contingencies of literary value

Exercise:
​Complete the following sentence by circling all that apply. You may find that what you circle depends on the project you're working on at a given time. Make note of anything you discover about your relationship to this list and how you think about the contingencies of literary value.

"What must be emphasized is that the value--the 'goodness' or 'badness'--of an evaluation is itself contingent, and thus a matter of how well it performs various desired/desirable functions for the various people who may at any time be concretely involved with it."-Barbara Herrnstein Smith
​
​“An effective piece of poetry to one community will not necessarily seem interesting or well done to another.”
-Chris Green

I am writing for readers who value a literary text for its…

Capacity to entertain readers/listeners
 
Capacity to promote empathy
 
Capacity to challenge readers/listeners intellectually
 
Complexity
 
Paradoxical thinking
 
Simplicity
 
Accessibility
 
Difficulty
 
Possibility of Retelling
 
Ambiguity
 
Proliferation of meaning
 
Availability for interpretation
 
Strangeness
 
Deeper truths within the text
 
Philosophical meaning
 
Morality
 
Persuasive argument
 
Potential to change readers’/listeners’ worldviews
 
Craft

​Author’s control of the language
 
Revelation of the ills of society
Unconventional use of language
 
Availability for study
 
Ability to preserve the cultural of a people
 
Ability to convey the experience of the author and/or his/her culture
 
Ability to include the audience’s participation
 
Ability to generate other stories
 
Ability to inspire other writers
 
Potential to contribute to culture
 
Evidence of historical truth (valuing the text as a primary text / an artifact of history)
 
Ability to put readers/listeners in direct connection with the natural world
 
Engagement with controversial social/political issues
 
Creation of a sublime aesthetic experience
 
Ability to bring a community together
 
Ability to teach readers/listeners from the experiences of others
 
Ability to reveal how all things are connected or interrelated
 
Revelation of biographical information about the author