The Romantic view of art as autonomous, existing in and for itself, meant that it was ideally positioned to replace God as the transcendent repository of value. The secularization of the university in the nineteenth century ironically furthered the religious aura accumulating around art and literature, while the humanities took shape as a discipline emerging from philology and moral science.

QUESTION: This describes a historical process where art inherits the sacral role of religion. What are the current implications for how we treat literature? XREF: Relates to broader discussions of secularization theory and cultural capital, echoing ideas from Weber and Bourdieu about value transfer.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 92