Literar y and

Cultural Theor y

Alina Silvana Felea

Aspects of Reference
in Literary Theory
Poetics, Rhetoric and Literary History
The book presents the various viewpoints that poetics, literary history
and Western rhetoric have adopted throughout Western history. The
aim of poetics is to render the specificity of the literary discourse by
either highlighting the extra literary generative forces or by focusing
on the intrinsic study of literary works. Rhetoric chiefly places emphasis
on the verbal effects of discourses whereas literary history predomi-
nantly examines the temporal succession of the literary systems or of
the literary institution. The author focuses on the three sections: poet-
ics, rhetoric, and literary history and provides an introductory study on
the subject of reference.

Alina Silvana Felea is Lecturer at the Faculty of Letters of the Transil-

vania University of Brasov. She is a member of the Department of Lit-
erature and Cultural Studies. Her fields of interest are literary theory,
rhetoric and theories of fiction.
 50
Literar y and
Cultural Theor y
Aspects of Reference in Literary Theory

Alina Silvana Fe

Aspects of Referenc
in Literary Theor
Alina Silvana Felea · Aspects of Reference in Literary Theory

Poetics, Rhetoric and Literary His

LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY

General Editor: Wojciech H. Kalaga

VOLUME 50
 Alina Silvana Felea

Aspects of Reference
in Literary Theory
Poetics, Rhetoric and Literary History
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
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Table of Contents

0. The Reference and the Study of Literature ........................................... 7

1. Poetics ................................................................................................................  15
1.1. The acceptations of the term and the object of the discipline .............  15
1.2. Poetics in antiquity ....................................................................................  18
1.2.1. Plato and the objection to poetry ....................................................  18
1.2.2. Aristotle, the father of poetics ..........................................................  21
1.2.3. The poetics of the Latin space. Epistle to the Pisos .........................  26
1.2.4. The poetics of the Latin world. The treatise On the Sublime ........  30
1.3. The survival of poetics during the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance ................................................................................................  34
1.4. Between mimesis and poiesis. The 18th century ......................................  37
1.5. Poetics in the age of Romanticism ..........................................................  42
1.5.1. Wordsworth and Coleridge, the precursors of the poetics of
Modernity ...........................................................................................  44
1.6. Modern Poetics ..........................................................................................  47
1.6.1. Russian Formalism ............................................................................  49
1.6.2. New Criticism ......................................................................................  54
1.6.3. The Prague Linguistic Circle (1926–1948) .....................................  58
1.6.4. Roman Jakobson ................................................................................  62
1.6.5. Structuralism ......................................................................................  65
1.6.6. Semiotics .............................................................................................  69
1.6.7. The mathematical poetics ...................................................................  76
1.7. Conclusions 
................................................................................................  79

2. Rhetoric .............................................................................................................  83
2.1 The glory and oblivion of a millenary discipline ...................................  83
2.2 Rhetoric in Antiquity ................................................................................  86
2.2.1. Greek rhetoric ....................................................................................  87
2.2.2. Latin rhetoric ......................................................................................  91
2.2.3. Asianism ..............................................................................................  95
2.3. Another type of rhetoric: sacred rhetoric ...............................................  96
2.3.1. Sacred rhetoric in Romanian culture ..............................................  98

5
 2.4. Rhetoric in the centuries which were not favorable to it .....................  98
2.5. The rhetorical system and some essential matters
related to rhetoric ....................................................................................  102
2.6. The specificity of rhetoric and its reference .........................................  107
2.7. Modern rhetoric and its two directions ...............................................  108
2.7.1. The philosophic neorhetoric ..........................................................  109
2.7.2. Linguistic neorhetoric .....................................................................  112
2.8. Conclusions 
..............................................................................................  115

3. Literary History ...........................................................................................  119

3.1. The identity of the literary history and its relations to criticism
and literary theory ...................................................................................  119
3.2. The beginnings of the discipline; the 19th century ..............................  122
3.3. The conception of literary history in the 20th century ........................  124
3.4. Extrinsic and intrinsic ............................................................................  126
3.5. Classification – the privileged method of
classical literary history ..........................................................................  129
3.6. Literary history: a discipline of continuity? .........................................  130
3.7. Diachronic and synchronic ....................................................................  137
3.8. Reasoning – between relativism and absolutism ................................  141
3.9 The narrative literary history .................................................................  143
3.10. Revisions of the subject of literary history ...........................................  145
3.11. Conclusions ..............................................................................................  151

4. The Variable Reference .............................................................................  155

Bibliography .......................................................................................................  159

6
0. The Reference and the Study of Literature

In the sum of present-­day discourses, of both exact and humanistic sciences, au-
thentication and confirmation by reference to a definite and essentially verifiable
fact has not only become a necessity but an obligation. Nowadays, a book without
exact bibliographical references is susceptible to being considered unscientific or
even superficial. Quoting from memory and evoking ideas are undoubtedly very
widely used but once the quotation marks occur in the text, the bibliographical
reference (page, publishing house, place of publication) becomes obvious. What is
currently a very reasonable practice (and I have chosen only one example among
many others) is however symptomatic for revealing a general prerequisite which
is characteristic for our age, namely that of stability and cognitive certainty, of
accuracy regarding the source that has to be named, not disregarded. On the other
hand, an equally powerful trend is the one represented by antirealist theories and
the view according to which neither thought nor language contain “representa-
tions” of reality since the truth is construed by contemporary anti-­rationalism
as a mythologizing and oppressive value. The ancestral (also pejoratively termed
mythical) need to understand and describe the real and its fundamentals, to estab-
lish its distinctions, value systems, norms and regulations, is considered useless,
similarly to what the Sceptics and the Stoics once believed when referring to the
impossibility of having any certainty regarding the surrounding reality. Richard
Rorty – to give but one example – is a renowned representative of analytic phi-
losophy and contemporary American pragmatism who claimed that a genuinely
interesting philosophy is the one that manages to replace one “vocabulary” with
a more pertinent one in relation to the present moment. The same thing would
nowadays happen to truth or objectivity, hollow notions, devoid of meaning,
which by no means implies that there are no longer values worthy of being taken
into consideration and important for human beings and society.1

To give up or not to give up the search for “evidence”

Moreover, we could easily notice that paradoxically, the large amount of informa-
tion available to us – we are far more cognitively rich than our ancestors – does
not help us in becoming more anchored in the surrounding reality. Probably it is

