Modern Literature as a Form of Discourse and Knowledge of Society

Abstract

Since the 1960’s, epistemological skepticism and constructionism have had a firm position in literary studies. Structuralism’s late phase, post-structuralism, certain sub-branches of current narratology, and certain representatives of recent sociology of literature, in particular, have maintained this sort of philosophical line of thought in literary studies. According to it, literature’s epistemic function can chiefly lie in that it possibly helps us to deconstruct different discourses or world views and to understand their strengths and weaknesses. The article argues for the view that these research trends operate with a unidimensional conception of reality and with a questionable version of constructionism. Hence, they do not understand the specificity of societal-cultural reality and social actors’ specific epistemic relation to it. On this basis, modern literature can be seen as a discursive practice with epistemic and evaluative properties. It is a practice that usually deals with the problems that are caused by the development of societal-cultural reality and that are felt personally important by the authors of literary texts. Often it is just literary texts that first give a public expression to problems such as these.