Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

in order to build a didactic foundation on which the cultural capital of transgressive texts
could be appraised, I complemented Guillory’s framework with Stephen Greenblatt’s
concept of “cultural negotiations and exchanges” from Shakespearean Negotiations,
which argues that cultural productions such as literary works are given prominence
through the multiple transactions (reviews, representations, critical appraisals, etc.) to
which they are subjected throughout ensuing periods in history, from the date of their
publication to the present.
The concept of Transgression remains a rather unchartered territory in the realm
of critical theory, especially as it pertains to literary works. Nevertheless a
comprehensive introduction to the subject in the visual arts is Anthony Julius’
Transgression: The Offences of Art. He demonstrates that three kinds of transgressive art
exist: (1) an art that challenges established artistic conventions; (2) an art that defiles the
beliefs and sentiments of its audience by breaking social taboos; and (3) an art that
challenges and disobeys the rules of the state. While these categories rely mostly on a
standardized definition of transgression which might remain useful, perhaps the most
compelling and ground-breaking study and analysis of transgression as a theoretical
concept was undergone by Georges Bataille in Visions of Excess and Erotism: Death and
Sensuality. Drawing from Sigmund Freud’s conception of taboo in Totem and Taboo and
his reading of the Marquis de Sade, Bataille claims that new, liberating, and transcending
states can be achieved by toppling taboos. Once again, drawing from Freud, this time
from the notion of the unconscious, Bataille is especially concerned with “excess,”
mostly the experiences of sex and death, which he believes hold “endless possibilities.”
Michel Foucault’s reading of Bataille in “A Preface to Transgression” will help establish
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