Questions of norms and values

pp. 209-226

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

Abstract

Application is a recurrent element of contemporary literary practice — the examples in Chapter 2 and the theoretical considerations in Chapters 3 to 7 and 9 should have proved that. But what if our existing literary practice is in fact unsound, at least on this specific point? Think of the use of language: much speech and writing in English is ungrammatical or otherwise incorrect. Are there not, analogously, norms for reading literature and not just reading habits? The present chapter takes up general questions about norms and values in order to address that kind of doubt about the permissibility of application, doubts which can be raised independently of the aesthetic argument and the textual-supremacy argument.