 11 are devoted to the aesthetic argument, an argument whose force is derived from the conviction that literary response should be concerned exclusively with the aesthetic qualities of the text.