D.W. Fokkema

Publications in the field of literary theory have proliferated over the past ten years, and the time consequently seems ripe for stocktaking. Has this proliferation of concepts, models and theories been of any service to the study of literature? The authors of this book consider the search for a theory of literature to be a precondition for the scientific study of literary texts....The intention of this book has been to present the outlines of current theories of literature and to set them out in such a way that their underlying assumptions and implied values judgments become explicit. The reader will thus be enabled to select the theory of which he finds the assumptions and criteria to his taste; however, the authors hope that the reader will detect the sometimes arbitrary and always hypothetical nature of the foundations of the theory he chooses to work with. The question whether there is one ultimate truth remains outside the scope of the book. Only in the concluding chapter do the authors seem to abandon this point of view. There they indicate which theories appear to contain fertile insights that can be developed further, and in which directions research may be undertaken with some promise of satisfactory results.… (meer)