Reading for Self-Knowledge: Poetry, Perspective, and Narrative Justice

Abstract:In this article, I offer a response to Rafe McGregor's Narrative Justice, in particular his notion of lucid phenomenological knowledge. By drawing on a discussion of lyric poetry, I argue that room needs to be made for the notion of perspective, which is more fundamental to our engagement with works of literature than narrative. I end with a suggestion of how to extend McGregor's account to accommodate the idea of perspective, which I call lucid phenomenological perspectival knowledge. Ultimately, what I argue is that the knowledge on offer in one's engagement with works of literature is not coming to know what some experience is like through the narrative construction but a form of self-knowledge that is available through the perspective that shapes the work (whether a narrative or non-narrative work).