What is Capital "L" Literary?
And some thoughts on what the heck does it take to be considered in the Literary canon.
When we think of literature, right away, we think of books. We think of short stories and the great poets that haunt us with their words and memories.
That’s what we are supposed to think of every since we went to our first story time at the library or took classes on it through school. We lumped literature, both the act of reading or writing, into the humanities and then the arts.
Overall, we all agreed that in some way, shape, or form, literature was a part of the human experience.
Literature sought in one way or another to talk about the world around us and how we interacted with it through the good, bad, and ugly. Perhaps that meant the hardships of the human experience. Perhaps that meant the beautiful, frustrating parts that we think only we know about. Perhaps it also meant the parts of the human experience that make so many of us wish to have just an ounce of otherworldly magic in ourselves or the ability to ride dragons into battle.
Yet, for some reason, there’s a boundary line between readers and literature lovers on what classifies something to be “real literature.”
“Real literature” is a phrase that makes me want to roll my eyes as much as when someone tells me that graphic novels or audiobooks aren’t considered “real books.” But that is a subject for another time.
This is where capital “L” Literary comes in.
Capital “L” literary is when the word “literary” or “literature” is beyond talking about fictional works as a whole. I imagine it being said with a sort of suave understanding. Imagine someone in the early 1900s sitting in a salon surrounded by others. They’d with a glass of sherry in hand, talking about the latest book everyone is proclaiming to be the next great American novel.
“Oh, yes. It is very Literary,” they’d announce. “This is what Literature is, and should be.”
Is this a bad thing? No. Do these books truly hold value and bring connection to some readers? Sure.
Yet, for some reason, I always hated the idea that the only way to be Literary, was to write or act like a work of writing was better than another just because someone deemed it had more quality than say, a romance or fantasy novel— even if they dealt with the same issues in a different setting or with a little more humor for readers to connect to.
In high school, I was always the person who loved reading, but the moment you assigned a classic (in some cases I had already read), I wouldn’t be able to read it. This included greats even like Midsummer Night's Dream or How to Kill a Mockingbird. My body and mind would physically revolt. I hated the connotation of what was right and wrong to read as someone who wanted to enjoy literature. What was more accepted vs. not accepted within the “literary canon.” Most of all, what literary writing and reading was striving to constantly be.
I hated the uppity feeling that decides which writers are right and wrong for what they wrote. Of course, as a writer now, Capital “L” Literary has never been what my writing and I strive to be as I attempt to find new ways to make teasing banter between love interests hold more tension on the daily until I am sure a reader is ready to squeal in delight.
And that is just it. Ever since I decided to write, my main purpose has always been joy. No more. No less.
I wanted to find readers and let them enjoy a story. I wanted readers to lose themselves so thoroughly that when they had to come up for air at The End, they might even forget where they were or who they were because they were that character living an elaborately different life full of love and drama for a few hours.
But growing up as an English literature student encouraged to plow through the literary canon, that wasn’t what I was being shown as the best writer to be.
Hardship. Cold and unfeeling pages of a character dealing with existential crisis. This was the literary canon. Some of the books were amazing, don’t get me wrong—
But this is when I realized. All of them were capital “L” Literary.
These kinds of books weren’t exactly meant to be enjoyed. They were meant to be dissected. These books were meant to be studied and pulled apart in a classroom setting until the characters and what they are going through may be the last thing on your mind.
Literary fiction in this fashion provides an exclusivity, even away from the act of reading itself, getting further into how the literary canon has historically excluded marginalized voices. This has contributed to the division between literary and genre fiction as a whole on another level beyond just a personal reading preference. It becomes a rationale of what we did or still do consider to have more artistic merit rather than readership enjoyment.
And that is something that I just never quite could understand.
We save that kind of thing for “commercial fiction” or genre fiction— excluding it to the children’s table until you get old enough, or simply enjoy reading enough, to just not care about the academic ramifications of what the English department society has deemed to be proper fiction reading.
Luckily, I am happy that I found that rather quickly. I ate genre fiction up and asked for more, which was a big deal for someone who previously as a child passionately disliked reading.
And the big point? The great thing in the world of Barnes and Nobles that carry so many different genres and a variety of bookstagammers peddling anything from the dark academic classics to steamy romances is— Any sort of literature gives a reader a chance to connect and dive further into the human experience. Into love and fascination and joy. That’s what makes books magic, no matter if you find it in capital “L” literature, or the thriller at the airport, or the women’s fiction novel at book club.
Capital “L” literary in your book or you not.