ABSTRACT
A significant element in the viewer’s experience of a work of visual is often pleasure in, and admiration for, the skill of the artist; that dimension of the work we can call the element of ‘craft’. To the degree that this aspect of visual art is emphasized, the distinction between ‘high art’ and the decorative arts is blurred.
This chapter will ask whether the literary arts can be discussed in similar terms. If one is aiming to capture the distinctiveness of the literary work as a use of language, an account in terms of the reader’s experience of singularity, inventiveness and otherness is valuable; but such an account leaves out of the picture the possible readerly enjoyment derived from the writer’s skill in handling the materials of the particular art—in this case the properties of words and sentences, generic conventions, and so on. Among the questions that might be raised in the chapter are the following:
What is the equivalent in the literary arts for the element of craft in the visual arts?
If an appreciation of beauty remains an important aspect of literary appreciation, is it a response to craft rather than to art?
How does the enjoyment of craft enter the total experience of the work of literary art?
Is craft in literature exclusively a matter of form?
Is there an equivalent in literary history of the moment of conceptual art, when craft ceases to be important? (Duchamp’s inventive act of placing a urinal in an art gallery does not, and is not intended to, provide the pleasures of craft.)
How might one write a history of the changing relationship between literary art and craft?
Does the theory of the literary work as an event extend to the enjoyment of craft?
In exploring these issues, the chapter will draw on earlier accounts of the art/craft distinction, notably R. G. Collingwood’s influential discussion in The Principles of Art. It will also investigate the relevance to a theory of craft of Henry Staten’s important theorization of the notion of techne.
