Response: Bad Literature

In response to Andrew Bagley's post "Perks of Being Literature" (February 2, 2012):
I would agree that the designation of something as literature should not automatically bestow upon it some sort of 'specialness' which sets it above other forms of writing.  Literature is not, in my view, a qualitative term; it is simply a word referring to a certain type of writing, just as the words 'short story' and 'autobiography' refer to certain types of writing.  If we include only works of good quality under the general banner of literature, the whole idea of literature becomes very shaky at best; whether or not a work is good enough to be called literature would be a matter of subjective opinion, which I do not think is the best way of judging in this situation.

That bad literature can and does exist is something which I consider entirely true.  For example, novels such as Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight', while containing all the features which I consider to be necessary and sufficient for a work to be literature, are definitively not of good quality.  However, I would not attempt to deny that they are nevertheless literature.  They are merely bad literature.

There is certainly room for qualitative judgements within the category of literature itself, but I do not think they should use the standards of 'less literary' and 'more literary'; they could use common terms like 'good' and 'bad' instead.