Project

	being literary gary e. davis	February 13, 2026

The first sense of ‘literary’ in English was a person being “of, relating to, or having the characteristics of humane learning” (M-W Unabridged), which is to be “marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for [the] other… character- ized by broad humanistic culture.” To be literary is to show a humane sensibility, a humanity of high literacy. Literacy of textual value worth high admiration, worth canonizing, is thereby aptly called “literary.” M-W Unabridged refers to “...writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” Accordingly, there arose the instituted realm, the humane resort, of “Literature”: highly humanistic senses of literacy. Sanctification of a text is derivative, in light of shown Value worth canonizing, but there relative to mythical divining for persons who don’t find literary exemplarity appealing enough for orienting one’s understanding. Nonetheless, a sanctified text depends on the sensibility which appreciates, then esteems, Values worthy of canonicity, backed by divined warrant. Institutions of humane sensibility span generations textually, be that by canon or by divined warranting. The textuality is esteemed to transcend lives, being a trace of storied ancestry (or divined as the traces of holy spirit). While lives arise and die, the monuments of texted appreciability—The Library and its canons—bridge lives through supremely tangible windows into Our lineal presence, being “Literary,” thanks to ancestors who became highly literate, the higher, the better for ancestral lastingness. The living exemplar of better humanity is a non-pretentiously sophisticated person, a “Literary” person, an exemplar of high sensibility through appreciation of linguistic creativity: high textual craft, textual artistry, being a living paradigm for phenomenologies of appreciability called “criticism.”

next—> the humanistic origin of literary texting

 

Be fair. © 2026, gary e. davis