ABSTRACT
A shopping trip among literary pages is not the same as conducting a reading within branches of comparative literature. A commodity evaluation, if it is to be serviceable, must be di erentiated from aesthetic judgement. To answer this requires an explanation of how forms can be read one way within a commodity frame and another within the aesthetic. Why is Knoep macher’s reading of the Keepsake scene di erent to a reading that in principle acquires value from how it concurs with the reader’s other socially located values? is is not to say that one reading cannot serve two purposes. Academic careers are occasionally built on what a given reading says about its proponent and her values, but ostensibly that is not the main charge.
