British Journal of Aesthetics Vol 49

COMICS AS LITERATURE? |  225 

 Second, it is clear that treating some comics as literature would not, in fact, entail ignor-

ing their visual or pictorial elements. There is a long history of illustrated literature as well 

as signifi cant traditions of shaped and concrete poetry. In fact, although the term  ‘ concrete 

poetry ’  was coined in the middle of the last century, and the art it referred to was a mod-

ernist invention, pattern or shaped poetry goes back many centuries — at least to the 

Greeks if not beyond. If George Herbert’s poem  ‘ Easter Wings ’  counts as literature and is 

properly treated as such, then treating a work of art as literature cannot preclude attending 

to its visual elements. Similarly, if children’s literature is accepted as fully fl edged litera-

ture, then it is obvious that illustration can be central to a literary genre. Any approach to 

illustrated children’s literature that ignored its visual aspect would be an impoverished ap-

proach indeed. 

 Third, it is not the case that categorizing comics as literature would entail ignoring the 

distinctive features of the art form as seems to be suggested in the Moore quote above. 

Literature is a meta-form. That is, it contains a number of art forms within it, most notably 

poetry, prose, and dramatic literature. To recognize that poems are works of literature is 

not to ignore what is distinctive about poetry; rather, it is to recognize that appreciating 

poetry as poetry involves appreciating it as literature while at the same time appreciating it 

as a distinctive form of literature. The existence and signifi cance of this sort of double cat-

egorization is typical in the arts since artistic categories (styles, genres, art forms) both 

embed within one another and overlap. Sestinas and villanelles are properly appreciated as 

instances of particular poetic forms and of poetry more generally (as well as of literature). 

Certain horror movies must be seen as both examples of the horror genre and of the cat-

egory of German Expressionism if they are to be properly understood and evaluated. And 

those comics which are literature (if they are literature) are properly appreciated both as 

comics  and  as instances of literature.  

  For Comics as Literature 

 So what reasons are there for thinking that some comics fall into the category of literature? 

I have mentioned some suggestive similarities between comics and literature in the intro-

duction to this paper. And even critics of the  ‘ comics as literature ’  view are willing to 

admit that there are signifi cant resemblances between comics and literature. As mentioned 

above, Douglas Wolk points out that  ‘ they use words, they’re printed in books, they have 

narrative  content ’ . 

24

  David Carrier argues that the  ‘ book-size scale ’  of comics is one of 

their essential features. 

25

  But, of course, no number of these resemblances entails that 

comics are literature, and not all comics use words, are printed in books, or have narrative 

content. 

26

  (Nor is it clear that they all are — or must be — of book-size scale.) There is, 

however, a very good reason to think that at least some comics fi t the bill. Despite the 

apparent resistance of some philosophers and theorists of literature to recognizing comics 

  24           Wolk,   Reading Comics , p. 14.  

  25    

      David  Carrier,   The Aesthetics of Comics  (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State U.P., 2000), p. 74.  

  26    

      See  Aaron  Meskin,   ‘ Defi ning  Comics? ’ ,   Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , vol. 65 (2007), pp. 369 – 379.  

 at University of Athens on June 19, 2011

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 226  | AARON MESKIN

as literature, an examination of a wide range of proposed defi nitions of literature suggests 

that at least some actual (and many possible) comics fall into the category. That is, even if 

one is sceptical of the adequacy and value of these defi nitions and of the defi nitional project 

in general,  

27

  the fact that a wide range of defi nitions of literature imply that some comics 

fall into that category provides strong — albeit defeasible — evidence in favour of the  ‘ com-

ics as literature ’  thesis. 

 Here is a representative list of defi nitions or characterizations of literature:

  

 (i)      ‘“ literary discourse ”  might be defi ned as  “ discourse that is either an imitation il-

locutionary act or distinctly above the norm in its ratio of implicit to explicit 

meaning ”’ . 

28

  

 

 (ii)      ‘ A  work   w  is a work of literature if and only if  w  is produced in a linguistic me-

dium, and, 

 

  (a)  

   w  is a novel, short story, tale, drama, or poem, and the writer of  w   intended 

that it possesses aesthetic, cognitive, or interpretation-centered value, and 

the work is written with suffi cient technical skill for it to be possible to take 

that intention seriously, or  

 

  (b)  

   w  possesses aesthetic, cognitive or interpretation-centered value to a signifi -

cant  degree,  or    .   .   . ’  

29

     

 

 (iii)      ‘ A text is identifi ed as a literary work by recognizing the author’s intention that 

the text is produced and meant to be read within a framework of conventions 

defi ning the practice (constituting the institution) of literature. ’  

30

  

 

 (iv)      ‘ The  defi nition  of  literature  as  highly  valued  writing    .   .   . ’  

31

   

  Now it seems to me that the only serious question that these defi nitions raise  vis-à-vis   com-

ics is whether they meet what I shall call the  ‘ linguistic medium condition ’ . That is, is it 

appropriate to count comics as texts or discourses or as produced in a linguistic medium or 

as examples of writing? For if the answer to these questions is  ‘ yes ’ , then it is hard for me 

to see what could possibly exclude all comics from the category of literature. 

32

  Many com-

ics are fi ctional (which is what Beardsley and others were getting at with their talk of imita-

tion or pretend illocutionary acts). As is suggested by the discussion in the fi rst section of 

this paper, lots of comics possess aesthetic, cognitive, and interpretation-centered value to 

a signifi cant degree. Some comics (e.g. Bechdel’s aforementioned  Fun Home ) are plausibly 

  27    

      See  Aaron  Meskin,   ‘ From  Defi ning  Art  to  Defi ning  the  Individual  Arts: The  Role  of  Theory  in  the  Philosophies  of 

Arts ’ , in Kathleen Stock and Katherine Thomson-Jones (eds),  New Waves  in Aesthetics  (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 

2008),  pp.  125 – 149.  

  28    

      Monroe  Beardsley,   ‘ The  Concept  of  Literature’,  in  John  and  Lopes  (eds)   Philosophy of Literature , p. 57.  

  29    

      Robert  Stecker,   ‘ What  Is  Literature? ’ ,  in  John  and  Lopes  (eds),   Philosophy of Literature , p. 71.  

  30    

      Lamarque  and  Olsen,   Truth, Fiction and Literature ,  pp.  255 – 256..  

  31    

      Eagleton,   Literary Theory , p. 11.  

  32           The  same  result  seems  to  follow  from  Christopher  New’s   ‘ family  resemblance ’   account  of  literature.  See  his 

 Philosophy of Literature: An Introduction  (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 34 – 37. At least some comics possess some 

of the features that justify our identifying a discourse as a work of literature (fi ctionality, a signifi cant amount of 

fi gurative language, etc.).  

 at University of Athens on June 19, 2011

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