Journal of Literary Theory最新文献

{"title":"Einführung und Modifikation von Genrebegriffen als Wertungsstrategien im literarischen Feld","authors":"Rafał Pokrywka","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2021-2009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2021-2009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the first part of the paper, the interconnection of evaluation and classification in the literary field is discussed. Genre constitutes one of the central notions in Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of literature. Werner Michler’s suggestion to regard genres not as theoretical models or collections of features, but as classifications by agents of the literary field, is expanded by the aspect of genre evaluation. Both processes of classification and evaluation seem intertwined and could be understood as evaluation strategies by agents and communities of the literary field. Introduction of new genre terms and their modification are popular strategies of revaluation of genres, works, authors, and audiences. In the paper, four groups of agents of the generic process identified by Michler (producers, distributors, non-professional recipients, and professional agencies of evaluation) are analysed in view of their power of revaluation. Furthermore, they are placed in the contemporary German literary field on the basis of Heribert Tommek’s model and depicted as hypothetical members of evaluative genre communities. These communities consist of agents and groups (e. g. fandoms) that defend and support genres, seeing in them a stake in the game which is the illusio, the faith in the principles of the field. In the second part, agents, communities, and their evaluative strategies are presented. First of all, it is the reception mechanisms which decide on the attribution of values to genres and affect the production of literature. Therefore, the authors write their texts with regard to conventional classifications and take part as well, more or less directly, in the processes of revaluation of genres they want to be associated with. The avant-garde is either interested in original genre terms or it avoids any ascriptions whatsoever. In comparison, the mainstream and the subfield of mass production concentrate on medially attractive or conventional and recognizable terms. Authors which have accumulated large symbolic capital can also revaluate genres with their prestige. The potential of terms and evaluations is also reflected in the structure of the field as seen by distributors of literature. Paratexts, advertisements, blurbs, and brands change according to their place on the aesthetic or economic pole of the field. This way, audiences that can choose genres, values and evaluations on the basis of the existing classifications are created and influenced. Even if their symbolic power is small, they manage to formulate evaluative classifications, first of all in the flexible area (forums, blogs) close to the professional agencies of evaluation. Genres are re- and devaluated also in the literary studies and by the critics. Here, the conscious usage of genre terms characterizes the profession. Literary critics and reviewers often choose new, original terms in order to prove their professional abilities of classification. In the structure of the field, betw","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47728901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biographische Real-Fiktion als Paradigma narrativer Erklärung","authors":"N. Groeben","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The two categories of »fiction« and »non-fiction« are most often conceived of – and treated as – disjointed and separate, not only in common sense but also in literary studies. This does not adequately reflect, however, the developmental trajectory of the non-fiction genre over the course of the twentieth century. After all, the popularization of expert knowledge has increasingly been effected with the help of narrative strategies which raise one crucial question: Just how much fiction can the factual nature – the dependence on facts – of non-fiction tolerate? However, as the more precise definition of the pertinent term, »fiction«, indicates, a distinction must be made between »fictionality«, on the one hand, and »fictivity«, on the other. »Fictionality«, that is to say, refers to narrative strategies analogous to those of fiction, but which relate to historical facts. »Fictivity«, by contrast, refers to the representation of fictitious content. More precisely, then, the question is this: Just what degree of fictivity can the factuality of non-fiction writing tolerate? Since this question cannot be answered constructively from a quantitative but only from a qualitative point of view, we are faced with the ultimately crucial question: Just what kind of fictivity can the factuality of non-fiction tolerate? In trying to answer that question, it seems advisable to start from the structure of deductive-nomological explanation, in which a given phenomenon – the explanandum – is explained by deducing its description from regularities plus the antecedent conditions contained in them (the explanans). In the case of historical explanation, in particular, historical facts most often form the explanandum, while the antecedent conditions of the potentially explanatory regularity (i. e., of the explanans) are not historically documented. Even more specifically, the genre of biography presents a paradigmatic case of such historical explanations falling within the purview of literary studies as well. Not uncommonly, attempts to arrive at a coherent, psychologically convincing biographical portrayal are met with the problem that historically documented life events can be explained – as to their genesis or »coming about« – only by reference to ultimately fictitious – or, to take up the distinction introduced above, to ultimately fictive – assumptions regarding antecedent conditions. Literary biography may, therefore, be said to realize the desired combination of fictivity and factuality in the best possible way: namely, as fictivity in the service of factuality. To find a paradigmatic example of such a combination, one need look no further than the biography of the German chemist Clara Immerwahr, wife of the professor of chemistry, Dr. Fritz Haber, who during the First World War was in charge of German efforts to develop and deploy chemical