This understanding of literature and art has much in common with Susan Sontag's line of argument in
Against Interpretation. In a sort of final meta-interpretative stand against interpretation itself, she argues that art must move beyond the need for justification. That it must lose the desire to be "about" something. In other words, the need for art to have meaning, when our understanding of art should be first and foremost about how it makes us
feel. Sontag writes:
"None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself."
"In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art."
Treating art as if it were literature, with meanings to be inspected, interpreted and understood, lessens the art-ness of art. Sontag, in her final lines, tells us that she wants us to discover an "erotics of art," because she understands that the purpose of the artistic is to convey feeling,
not thought. When we consider literary works, Sontag's erotics are important for exploration of the emotional weight of the text. Every work of literature has at least some artistic component; most traditional works are highly artistic as well as literary.
