The Borderlands of Literary Criticism

IN RECENT YEARS in both theoretical and methodological discussions of literature and art, there have been many attempts to define the function of and to construct a definition of critical cultural activity. These considerations are so closely related to the methodological problems of literary research, among other things to hermeneutics, that what is popularly known as literary criticism has become identified with the entire body of cognitive and receptive activities relating to literature.1 Consequently, it is difficult today to put together a definition of this seemingly easily isolated realm. Moreover, one cannot but question the significance of literary criticism as an isolated phenomenon (one which, by the way, is closer to the Slavic and German traditions than to the French and English ones) and attempts made to grasp its essence and distinguish its features. The following observations have a different object: they focus on the borderlands of literary criticism. The goal is not to determine the essence of criticism but rather to define criticism's place within a broad spectrum of cultural activities. Initially, however, the essence of criticism must be hypothetically posited so that subsequently it will yield to a certain exactness or relativism to be achieved by confronting and examining areas in doubt. It behooves us, in particular, to regard literary criticism as an activity which is impinged upon by creative actions on the one hand and, on the other, by actions and pronouncements I will term purely discursive. To be sure, this procedure will lend complexity to the literary critical model (if, indeed, we establish the existence of such a model). At the same time, however, it should help us to understand a realm which cannot be clearly delimited and which, therefore, must be approached in terms of its peripheral areas and grasped through an apprehension of its diverse gradations. Because of their wide-ranging nature, the remarks made here are