combat agents such as poison gases. Clara Immerwahr demonstrably saw her husband’s work as a perversion of science ","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46051731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the History of the Practice of Fictionality – and the Recurring Problems in its Investigation","authors":"Eva Konrad","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In recent decades, research into the history of fictionality has seen a significant upturn in interest. One promising theoretical foundation for such investigations appears to be the approach commonly known as the »institutional theory of fictionality«. This is based on the premise that fictionality is a rule-based practice determined by conventions which are variable (both synchronically and diachronically), conventions to which authors and readers alike feel committed. The main advantage of this particular theory of fictionality, as far as an analytical approach to the history of fictionality is concerned, is the following: The institutional theory of fictionality is suitable for taking into adequate account the historical variability of terms, concepts and practices by providing a theoretical framework that may be filled with a wide variety of different (kinds of) content. In this way, one may sidestep the danger of examining the history of fictionality in an anachronistic manner, imposing on past times and practices the expectations of a modern perspective. Still, committing to an institutional theory of fictionality avoids only some of the problems all research on the history of fictionality faces. The aim of this article, therefore, is to point out those difficulties which cannot be avoided in such investigations even in the arguably best theoretical conditions of an institutional account of fictionality. To this end, instead of providing an overview of previous research or addressing specific methodological, conceptual or logical problems related, the present essay focuses on recurring and widespread difficulties inherent in both the object of investigation and the various methods of investigating it. The essay is divided into three sections. In the first, a number of problems are addressed that exist regardless of the specific method of investigation chosen. Most epistemological problems result from the fact that written documents must be consulted to make inferences regarding the conventions and practices of the past. In this context, it is not only the sparse tradition that becomes an issue (especially for more remote historical periods) but also the fact that no analysis of written materials can provide direct insight into past practices. Since any social practice, moreover, is in itself a highly complex matter that can hardly be broken down and understood in all of its many aspects – even from an interdisciplinary perspective, which anyway implies its own difficulties such as a frequent lack of uniform terms, et cetera –, such research will only be able, as a matter of principle, to approach past practices more or less closely. Following these general reflections, the article critically examines the two most prominent methods used by those investigating the history of fictionality as an »institution«. These are the analysis of literary texts, on the one hand, and that of poetological texts, on the other. When trying to draw c","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46001159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Editorial: Towards a History of the Modern Practice of Fiction","authors":"Benjamin Gittel","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2002","url":null,"abstract":"This issue of the Journal of Literary Theory is devoted to the »History of the Modern Practice of Fiction«. As this title already signals, the idea for this Special Issue stems, on the one hand, from a certain way of thinking about the phenomenon of fiction developed in literary theory and philosophy and, on the other hand, from research carried out in the historical disciplines. The property that makes a literary work a piece of fiction – henceforth: the property of ›fictionality‹ – is increasingly understood as a social practice, which is essentially determined by sets of rules for authors and readers and their shared knowledge of these rules. At the same time, researchers in literary and cultural studies tenaciously pursue the idea that what we nowadays call fictionality, fictionality in the modern sense, has a colorful history worth studying. Although these strands of research have so far existed relatively independent one from another due to disciplinary boundaries, three research developments over the last decades favor an integrated approach for a history of the modern practice of fiction.1 These developments are: First, the growing importance of pragmatist approaches in the humanities in general (cf. Schatzki/Knorr-Cetina/von Savigny 2001) and in fiction theory in particular has established an interface between fiction theory and literary historiography. Fictionality is increasingly understood as a social practice, or, in other words, as a social institution that is essentially determined by sets of rules for authors and readers and their shared knowledge of these rules (cf. Lamarque/ Olsen 1994; Zipfel 2001, esp. 279–287; Köppe 2014a; Zipfel 2016; Konrad 2017; cf. also Eco 1994, 75, for the related idea of a contract or ›fictional agreement‹ between authors and readers). Since these rules concern the production and the reception of fictional texts, institutional theories of fiction typically integrate insights from production-oriented speech act theories (cf. Searle 1975; Currie 1990; Genette 1991), as well as from reception-oriented approaches (cf. Ryan","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44887411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Pleasures of Imagination. Aspects of Fictionality in the Poetics of the Age of Enlightenment and in Present-Day Theories of Fiction","authors":"F. Zipfel","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Investigations into the history of the modern practice of fiction encounter a wide range of obstacles. One of the major impediments lies in the fact that former centuries have used different concepts and terms to designate or describe phenomena or ideas that we, during the last 50 years, have been dealing with under the label of fiction/ality. Therefore, it is not easy to establish whether scholars and poets of other centuries actually do talk about what we today call fiction or fictionality and, if they do, what they say about it. Moreover, even when we detect discourses or propositions that seem to deal with aspects of fictionality we have to be careful and ask whether these propositions are actually intended to talk about phenomena that belong to the realm of fiction/ality. However, if we want to gain some knowledge about the history of fiction/ality, we have no other choice than to tackle the arduous task of trying to detect similarities (and differences) between the present-day discourse on fictionality and (allegedly) related discourses of other epochs. The goal of this paper is to make a small contribution to this task. The starting point of the paper are two observations, which also determine the approach I have chosen for my investigations. 