![]() The shift Ellis elaborates echoes a claim of Tzvetan Todorov’s some years later in 1990, as he argued that literary classification has proceeded from an autonomous criterion of beauty to that of style, and finally settled on structure. While this outdated criterion confirms the historical, constructed character of literature, Ellis objects specifically to its overly simplified adherence to a set of forms dubbed, rather exclusively, ‘literary’. ![]() Proceeding from this central objection, Ellis names three former cruxes of literature guided by reference theory: specific literary ingredients, literary organization of linguistic materials, and authorship by literary authors. This passé definition functions by abstracting literature beyond the scope of use-value in the present, wherein literary devices are isolated and measured against a canon of references. Ellis takes issue with the reference theory of meaning-for our purposes, the search for a definition through the canonical use of texts described by the word ‘literary’. The field of comparative literature has experienced a gradual fall of referential definitions that have traditionally defined its structures, a task in which John Ellis took part in 1974. Shigalev, Dostoevsky’s The Devils (1871) ![]() ![]() “ Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. ![]()
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