1 These are the values that are constantly promoted by the pragmatist tradition: liberty,
tolerance, solidarity, etc.

7
this very informative variety as well as the consciousness of multiple determina-
tions that we resort to and which bear the guilt for what Toma Pavel termed “the
severance of the ego from its own biography.”2 It is a sort of inability to comfort-
ably inhabit our ego, to acknowledge or define our own identity. That does not,
however, prevent us from searching for it with the prospect of certitude.
Disorientation is also visible at the macro-­level of society. With reference to the
observation made by Bernard Williams regarding the existence of two seemingly
antagonistic trends nowadays, Pascal Engel raises a pertinent question: “On one
hand, there has never been so much distrust of the values of rationality, scientific
progress, truth, and objectivity, either in advanced intellectual circles or in the
media and society in general. On the other, never has the impression that we are
being deceived by the authorities (political and scientific), that are supposed to
guarantee precisely these values, and the need for trust been so great. Why, if we
no longer believe in truth, is there such a longing for it?”3 Hence, the eager search
for evidence, the natural and legitimate urge to understand what is around us
and what defines us, continues to manifest itself strongly. It is, however, true that
vocabulary modifies itself as it varies.

Reference and reality

We thus have the very eloquent example of the notion of reference. The theories on
how we “refer to” various aspects have been altering and have obviously developed
from 1960 onwards. Reference seemed to be another term for reality; therefore not
once have the two notions been confused. Nevertheless, however alluring their as-
sociation may be, reference is not equivalent to reality! As an illustration, one may
consider the reference of the terms “dragon” and “ubiquity.” The former would
be endowed with a physical yet fictional existence, therefore non-­conformant to
our experience of the physical world. The latter would entail a non-­physical and
fictional existence. Hence it is not in accordance with our experience of the non-­
physical world. Consequently, once more, the terms “referent” and “real” are not
transposable4 even though their affiliation or resemblance is more than obvious.
Nevertheless, whether one places reality under scrutiny or the issue of refer-
ence is being debated, the process of defining them nowadays is not a smooth and

2 See the series of lectures given by Toma Pavel in 2006 at Collège de France.
3 Pascal Engel and Richard Rorty, A quoi bon la vérité? (Paris: Editions Grasset  &
Fasquelle, 2005), pp. 13–14.
4 See Georges Lavis, “Le texte littéraire, le référent, le réel, le vrai,” Cahiers d’analyse
textuelle, no. 13 (1971), p. 11.

8
effortless endeavour. The difficulty resides in the fact that reality is not necessar-
ily revealed to sensory perception which means that, more often than not, one
may have to determine the existence of objects and their configuration. This is an
aspect that establishes a fairly strong connection between reference and reality
because the problem remains the same, namely that of determining the reference.
The truth has become for most a question of consensus, a convention between the
members of a group or a community. This relativization has favoured the overlap
of reality or existence and reference. However, on the other hand, the subjection
of reference to reality ceased to be so strict once reference gained autonomy to a
certain extent. By accepting the idea that there was also a fictional reference, it no
longer depended upon truth value as the truth was defined as conformity to the
real. The antagonistic tendency remains just as powerful – namely the need for a
thorough knowledge of reference, for its delimitation – as when we take reality as
a vantage point with the intention of understanding its mechanisms.

The term reference, explanatory remarks

In order to shed light on the theoretical grounding of the notion of reference
which will actually accompany us and will function as a conceptual landmark
throughout this book, it is necessary to make some remarks regarding the process
of acknowledgement of the term, of its essence and of the issues that it raises.
Due to the fact that the concept attempts to establish a connection to reality, the
interest that the philosophers and logicians first took in it is easily understand-
able. The German mathematician Gottlob Frege bestowed great importance upon
reference within logical semantics, a discipline which was flourishing at the end of
the 19th century. In the position paper Meaning and Reference published in 1892,
one of the essential dichotomies was the Sinn (Meaning) and Bedeutung (Refer-
ence) dichotomy. Reference is the truth value, specifically the scientific truth, the
one that can be experimentally or conceptually validated, and it is identifiable
with denotation. On account of the fact that truth value is not congruent with
the sphere of poetry and of literary works, reference was considered inconsistent
with the artistic field. In his work Ausführungen über Sinn und Bedeutung, Frege
noted that “in poetry words have only one meaning; yet in sciences and whenever
one is concerned with the question of uncovering the truth, meaning is no longer
enough; therefore we also attach a reference to proper names and concepts.”5 It
is also true that Frege did not indicate what the exact acceptation of the term

5 André Rousseau, “La quête de la référence. Réflexions à partir des théories de Frege,”
in: Statut et processus, (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2002), pp. 15–27.

9
meaning was! Yet we could use Paul Ricoeur’s explanation with regard to Frege’s
theory: “Meaning is what the sentence communicates; the reference or denotation
is that something about which meaning is communicated.”6

Reference from a linguistic perspective

Nevertheless, reference is far from being a straightforward concept as it is subject
to limitations, restrictions and continuous reevaluation. Apart from the above-­
mentioned author Frege there is also Saussure who, through his theory of the
arbitrariness of the sign, pointed out the impossibility of a perfect correspond-
ence between language and reality. Hence we can further refer to the second
most probable domain of manifestation for reference: linguistics. Explained and
exemplified in discourse, particularly dependent on language and its features, the
reference is often defined as “the relationship that connects language to reality”,
“what unites a language and its articulation with the real world” or the “ground-
ing system” of the linguistic sign, as Cesare Brandi pointed out. However, it is a
naïve endeavour to merely establish a correspondence of language in general to
reality. Not only Saussure’s theory but also Frege’s draw attention to the fact that
the term or expression does not set up a direct connection to the world, to reality,
and therefore it only makes reference or it denotes by means of a conceptual pat-
tern which is interposed between the two. Later on, in his famous work Linguistics
and Poetics, published in 1960, Roman Jakobson introduced, among six other
fundamental functions of language, the denotative function also known as the
cognitive or referential function, defined by its orientation towards context. In
other words, one of the functions of linguistic expressions is that of making refer-
ence to the world. The article is very important, primarily due to the clarifications
that it brings regarding the poetic function, but those interested in the concept
of reference will not find out much about the status of context in Jakobson’s ac-
ceptation. This is quite explicable because in the 60s linguists were just starting
to consider reference. There is but one mention to be made: the poetic function,
which is preeminent in literary texts, makes reference or denotation ambiguous,
which means that the literary work becomes a distorting setting for the context
that is to be reflected in it. The ambiguity of the referent in artistic creation is one
of the major aspects of the art-­reality connection or of the relationship between
common and poetic language.

