Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

Michał Mrugalski, Schamma Schahadat, Irina Wutsdorff

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9783110400342
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria europea

Literary theory flourished in Central and Eastern Europe throughout the twentieth century, but its relation to Western literary scholarship is complex. This book sheds light on the entangled histories of exchange and influence both within the region known as Central and Eastern Europe, and between the region and the West. The exchange of ideas between scholars in the East and West was facilitated by both personal and institutional relations, both official and informal encounters. For the longest time, however, intellectual exchange was thwarted by political tensions that led to large parts of Central and Eastern Europe being isolated from the West. A few literary theories nevertheless made it into Western scholarly discourses via exiled scholars. Some of these scholars, such as Mikhail Bakhtin, become widely known in the West and their thought was transposed onto new, Western cultural contexts; others, such as Ol'ga Freidenberg, were barely noticed outside of Russian and Poland. This volume draws attention to the schools, circles, and concepts that shaped the development of theory in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the histoire croisée – the history of translations, transformations, and migrations – that conditioned its relationship with the West.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• I Introduction: Entangled Literary Theory
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.1 Institutions of Interdisciplinary Research from the 1910s until the 1930s
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.2 Formalism in Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Germany
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.3 Phenomenology in German-speaking Areas, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.4 Hermeneutics
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.5 Psychoanalysis and Literature and the Psychology of Art
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.6 Sociological and Marxist Theory
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.8 Bakhtin, Bakhtin Circles and the (Re)Discovery of Bakhtin in the West
• II Formations of Literary Theory: Schools and Institutions, Concepts and Methods II.9 Structuralism and Semiotics
• III Beyond Literary Theory
• IV Some Key Terms
• Index of Names