1) In the 18th century the terms »fiction« or »fictionality« do not seem to play a significant role in the discussion of art and literature. However, some propositions of the discourse on imagination, one of the most prominent discourses of the Age of Enlightenment, seem to suggest that this discourse deals more or less explicitly with questions regarding the fictionality of literary artefacts as we conceive it today. 2) The concepts of imagination and fictionality are also closely linked in present-day theories of fiction. Naturally, the question arises how the entanglement of the concepts of fictionality and imagination can be understood in a historical perspective. Can it function as a common ground between 18th-century and present-day conceptions of fiction/ality? Is imagination still used in the same ways to explain phenomena of fictionality or have the approaches evolved over the last 250 years and if yes, then how? These kinds of questions inevitably lead to one major question: What do 18th-century and present-day conceptions of fiction/ality have in common, how much and in what ways do they differ? For heuristic reasons, the article is subdivided according to what I consider the three salient features of today’s institutional theories of fiction (i. e. theories which try to explain fictionality as an institutional practice that is determined and ruled by specific conventions): fictive utterance (aspects concerning the production of fictional texts), fictional content (aspects concerning the narrated story in fictional texts) and fictive stance (aspects concerning the reader’s response to fictional texts). The article focusses on the English, French and German-speaking debates of the l","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41280276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fictionality and Pleasure. Traces of a Practice of Fictionality in Medieval German Short Verse Narratives?","authors":"Henrike Manuwald","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Despite an intense debate over the past decades the question of whether the concept of fictionality can be regarded as universal or whether it needs to be historicised is still unresolved. The same question applies to the practice (or practices?) of fictionality, which come into focus once an institutional theory of fictionality is applied. In addition to the problem that literary practices can only be reconstructed incompletely for past epochs, it is methodically difficult to determine which practices should be identified, given that the practice of fictionality might have changed over time. One possible solution is to search for historical literary practices displaying similarities to what is regarded as the contemporary practice of fictionality. This article adduces a subtype of medieval German short verse narratives (Mären) as a test case for the scope of this approach and arrives at a twofold result: The controlled anachronism implicit in the approach makes it possible to show that literary practices sketched in some Mären display parallels to the contemporary practice of fictionality (in the sense that the truth value of single predications becomes indifferent). This result contributes to our understanding of the history of the practice of fictionality, while placing the parallels in their historical contexts demonstrates that the category of ›fictionality‹ cannot capture the essence of the literary practices relevant to Mären. This approach has the advantage of making it possible to describe in a phenomenon-orientated way literary practices only potentially linked to a practice of fictionality before narrowing down the view to pre-defined features of a practice of fictionality. For the textual examples analysed it can thus be shown that the emotional effect of literature, especially the potential to arouse pleasure, is a feature regarded as decisive for the reception of a literary text. This observation opens up further links to research on the fictionality of post-medieval texts, especially the ›paradox of fiction‹. The argument builds on the assumption that we can speak of a practice of fictionality if the truth value of the sentences of a text becomes indifferent for its production and reception. Although this is a definition with universal scope, it is timebound in so far as it highlights that truth concepts depend on a propositional level of a text, while for a medieval audience the ›true meaning‹ of a text would probably have been more important. In the article this problem is illustrated by the genre of exemplary narratives. Of these the subtype of Mären is singled out in order to study literary practices. This selection is also motivated by the fact that in medieval studies Mären have received less attention in debates on fictionality than e. g. Arthurian romances or chronicles. The textual analysis focuses on prologues and other self-reflexive passages from selected late medieval Mären, where literary practices are being ","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47491398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dido Meets Aeneas: Anachronism, Alternative History, Counterfactual Thinking and the Idea of Fiction","authors":"Françoise Lavocat","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The anachronistic character of the loving relationship between Dido and Aeneas was widely and commonly discussed among commentators, critics, and writers in the early modern period. From the 16th century onwards, when the word »anachronism« appeared in vernacular