6 Paul Ricoeur, Metafora vie, trans. Irina Mavrodin (Bucharest: Univers Publishing
House, 1985), p. 76.

10
 The matter of fictional reference is only tangentially of interest to us consider-
ing that the fictional issue is not explored. But some remarks are necessary and
they can be made on the basis of an example. The character Raskolnikov, for in-
stance, does not denote anything when used in fiction, but denotes the character
created by Dostoyevsky when it is referred to in other texts, including critical ones.
Therefore, there is, on the one hand, the original fictional text, and on the other
hand there is the metatextual discourse in which mention is made of an existing
referent, verifiable, formed of all the texts which had been written by Dostoyevsky
and which contributed to the construction of the character Raskolnikov. Hence
the answer to the question whether the poetic or critical discourse is a referen-
tial text, specifically one that directly re-­transcribes an object of the world, is
affirmative since the literary referent is real as opposed to the referent in fiction
whose existence is seldom real. In fact, as Paul Ricoeur emphasizes in the above
mentioned study, there is not a problem related to the reference within language
because signs evoke other signs within the same system.

The research on literature and on discourse from the perspective of its

reference
Coming back to the common language, the ontological aspect implied by the
reference is worth mentioning. The reference entails existence which is not only
that of physical objects but also what is not visible, namely abstract referents, theo-
retical entities, various types of experiences, etc., that we can name, “nominate,”
identify by means of speech. Some specialists even consider that the function
of “nomination” is the primordial function of language. At the same time, the
notion of reference subsumes the function of representation of the real and this
is the reason why, in dictionaries, a connection is established between reference
and mimesis, the classical Greek concept of imitation. For the field of criticism,
the “real” alluded to is the work itself. The concept of reference may constitute a
guiding and organizing principle within the utterly vast and extremely complex
domain of poetics, literary history and rhetorical discourse. Although much has
been written about literary works considered individually and about literature as
a system, the views differ according to the examination approach. It is precisely
“this approach” that can be revealed by the reference, specifically by the relation-
ship established between a certain literary or rhetorical referent and the discourse
in which it is included. The often disconcerting diversity and abundance that
characterize the field of literary research should not be mistaken for a limitless
liberalism in which all is permitted. We know that from linguistics as well. One
cannot associate an object or aspect of reality with just any lexical item. The

11
lexical unit predetermines what it can designate and what it excludes. Moreover,
considering that not even the author himself/herself is absolutely free when they
write, as reality “prescribes” certain trajectories, similarly, or even more so, the
literary work does not allow the critic to write absolutely anything they want or
to invent approaches that can later on prove to be dead-­end paths. We shall try to
take into consideration, as much as possible, some of the landmarks or productive
starting points around which the critical discourse has been and is still being built.

Justifying the choice of the organizing principle

The multitude of perspectives and types of approach can also be substantiated
by the problematic status of the referent – in our case the object is the literary
work, literature in general or discourse. This is because the referent is not always
transparent in such a way as to facilitate an unproblematic approach. There are
also inscrutable, opaque referents or “oblique” contexts, as Frege termed them,
which hinder the interpretation of the text and which call into question the ex-
tent to which the referential sphere is a cognitive vector for the other universe,
namely that of discourse. Gottlob Frege also pointed out that a denotation, i.e. a
single object, can have several co-­referential expressions, such as the morning star
and the evening star which equally refer to Venus, and that there are contexts in
which they are not interchangeable. This is also a more generally valid linguistic
argument that furnishes, among other things, an explanation for the multitude of
doctrines and schools of literary criticism, each with its own personality although
the “denotation”, namely the point of departure, is the same. Transcending the
domain of linguistics is a necessary step. Referential semantics chiefly studies the
word and the name but the idea of reference is equally pertinent in the case of
other units such as the sentence, text and context. However, as Paul Ricoeur also
indicated, beyond the sentence, within the register of the text, semantics is no
longer the focus, but hermeneutics. Perhaps the most correct solution would be
a pragmatic approach to the various theoretical and critical projects. The degree
of objectivity of these discourses will not be of interest to us – that would be sheer
recklessness – because we do not have a seemingly “objective” knowledge of the
referent itself. And in order to make assertions we do not need to vouch for the
“truth” of certain statements but rather to understand the epistemological options
of some communities at specific historical moments, equally exerted by means of
the discourse of criticism. What mattered most and still does is the effectiveness
of the respective discourses, the extent to which they achieve their goal of em-
phasizing, explaining and discovering what is not generally visible at first glance.

12
 Reference to literature and discourse can display the most diverse aspects. The
present study does not claim to be exhaustive; the choice of poetics, rhetoric and
literary history is subjective and it is by no means justifiable by our belief that they
are more valuable than others. It is true, however, that the prestige and durabil-
ity with which some of them, such as poetics or rhetoric, are endowed have had
some weight in the decision to present them in the manner that we deemed the
most significant. The title of the volume ought to be “Introduction to…” because it
needs radically to simplify the discouraging amount of information that we could
have for each and every orientation. Certainly, we do not pretend to be able to
clarify everything nor to state “only what is truly important” because many issues
are genuinely important. If this brief presentation of some subjects of interest
from the field of humanities may be viewed as a potential guide by students and
by those who want to use it as an introduction to the field, the book will have
served its purpose.

