H.M. Posnett, Comparative Literature 1.1, "What is Literature?"

When an author begins an initial chapter with the self-declared purpose of offering a definition of the object of study, and then hedges this definition round, before and after, with qualification after qualification which, in final analysis, do in fact qualify the definition out of all usefulness; and when the author then declares the discovery of uselessness to be the prime benefit of the exercise, one would at least expect him to be deliberately tweaking authoritative expectations. But who is the authority whom Posnett addresses, and why would he feel the need to act like a satirist (albeit without much humor in the irony)? If CL were a doctoral dissertation, then I would recognize the passive-aggressive tone--but I believe that it was written after HMP had his position. Perhaps this chapter was provided at the request of the editors of the International Scientific Series, in their need to justify and explain the presence of the book?