Популярната литература. Текстове, контексти и полемики. Въведение
Popular Literature. Texts, Contexts, Contestations Introduction

Summary/Abstract: The present text distinguishes two conceptions of literature: the study attempts to explain the perception of popular literature as inextricably linked to the category of the “Other”, the “enemy” – the so-called elit literature (or just Literature in the text). The relation to the Other is established through “identity in difference”. In the argumentative part, the author refers to Derrida‘s and Terry Eagleton’s views on what literature is in general and which factors determine it. We are given examples of the permeability of “elit literature,” the so-called canon (or canons!), which is inevitably influenced by historical, social, and political events. The rejection of the “female canon” is not overlooked either; we also learn about the transience of elit literary lists, in which “popular literature” is seen as low and its readers as uneducated and ignorant. There are three features by which to some extent we can distinguish popular from elit literature: readership, genre, market, with particular attention paid to the act of reading, which actually determines the life and essence of a text. This study aims to refute claims that popular literature is frivolous and unworthy of becoming part of any kind of canon, and reminds us that many works often fall into or are part of both categories.

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