13
1. Poetics

1.1. The acceptations of the term and the object of the

discipline
Literature – an instance of language, a constant of poetic reflection
Nowadays there is not only one definition of poetics because its long history
contributed to the enrichment of its manifold identity, although a more thor-
ough analysis of its defining fundamental themes will reveal their relatively re-
duced number. It is however true that these themes have undergone numerous
and important transformations throughout time, every epoch has witnessed a
reevaluation of the concepts, of the suppositions and postulates of poetics and
its methodological principles that have been developed and integrated into new
syntheses to such an extent that they are no longer identical to their initial for-
mulae. Nevertheless, the constant of poetic reflection is the reference to literary
art in its verbal creation capacity. The major aim of this discipline has always
been that of observing and studying literature in its specificity, this type of art
being the most frequently defined as an artistic verbal activity which can thus
be included in the category of instances of language. Hence it has always been
connected to the sciences of language as it attempts to delimit and analyse the
defining criteria of literary language in order to reveal the functioning of the art
of words from that perspective. Associating the observation with the domain of
the verbal and with the categories that correspond to it has always been one of
the defining markers of the investigation that the 20th century modern poetics
has carried out while trying to avoid any kind of extrinsic considerations in rela-
tion to the object – thus, without interferences of any kind, be they sociological,
psychological or philosophical, which would divert attention from what could
strictly and solely define the literary field which was considered perfectly capable
of preserving its own autonomy by virtue of its intrinsic specificity. This is because
all these perspectives, which are extraneous to the aesthetic field per se, actually
subordinate or affiliate it to external laws. Tzvetan Todorov noted that, as opposed
to other humanistic sciences, poetics resorts to the very laws that can be found
within literature and this is precisely why this field of reference to literature is at
the same time “abstract” and “internal.”1

1 Tzvetan Todorov, Qu’est-­ce que le structuralisme? 2. Poetique (Paris: Editions du Seuil),

p. 21.

15
The definitions and meanings of poetics
When examining the etymology of the term poetics, Paul Valéry stated that it refers
to “everything related to the creation or the production of works whose language
is equally substance and means.”2 In a current sense, poetics represents the sum of
all aesthetic principles or theories that define and individualize the work of a poet.
When referring to Poe’s or Baudelaire’s poetics, we deal with the choices that these
creators made out of a multitude of stylistic, thematic and versification possibilities.
There is also a poetics of a movement (the poetics of romanticism, of symbolism
or of naturalism) and in this case we move from a particular to a general level that
presupposes the ensemble of rules that a writer adopts or abides by, their adhesion
marking their inclusion in the respective movement or literary trend.
The more technical meaning with which the term poetics is endowed makes it
one of the subjects of literary research whose goal is to devise an “internal literary
theory.” In 1976, Benjamin Hrushovski defined poetics (one of many definitions)
as “the systematic study of literature as literature.”3 It concerns the principles, cat-
egories and functions of this art or, in a nutshell, the examination of general laws
that explain the totality of particular literary works. According to this view, poet-
ics has a predominantly theoretical character, even scientific, precisely because
its object of study is not the particular fact but the general one, or the governing
law, although it became obvious at some point that in poetics the general cannot
exist without the particular.

Poetics and other related disciplines

The clear orientation towards the abstract and the general has led to the association
of poetics to the theory of literature, which managed to induce a certain degree of
confusion. As Jean-­Marie Schaeffer also emphasized “there are as many theories of
literature as forms of cognitive approach to literature, namely an indefinite number.”4
Although the boundary between the two is very difficult to mark,5 poetics also dif-
fers from rhetoric, which is a field of study that deals with the sum of all discourses,

2 Paul Valéry, “De l’enseignement de la poétique au Collège de France”, in: Variété V

(Paris: Gallimard, 1945), p. 291.
3 Quoted by Lubomir Doležel in his paper Poetica Occidentală, trans. Ariadna Ştefănescu
(Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1998), p. 10.
4 Oswald Ducrot and Jean-­Marie Schaeffer, Noul Dicționar Enciclopedic al Științelor
Limbajului, (Bucharest: Babel Publishing House, 1996), p. 127.
5 Poetics intertwined with rhetoric as early as antiquity; hence, the confusion between
the two is justifiable.

16
less concerned with the specificity of the literary art and more drawn to the verbal
effects that literary discourse, just like any other type of discourse, can create. Simi-
larly, it is related to, and very often converges with, linguistics as they share a com-
mon root, namely philology. Apart from the rigor of thinking and argumentation,
what it borrowed from linguistics were also the concepts and terminology but there
was not really an overlap between the two domains. In spite of the common inter-
est in language, poetics targets a specific area, namely the one associated with art.6
With regard to literary criticism, the differences occur in the manner in which the
literary work is examined. For the critic, it is the object of weighing, of establishing
value and, without having to dispense with concepts or general laws, the emphasis
is placed on the identity, specificity and originality of the respective literary work.
It is thus essential to describe the individual work, to interpret it and consequently
to unveil its meanings and eventually to assess it from an aesthetical point of view
or to establish its evaluative dimension. For the theorist of poetics, on the other
hand, the literary work is an object of reflection in the sense precisely of uncovering
general matters’ it is an object of knowledge which leads to the assimilation of data
on the system of literature understood both in its characteristic unity and variety.
Certainly, we can ask the legitimate question whether the general categories
and the essential features of the field researched can be considered trans-­historical
and trans-­generic. The set of concepts that poetics devised, such as, for instance,
narratological categories, internal focalization, ellipsis, prolepsis, genre, register,
type, etc., undoubtedly last than any critical interpretation of a distinctive work,
irrespective of its complexity. However, not even generic structures have the much
coveted general validity. It is true that they extend over a wide area of the literary
field without succeeding in covering it entirely, either diachronically or synchroni-
cally. One should bear in mind that poetics can be chiefly defined as a cognitive
activity, literature viewed as reference thus becoming an epistemological object
of study. Hence poetics is far more than theoretical abstract thinking that ex-
ceeds the borders of literary works and although, as mentioned, examples cannot
be omitted from the written works on poetics, they refer precisely to individual
creations. Without a stable and strong connection to the reality of the works per
se, this activity can become futile and is faced with the inability to justify its own
existence. Between interpretation and poetic reflection there is a complementary
relationship, as neither is less important than the other when it comes to their
connection to literature. In fact, the aesthetic field will always come first.

6 In its turn poetics exerted its own influence upon linguistics triggering, among other
things, the emergence of transphrastic linguistics.

17
 The cognitive ambition is associated with the systematic, scientific study. The
aim of modern scholars in the field of poetics was to eliminate the subjective di-
mension of literary research and turning objectivity into a veritable axiom within
the study of poetics. Hence, poetics has focused on observing and describing the
origins, nature, status and mechanisms of literature and for that purpose, concepts
and conceptual frameworks, principles and general categories that would be able
to grasp the essence of literary art were introduced.

1.2. Poetics in antiquity
The history and tradition of Western poetics started with Aristotle’s treatise Poet-
ics, not only the veritable cornerstone of the substance of this domain but also of
literary research and theory in general. It is the first treatise of this type that has
been preserved; although there is enough evidence in support of the claim that
the systematic theories of poetics had been preceded by numerous reflections on
the nature and aim of poetry amongst other human activities, there has always
been the dilemma of whether poetry is truth or deception, whether its purpose
should be to please and/or to educate. There was also concern regarding the role
and place that the poet holds in society.