languages, its definition was even inseparable from the example borrowed from the Aeneid. The purpose of this article is to interrelate early modern debates on anachronism, reflections on the status of fiction and the history of fiction. Starting with the hypothesis that anachronism is a form of counterfactual, the questions posed in this article are: did forms of counterfactuals exist before the 19th century, to what extent did they differ from contemporary alternative histories and, if so, why? The story of Dido and Aeneas in the Aeneid can be considered »counterfactual«, because this version of the narrative about the queen of Carthage was opposed to another, which was considered to be historical and which made Dido a privileged embodiment of female virtue and value. Several important shifts are highlighted in this article. With the exception of St. Augustine (who saw in Vergil’s anachronism confirmation of the inanity of fiction), before the 16th century indifference towards anachronism prevailed: the two versions of Dido’s story were often juxtaposed or combined. If Vergil’s version of Dido’s story was condemned, it was for moral reasons: the exemplary version, considered more historically accurate, was favored throughout the Middle Ages, notably by Petrarch and Boccaccio. From the 16th century onwards, however, increased acquaintance with Aristotle’s Poetics promoted greater demand for rationality and plausibility in fables. This coincided with the appearance of the word »chronology« and its development, which led to a new understanding of historical time. Anachronism then appeared to be a fault against verisimilitude, and as such was strongly condemned, for example by the commentator on Aristotle, Lodovico Castelvetro. At the same time, the argument of poetic license was also often invoked: it actually became the most common position on this issue. Vergil’s literary canonization, moreover, meant that the version of Dido’s life in the Aeneid was the only story that was known and cited, and from the 17th century onwards it totally supplanted the exemplary version. Strangely enough, permissiveness towards anachronism in treatises, prefaces, or comments on literary works was not accompanied by any development of counterfactual literature in early modern period. Indeed, in both narrative and theatrical genres fiction owed its development and legitimization to the triumph of the criterion of plausibility. This article, however, discusses several examples that illustrate how the affirmation of fiction in the early modern period was expressed through minor variations on anachronism: the counterfictional form of Ronsard’s epic, La Franciade, which represents an explicit deviation ","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46828551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Satirical Novels of the Late Enlightenment and the Practice of Fiction. A Methodological Proposal for Investigations Into the History of Fiction","authors":"S. Descher","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper examines German satirical novels of the late Enlightenment period, published roughly between 1760 and 1790, under the following question: Is there any evidence that the historical practice of fiction (concerning this time and these texts) deviates from the modern practice of fiction as described by institutional accounts of fictionality? First, it is explained what, in this essay, is meant by the ›modern practice of fiction‹. Four ›core rules‹ are identified that, according to institutional accounts of fictionality, characterize the practice of reading works of fiction. These core rules are: You should not conclude that what is expressed by fictional utterances is actually true! You should not conclude that the author believes that what is expressed by his fictional utterances is actually true! You should imagine what is expressed by fictional utterances (make-believe, pretence)! You should (or at least can) make your imaginations the object of higher-level attitudes (for example you can evaluate, emotionally respond to, interpret them etc.)! Then, using the example of German satirical novels of the late Enlightenment, seven features of fictional texts are discussed that may provide clues about the historical practice of fiction and that could give an indication of whether the core rules actually do apply. These features are: assurances of truthfulness by the author or fictional authors/editors; direct thematization of the fictional/factual-text-distinction; fictional reading scenarios; comments by fictional narrators and/or characters on the practice of reading; statements of the actual author in the fictional text; ›that cannot be true‹-passages (intentional mistakes, anachronisms, various ways of breaking the reader’s expectations, etc.); various kinds of reference to the actual world (for example satirical allusions to actual persons or states of affairs). It will be argued that, for the corpus of texts under consideration, there is no convincing evidence that the historical practices of reading works of fiction deviates in any significant way from the core rules of the modern practice of fiction. However, the main aim of this paper is not to provide an exhaustive historical case study. First, the investigation is limited to the exemplary discussion of some (although significant) texts and text passages, so the results can only be considered preliminary. Second, while the satirical novel of the late Enlightenment indeed is a particularly interesting and revealing genre for the study of the historical practice of fiction (arguments are given in section 3), the main purpose of this essay is to make a methodological proposal. A general procedure is provided for finding out whether the historical practice of fiction differs from our modern practice – a procedure that can be applied to texts of other times and genres as well.","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41792655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Telling the Truth: Fictionality and Epic in Seventeenth-Century German Literature","authors":"D. Werle, U. Korn","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-2006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-2006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Research on the history of fiction of the early modern period has up to now taken primarily the novel into consideration and paralleled