scholarly journals The Problem of Literary Truth in Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Poetics

Literature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
Paolo Pitari

In contemporary literary theory, Plato is often cited as the original repudiator of literary truth, and Aristotle as he who set down that literature is “imitation,” thus himself involuntarily banning literature from truth. This essay argues that these interpretations adulterate the original arguments of Plato and Aristotle, who both believed in literary truth. We—literary theorists and philosophers of literature—should recognize this and rethink our interpretation of these ancient texts. This will, in turn, lead us to ask better questions about the nature of literary truth and value.

Author(s):  
John Barton

Readers of ancient texts often assume that they are looking for the meaning intended by the author. Trends in modern literary theory, from the ‘New Criticism’ to structuralism and postmodern deconstruction, have called this into question. In its place readers look either for meanings supposedly inherent to the text regardless of the author's intention, or for meanings attributable to the text through creative ‘readings’, without any implication that the text has a ‘real’ meaning. Theorising of this kind has been more typical of the study of modern literature than of ancient texts, but the fact that so much ancient writing is anonymous or pseudonymous might make it an even more suitable case for a literary-theoretical treatment. However, such reading can produce meanings that are completely arbitrary. The work of Umberto Eco can provide a middle way between a textual determinism and total arbitrariness, through his concept of the intentio operis.


2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-351
Author(s):  
Lowell Edmunds

Manuskripta ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Novarina Novarina

Abstract: This research is a comparative literary study that uses Malay and Javanese versions of Mahabarata text sources. The research objects used were the text edition of Pandhawa Gubah (PG) by Sudibjo Z. Hadisutjipto and the text of Cheritera Pandawa Lima (CPL) by Khalid Hussain. The research method used is descriptive-analysis method. In the comparative study used a comparative literary theory proposed by Endraswara (2011). The results of the text comparison reveal the similarities and differences in the image of Bima figures in the Javanese and Malay versions. The equation as a whole is that both texts contain the same heroic storyline and heroic character, Bima. In addition, Indian influence is still evident in the two texts seen from the nuances of Hinduism that exist in both texts. While the difference is seen in the events that accompany Bima's struggle in achieving his victory. Based on these similarities and differences, it can be seen that the authors attempt to represent the concept of metaphysical interactions vertically and horizontally expressed through PG text. --- Abstrak: Penelitian ini adalah satu kajian sastra bandingan yang menggunakan sumber teks Mahabarata versi Melayu dan Jawa. Objek penelitian yang digunakan adalah edisi teks Pandhawa Gubah (PG) karya Sudibjo Z. Hadisutjipto dan teks Cheritera Pandawa Lima (CPL) karya Khalid Hussain. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif-analisis. Dalam telaah perbandingan digunakan teori sastra bandingan yang dikemukakan Endraswara (2011). Hasil perbandingan teks mengungkapkan adanya persamaan dan perbedaan citra tokoh Bima dalam versi Jawa maupun versi Melayu. Persamaan secara keseluruhan adalah kedua teks tersebut mengandung alur cerita kepahlawanan dan tokoh pahlawan yang sama yaitu Bima. Selain itu, pengaruh India masih tampak dalam kedua teks tersebut dilihat dari nuansa Hinduisme yang ada dalam kedua teks. Sementara perbedaannya tampak pada peristiwa-peristiwa yang menyertai perjuangan Bima dalam mencapai kemenangannya. Berdasarkan persamaan dan perbedaan tersebut tampak adanya upaya penulis untuk merepresentasikan konsep interaksi metafisik secara vertikal dan horizontal yang diungkapkan melalui teks PG.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-329
Author(s):  
Yu-lin Lee

This paper aims to explore the appropriation of Deleuzian literary theory in the Chinese context and its potential for mapping a new global poetics. The purpose of this treatment is thus twofold: first, it will redefine the East–West literary relationship, and second, it will seek a new ethics of life, as endorsed by Deleuze's philosophy of immanence. One finds an affinity between literature and life in Deleuze's philosophy: in short, literature appears as the passage of life and an enterprise of health and thus seeks new possibilities of life, which consists in the invention of a new language and a new people. But what kind of health may such a view provide for a non-Western individual, people, literature and culture? This investigation further appeals to the medium of translation. This paper argues that the act of translation functions as a means of deterritorialisation that displays continuing variations of a language, and through translation, Deleuze's clinical and critical aspects of literature promote a transversal poetics that transcends the binary, oppositional conception of East–West and an immanent ethics of life that overcomes the sentiment of ressentiment.


Paragraph ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Trexler

While literary criticism is often seen as an unself-reflective forerunner to literary theory, this article argues that T.S. Eliot's theory of critical practice was a philosophically informed methodology of reading designed to create a disciplinary and institutional framework. To reconstruct this theory, it enriches theoretical methodology with intellectual and institutional history. Specifically, the article argues that Eliot's early critical theory depended on the paradigms of anthropology and occultism, developed during his philosophical investigation of anthropology and Leibniz. From this investigation, Eliot created an occult project that used spiritual monads as facts to progress toward the Absolute. The article goes on to argue that Eliot's methodology of reading was shaped by anthropology's and occultism's paradigms of non-academic, non-specialist reading societies that sought a super-historic position in human history through individual progress. The reconstruction of Eliot's intellectual and institutional framework for reading reveals a historical moment with sharp differences and surprising similarities to the present.


Author(s):  
Grigorii I. Nesmeyanov ◽  

The article formulates main questions related to the concept of context. The issue of context is considered as a current-day interdisciplinary field of research. There are many definitions of context in dictionaries and in various humanities (including scientific disciplines). In connection with that issue various methodological approaches arise in the humanities, which can be designated by the umbrella term “contextual”. By the example of one of such approaches to the sociological poetics of the “Bakhtin’s circle”, the author substantiates the possibility of creating an interdisciplinary classification of contextual approaches. That classification may include scientific developments of different years and research fields, including: philosophical hermeneutics, a number of approaches to the Russian and foreign literary theory (M.M. Bakhtin, Yu.M. Lotman, B.M. Eichenbaum, F. Moretti, A. Compagnon, etc.), intellectual history, discourse analysis, etc.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document