The Accursed Economy of Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31261/SSP.2021.18.13Keywords:
economy of literature, mimesis, Melville, BatailleAbstract
In this article, the author explains the connection between literature and economy on a philosophical level, especially in case of logic of exchange and concept of mimesis in novels. Basic tools for his arguments are derived from Georges Bataille’s concept of Accursed Economy (from the essay “The Accursed Share”). The French philosopher argues that in our everyday reality we use logic imposed on us by capitalism, which means that the value of everything is measured by its utility and, at the same time, values of all things can easily be accumulated. Because of that blind belief something important is omitted – surplus, a particle which does not fit into the global system of exchange. In the author’s opinion this phenomenon (and all its consequences) can be used to interpret the novel Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, showing the main character’s activities (or their lack) in different contexts. This interpretation also proves the usefulness of applying some tools and terms from the language of economics into literary studies.
References
Bataille, Georges. 1976. Oeuvres complètes. Tome VII: La Part maudite. L’économie à la mesure de l’univers. La limite de l’utile (fragments). Théorie de la religion. Conférences 1947–1948. Annexes. Paris: Gallimard.
Bataille, Georges. 1988. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Translated from French by Robert Hurley. New York: Zone.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1997. “Bartleby; or, The Formula.” In Essays Critical and Clinical, 68–90. Translated from French by Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. London: Verso.
Franklin, Benjamin. 1840. “Necessary Hints to Those That Would Be Rich.” In The Works of Benjamin Franklin. Vol. 2, edited by Jared Sparks. Boston: Hilliard, Grey, and Company.
Melville, Herman. 2002. “Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street.” In Melville’s Short Novels: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism, selected and edited by Dan McCall, 3–34. New York; London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Vila-Matas, Enrique. 2000. Bartleby & Co. Translated from Spanish by Jonathan Dunne. London: New Directions.
Weber, Max, 2005. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated from German by Talcott Parsons. London: Routledge.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.
1. License
The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
2. Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.
If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".
ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).
3. User Rights
Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
4. Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.
