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WHY DID MODERN LITERARY THEORY ORIGINATE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE?: (And Why Is It Now Dead?)

WHY DID MODERN LITERARY THEORY ORIGINATE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE?: (And Why Is It Now Dead?) At the outset of the twenty-first century, we seem at last positioned to recognize and admit the demise of literary theory as a distinct discipline of scholarship. Even the most dedicated proponents of theory are busy spelling out the dimensions of its irremediable crisis.1 In retrospect, one can locate literary theory within a period of some eighty years, from its inception in the late 1910s until perhaps the early 1990s. The beginnings of the discipline were marked by the activities of the Russian Formalists. Wolfgang Iser’s turn in the late 1980s from reception theory and phenomenology of reading to what he called “literary anthropology” presaged the end of literary theory per se, and the death of Yuri Lotman in 1993 confirmed it. Lotman had in any case come gradually to embrace semiotics as a global theory of culture rather than a narrowly conceived theory of literature.2 The earlier chronological boundary is by now commonly recognized: the 1. See, e.g., the forum “Theory and the University,” Literary Research/Recherche Littéraire 18.35 (spring–summer 2001): 8 – 41. 2. Wolfgang Iser, Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre: Grundzüge einer Literaturanthropologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991). Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. Common http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

WHY DID MODERN LITERARY THEORY ORIGINATE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE?: (And Why Is It Now Dead?)

Tihanov, Galin
Common Knowledge , Volume 10 (1) – Jan 1, 2004
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References (44)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2004 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-10-1-61
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

At the outset of the twenty-first century, we seem at last positioned to recognize and admit the demise of literary theory as a distinct discipline of scholarship. Even the most dedicated proponents of theory are busy spelling out the dimensions of its irremediable crisis.1 In retrospect, one can locate literary theory within a period of some eighty years, from its inception in the late 1910s until perhaps the early 1990s. The beginnings of the discipline were marked by the activities of the Russian Formalists. Wolfgang Iser’s turn in the late 1980s from reception theory and phenomenology of reading to what he called “literary anthropology” presaged the end of literary theory per se, and the death of Yuri Lotman in 1993 confirmed it. Lotman had in any case come gradually to embrace semiotics as a global theory of culture rather than a narrowly conceived theory of literature.2 The earlier chronological boundary is by now commonly recognized: the 1. See, e.g., the forum “Theory and the University,” Literary Research/Recherche Littéraire 18.35 (spring–summer 2001): 8 – 41. 2. Wolfgang Iser, Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre: Grundzüge einer Literaturanthropologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991). Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. Common

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Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2004

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