1.2.1. Plato and the objection to poetry

One cannot pertinently refer to Aristotle’s Poetics, especially to analyse such fun-
damental concepts as mimesis, without invoking Plato’s view on poetry. His utterly
critical stance, occasionally even virulent, had been neither singular nor accidental
as many philosophers in antiquity regarded epic poetry, especially Homer’s,7 with
great scepticism. Plato, an individual of aristocratic descent, subjected the whole of
Athenian society to stringent critical examination, especially because democracy, as a
political model adopted during his time, seemed far from being the best solution. We
should bear in mind that Socrates, Plato’s mentor and source of inspiration for many
of his ideas, was a victim of this “regime” and was sentenced to death for his beliefs.

The place of art in Plato’s project

Plato was mostly interested in social organization and the improvement of the
system of government in the Ideal State that he devised, theoretically, as an ac-
curate illustration of his ideas. Hence, for Plato, the social, political and ethical

7 Xenophanes and Heraclitus were absolutely revolted by the liberties that Homer had
taken, especially regarding the assignation of human features to the gods.

18
issues mattered the most, as opposed to the philosopher’s lack of interest in mat-
ters of art even though he has been considered an authority on aesthetics and
theory to this day.
The philosopher sporadically examined art although his interests were of a dif-
ferent nature. In Ion as well as in The Apology of Socrates and Menon the focus of
investigation is poetic inspiration. Beauty is the topic of Greater Hippias and The
Symposium, while poetry is discussed chiefly in Book X of the Republic. Plato did
not write a treatise entirely dedicated to art, but his theory is solid and coherent
in its unequivocal condemnation of the artist’s enterprise on grounds of its being
misleading and deceitful as it primarily addresses the senses and not the intellect.
On account of its being fundamentally irrational, art is perceived as an instru-
ment used in the corruption of the soul rather than its edification. To Plato, the
possible psychological impact of creations that stir the conscience by focusing on
passions, on unleashed feelings or vices, seems utterly perilous for the inhabitants
of his Ideal State. Consequently, the philosopher simply invalidated the idea of
emotion as a principle in the reception of art. For Plato, an essential guide in the
process of moral redress was the philosopher or the scholar, never the poet who
is not the master or even the author of his own productions, as these creations
were induced by the muse or by the gods. Thus, poets experiencing a state of furor
express themselves through the impulse given by an external and higher power,
hence losing their mastery of reason, abandoning themselves to divine inspira-
tion without being consciously involved in the creative process. Inspiration was
actually associated with ecstasy and possession; therefore the poet was merely a
passive instrument manipulated by a higher power, no longer the master of his
own will, unable to explain the source of his poetry or its meaning and, when the
inspiration ceased, he would awaken astonished by what he had been capable of
accomplishing. We are thus witnessing a paradox: the creation that the god dic-
tated through the agency of the poet was worthy of praise, but the poet himself
was pitiful on account of the fact that he did not exercise control over his own
reason. The individual poet became responsible when his creation was indeed his
own and equally condemnable if he dared to approach dangerous topics.
The prominence that poetry bestowed upon appearances, as the great phi-
losopher considered empirical reality merely a pale copy of the absolute world
of Ideas, led to its definitive condemnation. Consequently, Plato considered
that it would have been more useful for the city to banish the poet from the
community because his influence only perverted those frail minds that were in
need of positive models in order to follow the path of morality, of righteousness
and beauty. The only one deemed able to shape these minds was the scholar,

19
namely the one who valued reason and intellect, who contemplated the divine
and the transcendence which was inaccessible to the senses… Without being
a rhetorical effect, the project that involved the banishing of the poet from the
city actually reflected the status granted to poetry. The latter’s influence was one
that would generally be taken into account, and that was precisely what seriously
worried the philosopher. Certainly Plato did not subject poetry as a whole to
public opprobrium. By virtue of their aesthetic utility and of the contribution
that they might bring to the moral formation of the younger generation, only
hymns dedicated to the gods and to highly valued people were allowed. Hence,
poetry had to exist in the Ideal State, but only the type of poetry that could
instruct and cultivate. For Plato, the moral imperative was primordial, and this
managed to radically shape his views on art because he advocated an aesthetic
principle that presupposed the subordination of beauty to usefulness. In Plato’s
approach to poetry, the reference is its content and the impact that markedly
emotional themes had on an easily susceptible audience.

Mimesis and its Platonist condemnation

The justification for Plato’s extremely critical attitude towards art and implicitly
poetry resides in their reliance on mimesis. Probably at its onset the term had
designated the imitation, within sacred rituals, of human beings or animals, and
therefore the notion was initially associated only with painting, sculpture and
theatrical performance. In fact, Plato’s mimesis does not make reference only to
poetry; on the contrary, even in the case of the art of words the image remains
essential because through it the poet would produce an imperfect “copy” of real-
ity, which in its turn had been an equally imperfect copy of the flawless world
of Ideas. The Platonist denigration of mimesis-­based poetic activity became, as
Lubomir Doležel rightfully noted, a “cause célèbre” in the history of philosophy
and aesthetics.8 According to Plato, the arts that primarily involved the senses,
appearances and the surface of things did not have access to universal knowledge
on account of the fact that the ontological status of what they imitate is inferior
to that of the imitated object. Furthermore, imitations distort the Idea and deny
the truth through its falsification. The poet was accused of the fact that, without
really being knowledgeable, without being a specialist in one domain or another,
he would hypocritically claim the possession of this knowledge. The public would
be fooled, influenced and mesmerized by the hollow and vain pleasure that imita-
tion provided.

8 Doležel, Poetica Occidentală, p. 39.

20
Poetic “genres”
In spite of this defamation, the philosopher had devised a classification of what was
later on called poetic “genres.” Hence, in Book III of the Republic9 oted that poetry
relies upon diègèsis (narration) which can be pure (haplè) when the poet speaks in
his own name as in the case of the dithyramb (narrative choral chant), imitative, that
is entirely mimetic (dia mimèséôs), when the characters are the ones who narrate as
in the case of tragedy and comedy, whereas the third (mixed) category combines the
previous two by alternating narration and dialogue, as in the epopee. The diegetic
or narrative forms thus lay emphasis on the breach between the time of the nar-
rative and that of the illustrated events. The classification then highlights another
very important opposition, namely that between mimesis and diègèsis; the mimetic
criterion in poetry presupposes attributing direct speech to characters, therefore
without implying an apparent connection to the author. If according to Plato the
more valuable genre was the one involving a lesser degree of imitation, as in the
dithyramb, on the contrary, for Aristotle who was his former student, preeminence
is granted precisely to the genre that imitates the most, specifically tragedy, as the
span of mimesis extended, in his view, even over the epopee which is a genre that
is not entirely dialogical, therefore encompassing the narrative field. Actually, Aris-
totle ended up restructuring the entire theory of mimesis furnishing, in his famous
treatise, the first theory of poetry and implicitly of literature.

