EN
Literary history commonly grounds itself in the heritage of philosophical positivism. It is not only its predilection for facts, but also a belief that the facts themselves can provide for the contours of syntheses and concepts of major styles and genres. The era of symbolism marked the renewed interest in philosophical hermeneutics, and, consequently, the realization that empirical knowledge is structured by a ground of a-priori assumptions (the rehabilitation of “prejudice”). This ground gave rise to a series of major concepts, the best known of which are Ferdinand Saussure’s “langue” and “parole”, but there are many more of similar pairs: Viktor Shklovsky “story” (fabula) and “plot” (syuzhet), Jan Mukařovský’s “semantic gesture” and “structure”, or Yury Tynianov’s “tightness of a verse line” and “syntax”. In the field of philosophy it is Arnold Toynbee’s pair of terms “challenge” and “answer”. Husserl’s concept of “Lebenswelt” is the most important explication of this approach in philosophy.