literature a set of texts that cultural arbiters recognize as belonging to literature.
Such a conclusion is completely unsatisfying. of course. It simply displaces instead of resolving the question: rather than ask what is literature?' we need to ask what makes us for some other society) teat something as literature?' There are, though. other categories that work in this way, referring not to specific properties but ony to changing criteria of social groups. Take the question what is a weed?' Is there an essence of weedness" a special something, a je ne sais quoi, that weeds share and that distinguishes them from non-weeds? Anyone who has been enlisted to help weed a garden knows how hard it is to tell a weed from a non-weed and may wonder whether there is a secret. what would it be? How do you recognize a weed? Well, the is secret that there isn't a secret. Weeds are simply plants that gardeners don't want to have growing in their gardens. If you were curious about weeds. seeking the nature of weedness, it would be a waste of time to try to investigate their botanical nature, to seek distinctive formal or physical qualities t make plants weeds. You would have to carry out instead historical. sociological. perhaps psychological enquiries about the sorts of plants that are judged undesirable by different groups in different places.