1.2.2. Aristotle, the father of poetics

Born in Stagira, Aristotle was admitted to Plato’s Academy at the age of seven-
teen and remained there for twenty years. Then he founded his own school, the
Lyceum, and it is worth mentioning that he was Alexander the Great’s mentor.
Aristotle’s extraordinary personality is still invoked today in numerous domains
such as philosophy, logic, aesthetics, science, due to the essential contributions
that he made though his treatises and papers.
The study that is of interest to us at this point, the Poetics, was apparently written
between 334 and 330 BC. It comprises about fifty pages of text and is more a collec-
tion of notes addressed to the philosopher’s disciples than a written work intended
to be presented to a wider audience. This becomes obvious judging by the elliptic and
raw character of the text and, as Rostagni10 pointed out, by the “schematic, meagre

9 Plato, “Republica” in: Opere V, (Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, 1986).

10 Quoted in Tzvetan Todorov’s introduction to the book by Aristotle, La Poétique, (Paris:
Seuil, 1980), p. 12.

21
style which was not connected to a rigid external order, variegated by interruptions,
repetitions, reflections on unpredictable topics, permeated with digressions and
caesurae, brimming with insinuations, ellipses and brachylogies.”
The formal aspects do not overshadow the importance of the treatise for the
whole of Western literary theory because the conclusions regarding poetry that
the philosopher issued, as well as the principles that he formulated, persisted for
more than two millennia. The Poetics is a mandatory referential work even if the
theories that its author formulated have been challenged or considered outdated.
Aristotle relied upon a thorough knowledge of Greek poetic production. By sub-
jecting it to a keen examination, especially examples which had been successful,
the Stagirite offered a few recommendations to those interested in writing poetry,
especially tragedies which were considered superior to all other types of poetry.
In actual fact, his reference is not the whole of poetic creation, only the mimetic
genres, namely the epic and the dramatic genres. He was totally uninterested in
lyricism and equally unpreoccupied with the creative imagination of the poet or
his “original” vision. Aristotle asserted that poets had an “obligation” to speak less
in their own name throughout their poetic activity.

The Aristotelian mimesis

The principle of mimesis that would later on determine and explain the connection
established between art and reality (i.e. the imitation of reality within the work
of art) is one of the major themes of poetics as a study discipline. Plato deemed
many poets’ endeavour dishonest and deceitful because, in his view, they offer
a distorted copy of reality (the latter being itself a copy of the world of ideas)
whereas Aristotle pointed out the values of mimesis. By virtue of mimesis, poetry
did not diverge from the essences; on the contrary, it came closer to them. Meta-
physics and the positioning of the truth in the remote world of Ideas urged Plato
to pass a harsh judgement on poetry which, according to the philosopher, was
unable to attain to this realm of the absolute. Aristotle no longer situated the idea
within transcendence but within immanence, in the emotional world, and that was
precisely the reason why he considered that poetry could have enough cognitive
weight to become the conveyor of general truths. The Aristotelian ideal form, the
eidos, can resemble the real object. In fact, the role of the artist is precisely that of
finding the Form in the object in which its manifestation is flawed. It is the cinder
that has to be removed from around the essence. The major difference between
the two theories on poetry therefore consists in Aristotle’s belief, as opposed to
that of his former teacher, that there are valid and noteworthy poetic truths which
profess the rise of individuality from the realm of the ephemeral, pretence and

22
incoherence, to that of durability and universality. Thus, in chapter IX of the Poet-
ics, a distinction is made between the historian, namely the one who illustrates
“the thing that happened”, and the poet, who depicts “things that might happen”.
“Poetry”– Aristotle wrote in the same chapter – “is finer and more philosophical
than history; for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.”11

Mimesis in tragedy
The author of the Poetics referred very specifically to poetry perceived as mimesis
praxeos or imitation of actions although, unfortunately, he had never distinctly
defined mimesis12 and thus the ensuing meanings attributed to this term by other
scholars have often been divergent. It was irrelevant to Aristotle whether poetry
was in verse or in prose, and if the displayed facts were real or imaginary (real
events could have been a source of inspiration for the poet but the facts invented
by him were equally accepted by the philosopher as legitimate in the field of po-
etry). What really mattered, however, were the logic of the action and the organic
unity of the mimetic object which would entail the need for a muthos (action)
constructed as a unified structure of events with a beginning, middle and end.
Hence, the subject chosen by the poet – preferably a unique subject – had to be
impeccable from the point of view of the cohesion and coherence of facts that
unfold according to the rules of causality and logic, as Aristotle specified, within
the boundaries of the plausible (eikos) and of the necessary (ananké). Character
and “thought” are not as important in tragedy as the story, because it is not people
but action that is the main reference of imitation. Certainly, one may object that
there is no action without participants and that a plot cannot be conceived and
understood in its complexity by ignoring or minimizing the characters. Aristotle’s
option is, however, very straightforward in this respect, and elements that pertain
to psychology, both of the author and of his characters, are considered negligible
as compared to the issues that concern muthos, mimetic action, which leads to the
idea of a temporal vision of literature and not a static, spatial or descriptive one.13
The main reference in Poetics is obviously to mimesis construed as imitation of
actions through language. If modern poetics holds that the matter of the language

11 Aristotle, Poetica, trans. D.M. Pippidi (Bucharest: Academy Publishing House, 1965),

p. 65.
12 The literary mimesis is only included in the larger category of imitative activities as
specified in chapter IV of the Poetics.
13 The idea was very well highlighted by Paul Ricoeur in his book Temps et récit (Paris,
Seuil, 1983–1985).

