Outside Literature

Literature is often defined as a distinct category of writing in terms ofparticular formal or aesthetic attributes. Tony Bennett suggests thatliterature be rede... » 

Literature is often defined as a distinct category of writing in terms ofparticular formal or aesthetic attributes. Tony Bennett suggests thatliterature be redefined as an institutionally defined field of textual usesand effects. Charting a course between literary aesthetics and their associatedpolitics Bennett engages critically with the work of the Marxist theoreticiansGeorg Lucaks Fredric Jameson Terry Eagleton and Frank Lentricchia. Bennettgoes on to criticise poststructuralist and postmodernist methodologies andto assert the need for a more definite enquiry into the institutionalregulation of culture. «