  As a result, works of literature cannot be classified in either of the major categories of objects accepted by traditional metaphysics — neither the categories of the real nor the ideal are suited for them. Any acceptable ontology of literature thus must accept entities of another category. As Ingarden ultimately argues towards the close of the text, the literary work is a “purely intentional formation,” derived from the sentence-forming activities of its author(s), and founded on some public copy of these sentences, and also depending for its existence and essence on a relation to certain ideal meanings attached to the words of the text.