Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

transgress the norms and conventions of specific orders and institutions now form part of
literary traditions. While the elements of shock and subversion have always been
contained in literature (as mentioned in Chapter One), works such as Ovid’s Ars
Amatoria, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Poe’s fiction, or Joyce’s Ulysses, which
were perceived to transgress the norms and conventions of either art, morality and/or
society, were at specific times denied canonical status by either being censored, altered,
marginalized, or put to trial. Before coming to a comprehensive and detailed illustration
of how transgressive works are processed and appraised through the various levels of
social and academic discourses, it is necessary to articulate a working definition of
transgression as it pertains to the literary text. A deconstructive approach to the concept
of transgression as well as an analysis of its possible effects on the reader, society, and
artistic canons will help establish a practical framework to understand how the element of
shock contained in these texts can create controversy and become subversive, thereby
promoting, announcing, or reflecting shifts and changes at the cultural, social, and
political levels.
The standard definition of a text of transgression is one that exceeds what is
accepted and/or permissible within the established norms and conventions of art, culture,
and society. In that broad sense, there seems to be an exhaustive list of works that would
fall into this category. Yet both the definition of “transgression” and its theoretical
conceptualization have undergone intense scrutiny and in order to come to a practical
framework for this study, it is necessary to review some of the most pertinent versions of
the concept as elaborated by various generations of literary and cultural critics.
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