KÁNON AKO FUNKCIA V AUTOREFLEXII SYSTÉMU LITERATÚRY

• Authors: Roman Mikuláš

Title variants

EN

Canon as a function in the auto-reflection of the literature system

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

Systems theory offers the opportunity to model communication as a principle of the self-organization of social systems. It is a tool for observing the mechanisms and principles of the construction of social reality made visible in acts of communication. Until the 1980s, systematic study of the canon was, in the German environment, inhibited by a traditional understanding of the canon, according to which the canon contained the best works. Since the overcoming of this idea, the study of the canon has become more differentiated as a part of the study of literature evaluation. The research of the mechanisms and components of the literary canon was becoming increasingly impotent in the literary scholarship of German-speaking countries in the n1980s; there is research about the historical background of its construction and its position in contemporary society. A certain consensus already exists, e.g. in the rejection of opinions that explain the construction of the canon through the aesthetic qualities of particular artistic works, as practised by Harold Bloom. On the contrary, the thinking about the canon converges in the idea that the canon reflects social conditions, group interests, etc. There are several varieties of social background-based canon formation; however, it is the textual aspects and the aesthetic qualities of texts that are undervalued as possible elements in the process of canonization, which is also typical for system-theoretical literary study in general, which accompanies and strongly influences canon research in Germany. The author ś reflections will develop primarily in the context of the systems theory developed by Niklas Luhmann and its application on the study of literature as an autopoietic system.

Keywords

EN

LITERARY CANON; SYSTEMS THEORY; AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEM; NIKLAS LUHMANN; GERMANY

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: World Literature Studies
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 7 (24)
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 63 – 75

Contributors

author

Roman Mikuláš

• Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, Konventná 13, 811 03 Bratislava, Slovak republic