Clichés and Literary Value

Abstract: There is no more damning literary judgment than clichéd . Art and writing that traffics in stereotypes fail to incite insight. Clichés bespeak laziness. But what if this judgment is, itself, also a cliché? This paper investigates literature’s most maligned storehouse of cultural expectation. It argues that prejudice against the hackneyed derives from an overemphasis on the value of novelty within artistic expression. As a result, we misrepresent what a cliché is and malign what it does. The paper presents a new way of defining clichés, and in the process demonstrates their relevance to how we evaluate and teach literature.