23
of literature is the prevalent subject of study, Aristotle, on the other hand, placed
it in the background as in the foreground he chose to place the idea of building a
plot consisting of a series of events within the boundaries of the plausible and of
the necessary. In his work there are also clarifications concerning lexis which is the
fourth so-­called constituent of tragedy (after action, characters and thought) and is
allotted three chapters (20 to 22). The linguistic and stylistic contentions, without
being extremely elaborate, are systematically presented; among others, Aristotle’s
definition of the metaphor is a mandatory reference in the specialized literature.

The emotional reaction of the audience or the catharsis

The philosopher was interested in the emotional reaction of the audience that
either attended theatrical performances or read poetry. The logical unfolding
of events had to be plausible, and poetry had to be composed in full accordance
with the precepts of beauty which, in Aristotle’s view, meant greatness and order
directed towards generating emotion. Consequently, a valuable tragedy would
provoke catharsis, the tragic emotion, by stirring feelings of mercy and fear. What
catharsis precisely meant for Aristotle still remains a mystery. We only know that,
in Book VII of Politics, he promised to provide a more detailed explanation of
the concept in his future writings on poetics. Perhaps he even accomplished this
task but the work in question was not preserved and, unfortunately, neither was
his book on comedy which is said to have been much more than a mere project.
It seems that in times past, the term catharsis was connected to the archaic Or-
phic and Pythagorean beliefs and designated the necessary cleansing of the souls
of the dead in pursuance of their being admitted into the world of the shadows.
But Aristotle only referred to the purifying power that tragedy and music had for
the souls of the living. In Aristotelian theory this is an additional argument in
favour of the utility of the poetic art which was no longer perceived in the same
manner as by Plato, as a menace to emotional balance, but as a necessary cleans-
ing, a purging of emotions and feelings. Furthermore, the poetic endeavour and
the pleasure that art offered to the audience were justified, in the philosopher’s
opinion, by the innate gift of imitation. Hence, it is a general feature of human
nature, a natural and completely reasonable trait revealed both by the poet’s need
for artistic creation and by the audience’s need to be part of the aesthetic experi-
ence. Confusion immediately arises when it comes to this notion as well, as it is
not very clear whether the above-­mentioned cleansing is exclusively the “work”
of the creator of art or the audience has its own active role in the process. Moreo-
ver, could the feelings of mercy and fear only be associated with tragedy? Could
it be that comedy or narration in general might also have a cathartic power that

24
would, of course, involve other feelings than the above-­mentioned ones? Then,
is it true that the, one might say, magical power of art entails a psychological or
intellectual mechanism or an equally psychological and intellectual one, or even
both of them in variable proportions?
The ideal representation of how tragedy should be, a representation that Aristo-
tle introduced in his treatise, was not independent of the poetic reality of its time.
In his theoretical thinking, the philosopher had unquestionably been influenced
by what he particularly liked in theatrical performance, especially because the
effect that artistic creation had on the audience’s consciousness was extremely
important to him.

Is Poetics a normative treatise?

It is easily noticeable that his writings on poetic art primarily dealt with the general
and not with specific matters, namely with particular poetic creations, even though
the secret of artistic creation could often consist in precisely what distinguishes
it from creations of the same kind: “Trying to pinpoint the essence of poetry” –
Doležel wrote –“poetics lacks the fundamental aspect of poetry: the uniqueness
and variability of its manifestations.”14
Poetics is not, however, reduced to a set of norms intended as a guide for those
who wanted to become initiated into the poetic art or to fathom their theoretical
knowledge with the aim of writing tragedy. The normative discourse blended
with the descriptive one but also with critical judgements, which might appear
as a lack of consistency regarding Aristotle’s firm conviction on how to relate to
poetic activity as a theorist, historian, critic or a mere observer. The axioms that
he had postulated and the precepts that he had developed were not tyrannically
imposed within the Poetics, or at least a reading of the treatise does not imply it.
As predominant as it might be, the normative accommodates both the descrip-
tive and the axiological. The major reference is not, however, the contingency and
variability of the poetic production, but the ideal form of poetry, which means
that from a reference centred on the topicality of the theatrical production of his
time, Aristotle also tended to target, like Plato, the essential and the transcendental.
The radical difference between their conceptions resides in what they understood
by the poetic ideal. Aristotle considered that it was perfectly feasible to materi-
alize these exemplary forms within actual poetry even if they did not abide by
unequivocal moral and ethical standards which, as we have seen, were absolutely
vital to Plato.

14 Doležel, Poetica Occidentală, p. 32.

25
The destiny of Aristotle’s treatise
Paradoxically, Aristotle’s fundamental work was not widely disseminated in an-
tiquity. It became known to the Orient due to a translation in Arabic, whereas in
the Western world it was not truly rediscovered until 1498 when Giorgio Valla’s
Latin translation of it became rapidly widespread throughout Europe.
Nevertheless, Aristotle’s concepts have had an extremely lengthy existence in
spite of the fact that they had not been very accurately defined by their author.
This is why mimesis generated confusion and its ambiguity also favoured abuse of
the term, because nowhere in Aristotle’s Poetics does one find an explicit formula-
tion of the obligation to imitate reality as a whole. Its only prerequisite was that of
imitating people in action. Nonetheless, the Renaissance, which carried forward
the values of antiquity, also imposed a flawed interpretation of mimesis: poetry
had to imitate reality, as its goal consisted precisely in copying nature. That was
the moment when normative poetics, based on laws and canons to be respected,
emerged and firmly dominated literature for centuries, its most radical expression
being 17th century neoclassicism. Therefore Chapelain, a specialist in classical
tragedy, perpetuating Aristotle’s ideas, laid the foundation of the famous rule of
the three unities in the preface that he wrote in 1623 to Marino’s play L’Adone.

1.2.3. The poetics of the Latin space. Epistle to the Pisos

Unfortunately, we know too little about a period extending over three centuries,
the same period that separated Aristotle from Horace. Documents of a probably
inestimable value – which would have facilitated our understanding of the evolu-
tion of ideas, of their diversity and of the respects in which they differed – have
been lost. As for the history of the influence exercised by the Poetics, the Aristo-
telian doctrine had been popularized by Horace long before being rediscovered
during the Renaissance.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, famous for his odes, satires and epistles, wrote An
Epistle to the Pisos15 towards the end of his life (most likely in the year 15 BC) when
he decided to dedicate himself almost entirely to “sapientia,” namely philosophical
and ethical thinking. After a tumultuous existence, his principles became deline-
ated by morality and the recommendations that he made in this small guide to
artistic writing (476 lines) stemmed from his own life experience and, naturally,
from the pertinent observations resulted primarily from the background built up

15 The addressees of this epistle, Lucius Piso and his sons, were well-­known supporters
of art.

26
while being a poet. The term ‘poetic art’ had been given to this work by Quintil-
ian – Horatii de arte poetica liber – and thus it became essential to literary tradition,
a very fruitful tradition indeed as Horace surpassed Plato’s influence and even
Aristotle’s during certain periods.

