Fundamentals of Literary Theory

ISBN-13: 9783031474071 / Angielski

Klaus W. Hempfer

Spis treści

Acknowledgments 

Preface

1       Interpretation

1.1  The Inevitability of ‘Interpretation’

1.2  Literary Interpretation as ‘Knowing How’

1.3  Interpretation as Topical Argumentation and as Making the Implicit Explicit

1.4  Some Interpretive Maxims

1.5  Pertinent Works on the Theory of Interpretation

 

2       Fiction

2.1  Fictivity vs. Fictionality

2.2  Fictionality: Institution, Contract, or Convention?

2.3  Signals of Fiction(ality) vs. Properties of Fiction(ality)

2.4  Properties of Fiction(ality)

2.4.1       Reference and Existential Presupposition

2.4.1.1  Reference vs. Meaning and Reference vs. Predication

2.4.1.2  Reference and Presupposition

2.4.1.3  The Paradox of Fiction I: Reference without a Referent as a Property of Fiction(ality), Or: The Constitution of Fiction as a Violation of Presupposition

2.4.2       Speech Acts vs. Speech Situations

2.4.2.1  Speech Act Theory and Fiction(ality)

2.4.2.2  The Emergence of Fictionality Out of Deixis

2.4.2.2.1       Speech Situation and Deixis

2.4.2.2.2       Situation-Splitting and the (Open) Reference of Deictics

2.4.3       The Paradox of Fiction II: ‘Believing that p, and knowing that not-p’

2.5  The Relationship of Fiction(ality) and Literature

2.6  The Conceptual Status of Fiction(ality)

2.7  Pertinent Works on the Theory of Fiction

 

3       Performance and Performativity

3.1  Necessary Distinctions

3.1.1       Conceptual Ambiguity: The Difference between Austin’s ‘Performativity and Chomsky’s ‘Performance’

3.1.2       Prototype (1) of the Performative: The Performative Utterance

3.1.3       Prototype (2): The Theater Model and the Relationship Between ‘Performativity’ and ‘Performance’

3.1.4       Proliferations (1): From Derrida to Paul de Man and Culler

3.1.5       Proliferations (2): The Performative Constitution of the Social and the ‘Performative’ Readings of Austin

3.2  Performativity and Text

3.3  ‘Functional’ Performativity?

3.4  Pertinent Works on Performance and Performativity

4       Intertextuality

4.1  The Starting Point: From Bakhtin’s Dialogism to Kristeva’s Intertextuality

4.2  Holistic Theory Claims and Particular Theory Designs

4.3  The Case for a More Restricted Concept of Intertextuality: Intertextuality vs. Systemic Reference

4.4  Some Differentiations

4.5  Systemic Reference and Interdiscursivity

4.6  Pertinent Works on the Theory of Intertextuality

 

5       Genre

5.1  Terminology and Levels of Abstraction

5.2  The Problem of Ontology and the Epistemological Turn

5.3  ‘Genres’ as ‘Discursive Conventions’ and the Fundamental ‘Genericity’ of Linguistic Utterances

5.4  The Heuristics of Genericity, Or: The Problem of the Beginning

5.4.1       ‘Name’ vs. ‘Thing’

5.4.2       Archetypes and Exemplary Authors/Texts

5.4.3       The Constructivist Approach

5.5  A Model of Generic Layers

5.6  Pertinent Works on Genre Theory

 

6       Periods

6.1  The Inevitability of ‘Periodization’

6.2  The Epistemological Status of Period Concepts

6.3  ‘Period’ vs. ‘Timespan’

6.4  Procedures and Criteria for the Construction of Period Concepts

6.4.1       ‘Particular’ vs. ‘Totalizing’ Periodizations and the Problem of Phase Shifts

6.4.2       The Synchronization of the Diachronic and the False Opposition Between Continuity and Rupture

6.4.3       Temporal Planes, Temporal Strata, Temporal Scales

6.5  Historical Self-Conceptions and Scholarly Period Construction: The Criteria-Dependency of Periodization

6.6  Pertinent Works on Periodization

Bibliography

Index

O autorze

Klaus W. Hempfer is Professor Emeritus of Romance Literatures at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Blurb

This monograph offers new insights into the fundamentals of literary theory. It synthesizes and evaluates research from recent decades, critically examining this work from a transnational perspective and with a particular focus on publications in English, French and German. The book is divided into six sub-theories that tackle problems of interpretation, fictionality, performativity and performance, intertextuality, genre and periodization. Drawing on texts from Classical Antiquity to English, German, French, Spanish and Italian literature, the book brings together a range of different scholarly traditions in different languages.​

Klaus W. Hempfer is Professor Emeritus of Romance Literatures at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.