the rise of the novel as the leading genre of narrative literature with the development of the modern consciousness of fictionality. In the present essay, we argue that contemporary reflections on fictionality in epic poetry, specifically, the carmen heroicum, must be taken into account to better understand the history of fiction from the seventeenth century onwards. The carmen heroicum, in the seventeenth century, is the leading narrative genre of contemporary poetics and as such often commented on in contexts involving questions of fictionality and the relationship between literature and truth, both in poetic treatises and in the poems themselves. To reconstruct a historical understanding of fictionality, the genre of the epic poem must therefore be taken into account. The carmen heroicum was the central narrative genre in antiquity, in the sixteenth century in Italy and France, and still in the seventeenth century in Germany and England. Martin Opitz, in his ground-breaking poetic treatise, the Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (1624), counts the carmen heroicum among the most important poetic genres; but for poetry written in German, he cites just one example of the genre, a text he wrote himself. The genre of the novel is not mentioned at all among the poetic genres in Opitz’ treatise. Many other German poetic treatises of the seventeenth century mention the importance of the carmen heroicum, but they, too, provide only few examples of the genre, even though there were many Latin and German-language epic poems in the long seventeenth century. For Opitz, a carmen heroicum has to be distinguished from a work of history insofar as its author is allowed to add fictional embellishments to the ›true core‹ of the poem. Nevertheless, the epic poet is, according to Opitz, still bound to the truthfulness of his narrative. Shortly before the publication of Opitz’ book, Diederich von dem Werder translated Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (1580); his translation uses alexandrine verse, which had recently become widely successful in Germany, especially for epic poems. Von dem Werder exactly reproduces Tasso’s rhyming scheme and stanza form. He also supplies the text with several peritexts. In a preface, he assures the reader that, despite the description of unusual martial events and supernatural beings, his text can be considered poetry. In a historiographical introduction, he then describes the course of the First Crusade; however, he does not elaborate about the plot of the verse epic. In a preceding epyllion – also written in alexandrine verse – von dem Werder then poetically demonstrates how the poetry of a Christian poet differs from ancient models. All these efforts can be seen as parts of the attempt to legitimate the translation of fictional narrative in German poetry and poetics. Opitz and ","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-2006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46405715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Literary Appreciation in the Framework of Positivism","authors":"Vincenz Pieper","doi":"10.1515/jlt-2020-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jlt-2020-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Some literary scholars assume that appreciation, if it is to take a central position in literary studies, must be defined as a complement to value-neutral understanding. It is often claimed that positivists are unable to do justice to literary value since their engagement with works of literature is restricted to historical inquiry. They can only do the preparatory work for the proper goal of literary interpretation, i. e. aesthetic appreciation. On this basis, a distinction is introduced between historical scholarship and criticism. The former is supposedly concerned with factual questions, while the latter is concerned with aesthetic qualities. I argue that this picture of literary studies is fundamentally misguided. My central thesis is that positivists, though committed to value-neutrality, can nonetheless recognise the qualities that make a work of literature effective or rewarding. Literary appreciation is a form of understanding that involves evaluative terms. But if these terms are duly relativised to the interests of the historical agents, they can be used to articulate empirically testable statements about the work in question. In the first section, I set out some principles to define a positivist philosophy of the humanities. I use the term ›positivism‹ to designate an approach exemplified by Otto Neurath, who systematically opposes the reification of meanings and values in the humanities. While some scholars in the analytical tradition call into question positivism by invoking Wittgenstein, I will suggest that his later philosophy is for the most part compatible with Neurath’s mindset. The following sections attempt to spell out a positivist account of literary appreciation. I develop this account by examining the philosophy of criticism proposed by Stein Haugom Olsen and Peter Lamarque, the most prominent advocates of the idea that appreciation goes beyond mere understanding. In discussing their misappropriation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, it will become apparent that they tend to idealise literary practice and its rules. Their description of the institution of literature mixes factual questions with personal value judgements. Positivists, by contrast, seek to distinguish factual matters from subjective judgements and to limit the study of literature as far as possible to the former. They advise critics to approach works of literature in the spirit of scientific inquiry. This does not mean, however, that there is no place for emotional experience and evaluative behaviour in the framework of positivism. To account for these aspects of literary scholarship, a theory of historical empathy is needed that clarifies the function of evaluative expressions in the explanation of literature. I will argue that value terms are used not solely or primarily to articulate what makes the work under consideration pleasurable for the scholar who uses them; their principal function is to indicate what makes a work satisfying from","PeriodicalId":42872,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/jlt-2020-0005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43885574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}