LITERARY STUDIES AT THE CROSSROADS: THE STRATEGIES OF 'CO-OPTATION' (Literarna veda na razcesti: strategie 'kooptacie')

• Authors: Spiridon Monica
• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

This article focuses on the transformations of contemporary literary theory. The authoress claims that the regular 'new and spectacular turns' are only the symptoms of a crisis in literary theory. An example of this crisis is new collaborations between literary theory and the exact sciences, dubbed 'new alliances'. These alliances, however, often bring negative consequences. For instance, the alliance between literature and exact sciences seems to express the converging symptoms of post modernity and electronic textuality. There is, however, no definitive boundary between modernity (printed text) and post modernity (cyber text), as evident in the origin of post modernity's key terms, such as the virtuality of cyberspace or cyber text, which are only an epistemological metaphor. In this situation it seems as if literature was on a fast track to extinction. Literature and its metadiscourses try to transcend the marginal status of literature that the new alliances emphasize. Literature, however, does not have a marginal status, and the linking of literary theory with other fields of study has been always a co-optation. Nor are the new alliances completely new. Literature maintains its unique status, because it is only in literary imagination where the essential reality comes into being.

Keywords

EN

CO-OPTATION; CYBERTEXT; EXACT SCIENCE; LITERARY THEORY; NEW ALLIANCES; POSTMODERNITY

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: World Literature Studies
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 2 (19)
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3-9
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Spiridon Monica

• Professor Doctor Monica Spiridon, Faculty of Letters University of Bucharest, Edgar Quinet no 5-7, sector 1, Bucharest, Romania

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11SKAAAA09638