Abstract

Literature continues to generate controversies as to what it is and what it is for. That is one of the reasons for the proliferation of “literary theories.” The notion is here placed between quotation marks because it does not mean the same thing to all the scholars in the field. Some regard it in the same way that theory functions in the sciences, where it focuses on the object it is associated with. For example, the atomic theory of matter is concerned with the internal constitution or the characterizing properties of matter. Others, however, are looking beyond the object towards the reader and the extra-textual environment. The approaches to literary studies which look beyond the individual work to outside phenomena are many and increasing all the time as new issues and concerns arrive on the social scene. Issues of climate change are fairly topical now; and criticism is already responding with such ideas as eco-criticism. The question of the identity of the literary object has to be kept in the front burner, so that it is not swamped by the many different interests which attach to literature from time to time. Bringing attention back to the literary work is the central concern of this paper; and we are doing this by way of the metaphors of perception often used with respect to the literary work as these suggest that the work is something to focus on, rather than to see through to something else. Finally, I elaborate the concept of integrity as an appurtenance of the literary text that attracts and holds the gaze.