On Purpose: Interest, disinterest and literature we can live by

Abstract

The idea of ‘literature we can live by’ crystallizes the paradox of art: defined by its distance from life, it requires, at the same time, proximity to life. We turn to art because it offers a protected space of disinterested play – yet we are also profoundly interested in its ethical implications. In the words of Rilke’s ‘Archaic Torso of Apollo’, the work of art – and through its Apollonian patron, literature in particular – tells us that we must change our lives. Ranging widely from antiquity to modernity while highlighting key moments in early modernity and the Enlightenment, this essay identifies a recurring tension between two visions of literature: to be able to comment insightfully on life, it must be apart from it; to be able to respond adequately to life, it must be a part of it. It is not just the metaphors we live by, in other words, but also the metonyms.