This article focuses on the figure of the university teacher of literature, viewed as an agent that possesses knowledge and transmits it via its oral word. The approach is historical and theoretical. The first part examines how different types of teaching are linked to different phases of the development of the university institution, from the formation of its modern idea in the 19th century to the drastic changes it is undergoing today. Particular attention is given to the idea of national culture as it connects to the modern functions of written language. The second part examines how literature as a domain of teachable knowledge emerges and develops within the modern university institution. It discusses, in particular, how teaching practices today can be affected by the epistemological ramifications of the demise of the cultural authority that modernity had invested in literature. (Contains 6 notes.)