What Is Literature
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Abstract
At first glance, the object is intriguing. The cover photograph shows an abandoned building on a beach, along the sea, perhaps a former resort, a waterfront restaurant on stilts. The rails of the outside staircases are rusty, as is the old pergola covering the deck on the building's roof. Along the blue sky, one reads the author's name in red and white letters, as well as the book’s title: Explore. Investigations littéraires (Explore. Literary Investigations). A strange cover for a work of literary criticism, written by a young specialist of medieval literature,1 a member of the French School of Rome. Explore? It takes a moment to realize that the first word is in the imperative: explore! Or, rather, it was easy to confuse with the English homograph and homonym: “explore.” Go figure: we associated this abandoned building on the beach, to which a gate seems to bar access (though one glimpses, on the first floor, between pilasters receding into the shadows, the silhouette of a man), this derelict building, with the name of the series, indicated on the cover’s lower righthand side: "Forbidden Beach."