Abstract
In this paper we argue that the long-term evaluation of literary texts rather privileges their formal and structural aspects, but to a lesser degree the content. As external and internal reasons for literary evaluation are distinguished, the latter are privileged while the former will only last as the themes and the external reasons remain, which means they are transient and do not lead to long-term evaluation of literary products. At the same time it is the second type of internal reasons – the form and structure of a literary work – that plays a role and contributes to canon formation. Hence we present the results of some experiments in which two different groups of participants (university students and older people in a convenience sample) in two cultural settings read three texts (one popular fiction and two canonical ones) several times and answered the three questions derived from the “rereading paradigm” by Bortolussi & Dixon (2003). As an additional measure to check the participants reading habits, in Study 1 the ART test from Stanovich et al. (1995), adapted for a Ukrainian audience, was employed. The results, which did not corroborate the predictions, are discussed and confronted with some insights into the theory of literary evaluation.
Highlights
Literary evaluation: a complex field The evaluation of literary texts would seem a somewhat esoteric business
According to IPA, International Publishers Association, there we must reckon with some 700,000 new titles per year. (These are books published with regular publishing houses, not including self-publishing by authors, which would run up to some more 700,000 titles a year.) So some 250,000 new literary works are generated by regular publishing houses in the English-speaking world – a quarter of a million
The participants were offered to read three texts and evaluate them on a 7-point Likert scale, using the three questions derived from the rereading paradigm by Bortolussi and Dixon (2003): (1) Is this text an example of good literature? (2) Did you enjoy reading it? (3) Would you recommend it to a friend? The texts we used were short paragraphs from three novels, one popular and two canonical ones: When Love Awakes by Lee Stafford, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Mrs Dalloway by Virginal Woolf
Summary
Literary evaluation: a complex field The evaluation of literary texts (or artworks in general) would seem a somewhat esoteric business. There are two such kinds of internal reasons: one has to do with what is traditionally called its content, the other with its form, or structure The former plays a role when we read a literary text: is it about a topic that interests us? A very thorough review of the value of ART has been provided by Mol & Bus (2011) who carried out a meta-analysis They conflated the results of 99 empirical studies (with a total of 7,669 participants) to probe the relationship between print exposure and reading skills, spread over three groups: (1) pre-schoolers and kindergartners, (2) children attending Grades 1-12, and (3) college and university students. The ART is a powerful tool for predicting a range of cognitive aptitudes
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