Abstract
This article deals with the conception of pulp literature by the French literary sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) in his key work The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Bourdieu‘s conception of pulp literature, foreshadowed already in the prologue to his study (his analysis of the novel Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert), comes from his theory of the so called literary field, that was, as a result of external social changes, constituted and autonomized in France of the second half of the 19th century.
It was also differentiated into two poles, called art and money. Art represents the autonomous principle, that aims at creating of so called “pure works” and is based on refusing of short‑term economic profit and of demand from the public at large.
Money, on the other hand, represents the heteronomous principle, that on the contrary aims at gaining of economic profit, whereas it is centred at the public at large. In the field of cultural production these two principles follow either a long-term (art), or a short-term production cycle (money).
Pulp literature in bourdieusian view is then commercial literature of the short‑term production cycle. The second alternative posssibility for the bourdieusian definition of the concept of pulp literature is based on Bourdieu‘s aesthetics and it calls for writing of the production history of this term.