----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and a freshman theme simply do not exhibit enough distinctive properties to allow us to claim that one is literature and the other is not. Neither does there exist any acceptable set of criteria by means of which one can say that Beethoven's Second Symphony is a work of art and a wadded up piece of paper is not. Hence neither "literature" nor "works of art" constitute a definable object of a definable discipline.
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Funny though, when you sing a song to a baby as young as two months, you get this absolutely riveted attention and delight that you do not get if you crumple a piece of paper.
When my daughter was four, we went to a local bookstore, where they were performing Winter's Tale in a corner of the store. As we passed by, she stopped to watch and would not be moved until the play was finished. I don't think someone crumbling paper would have held her attention for two hours.
Joanna