Literature vs Entertainment

[franceslievens]

Stephen King is not my favourite author. I've never read a complete book by him, only some short stories. It might be that I don't like him because he is lowbrow entertainment and not highbrow literature. At least that's what Dutch literary critic Elsbeth Etty assumes: Stephen King's work can't be regarded as literature, it is entertainment. Now I ask you: Why can't literature be entertainment and why can't we say a King-book is literature? I'd prefer using other criteria for both labels, but maybe I tend towards the so hated middlebrow, "unclear and rather shamelessly polluted with money, fame, power or prestige" (if I may be so bold to retranslate a passage by Virginia Woolf from Dutch into English).