Literary universe in three parts : language, fiction, experience / Petr A. Bílek, Vladimír Papous̆ek and David Skalický.

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"For decades, the Prague School Structuralism assumption of textual autonomy dominated the explorations of Czech literature as well as the context of Czech literary theory. The three authors of this book combined their efforts to move beyond and offer a new conceptual frame. Sharing the structuralist proposition of texts made from words, they focus on the metamorphoses of the modes of representations through the 20th century fiction and its critical reflections. Switching between theoretical considerations and case study interpretations, their essays challenge the notion of autonomous fictional worlds and involve the pragmatic categories of the constructed image of a writer and the aesthetic experience of a reader. The focus on representational status of literary texts combines here with another conceptual frame - the performative aspect. The literary texts do not function as mere documents that preserve the traces of existing reality but as objects that construct what their readers conceive as parts of existing reality. Instead of a a depository of meanings, literature is thus perceived as a permanent process of negotiations that uses the institutional power of canonisation, ritualisation or tabooisation. Drawing on contemporary international theory of literature and aesthetics (Searle, Rorty, Davidson, Iser, Greenblatt, White), the authors try to conflate semiotic analyses of textual meanings with the pragmatic notions of historical and readership contexts"-- Provided by publisher

Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgment; Part I; Representation: Metaphor, Technical Term or Abstract Notion? Petr A. Bílek; The Allegorical Representation of 'Everything' Vladimír Papoušek; What Can Be Done With Words in the History of Literature across Historical Time Vladimír Papoušek; The Image of the Writer Božena Němcová as a Product of Emblematic Reduction Petr A. Bílek; Part II; Maxwell's Demon: The Utility of the Term 'Fictional World' from the Perspective of Neopragmatic Literary Criticism Vladimír Papoušek.

Beyond the Bounds of a Fictional World: From Defamiliarisation to Aesthetic Experience David SkalickýHrabal's Haňťa as a Reader of 'Individuals' Petr A. Bílek; Part III; The Visible, Invisible and the Rhetoric of a Traveler Vladimír Papoušek; Between Fiction and Fact: Ludvík Vaculík's Český snář (A Czech Dreambook) David Skalický; Švejk on the Wall: The Semantics of Švejkian Images and Quotations as Found in Pubs and Restaurants in the Czech Republic Petr A. Bílek; Lunar Czech, Ptydepe and Writing on Plates: Coming to See One's Own Language and the World in a New Light David Skalický

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