THE “NECESSARY LITERATURE” AS AN AESTHETIC CATEGORY

Abstract

This article aims to present and conceptualize the aesthetic category of “necessary literature”. By taking Sianne Ngai’s methodology as its inspiration, it tries to show at first how the “necessary literature” builds itself as a category that expresses the affective relation between the public and the literary text in contradiction with the Illuminist aesthetic, while grounding it on the fusion of autonomy and necessity. Later, the article intends to present the links between this aesthetic category and the new forms of working and production in contemporary capitalism, which is organized by the network architecture. At last, this article sustains that the “necessary literature” yields a critical judgment that recognizes the necessity as part of the dynamics of late capitalism, and for that reason necessity must be appreciated in the aesthetic experience.