Studium and ingenium

As stated, Horace also promoted the principle of mimesis although it is unclear
whether he had direct knowledge of the Stagirite’s Poetics. He also brought a per-
sonal development to this theory by advocating the imitation of literary models
(in his opinion, the Greek rather than the Latin ones), a highly valued idea in that
modernity which embraces the belief that one of the main sources of literature is
literature itself: “uos exemplaria Graeca / nocturna uersate manu, uersate diurna”
(lines 268–269 of the epistle). Among Horace’s milestones we, therefore, encounter
the Greek artistic creation that should be studied day and night as Horace mostly
held Homer in high regard. But caution was equally recommended because mod-
els were not to be followed too closely. According to Horace (lines 409–410), the
harmonious intertwining of learning, i.e. stadium, and personal talent, i.e. inge-
nium, had to guide any poetic creation because one without the other would be
worthless: “I don’t see any point either in learning without an abounding vein of
inspiration or in unpolished talent.” This was the answer that the poet gave to a
theoretical matter which was being fervently debated during his time and which
remained a controversial topic in aesthetic theory: to what extent is the work of
art the result of the artist’s natural endowment. Or is it rather an outcome of the
effort invested in it? Consequently, is it skill, technique or talent and inspiration?
Horace’s assumption is that the two do not exclude one another; on the contrary,
they have to coexist.

The principles of Horace’s poetic art

Horace adopted the theory of imitation from Aristotle and, from his perspec-
tive, posterity especially retained his famous comparison of poetry to painting
from which it resulted that the common source of the two types of art would be
the image, ut pictura poesis, a dictum that would preserve its authority from the
Renaissance until Classicism. It is worth mentioning that, before him, Simonides –
mentioned by Plutarch – had drawn this parallel: “Painting is mute poetry, poetry
a speaking picture.”
From Horace’s short but dense poetic art a few core ideas emerged: the scholar
devised a theory of the form and content of artistic creation which had to be
governed by decorum. The latter had initially been an ethical category and after-

27
wards became a rhetorical principle as well, embodying the harmonious relation
and the fair ratio between expression and content, the measure and avoidance
of any excess in any kind of circumstance. On the other hand, the theorist also
took into consideration the poet as an individual who had to be endowed with
several mandatory characteristics for this occupation: a solid education, thorough
knowledge of culture which was not only poetical (as in the study of the Greeks
day and night…) but also philosophical. A serious self-­directed critical examina-
tion was highly recommended in order for creators of poetry to become aware
of their abilities and skills with a view to choosing the appropriate subjects in
accordance with their own capacity. This is a fundamental praeceptum: one has
to know how to select the subject because an inspired choice always brings about
an inspired style and layout of the entire poetic craft.
Horace’s conception, according to which one of the exigencies that must be
imposed upon the poet is virtue, is also of Platonic origin. How would he other-
wise be able to advocate good deeds without supporting them in private life as
well? Therefore one could easily understand that, to Horace, the moral content of
poetry was extremely important because it was considered a veritable repository
of wisdom and knowledge within society, a view that, this time, sets him apart
from Plato who had the least confidence in the values that poetry may comprise.
Actually, the moral and the educational functions were considered a priority for
the poetic art as conceived by Horace. He therefore succeeded in accommodating
in his theory both the ethical demands, of Platonic origin, and Aristotle’s confi-
dence in the genuine value of poetry which could not necessarily be considered,
in Aristotle’s view, of didactic value. It is equally true that the Latin author kept in
mind the fact that arid content, however necessary for moral development, is not
effective unless it is presented in an appealing fashion. Qui miscuit utile dulci is yet
another principle handed down from Horace which, along with others, earned his
fame. Hence poetry had to be equally usefulness and pleasure, intellectual effort
and poetic indulgence, life lessons in a skilfully built form.

Horace’s vision of drama

The main reference in Horace’s work is to drama which is given the importance
of a privileged genre, a fairly interesting fact if we take into account the fact that
in the reign of Augustus, in which Horace lived, the production of drama was
virtually insignificant. Probably the very prestige of Greek models had inspired
the invention of such a theory that ended up having a tremendous influence upon
the creation of drama thereafter. The same happened to the recommendation to
abide by the five-­act structure, an indication that afterwards became one of the

28
fundamentals of Renaissance and, later on, thanks to Horace, of classical tragedy
as well.
Mindful of all the difficulties that a playwright might come across, the theorist
acknowledged the undoubtable difficulty of inventing new characters but, when
lacking inspiration, the collection of legendary characters could offer valuable
indications. However, “if you introduce a yet unknown type on the stage and you
dare to invent an entirely new character, make sure it remains as you intended it
from the very beginning until the end, consistent with the character that you had
endowed it with.”16 For Horace, this consistency meant respecting a truth that life
itself offered (ficta proxima ueris). Hence, being unaware of the manner in which
an elderly man speaks and behaves as opposed to, for instance, a young man, a
merchant or a farmer, could only be detrimental to the authenticity of the char-
acters. The verisimilitude of any creation, to which Aristotle also referred previ-
ously, is conferred by the adaptation to the specificity of age, status, occupation or
nationality by means of an appropriate discourse pattern for every situation and
through suitable metrics (decentem). Anchoring artistic creation – which could
also verge on fantasy, within limits – within plain reality was undoubtedly a point
of interest to Horace for the moral and educational impact that poetry could have
upon its audience. Inspired by real life, characters and situations might be appeal-
ing for precisely this reason, thus influencing those members of the audience who
might have something to learn from what they saw.
The poet had to be careful not only when it came to choosing or imagining
characters but also in the coherent construction of the plot and of the denoue-
ment, in full accordance with the logic of the action. Ordo, that is the order of
words as well as of the very components of creation in a single unit, emerged as
one of the poetic principles to which the poet had to give his undivided atten-
tion. That is because the subject and characters had to be integrated into suitable
settings in order for the entire poetic endeavour to lure and to delight and, at the
same time, to exercise a concrete influence over the audience who could therefore
be given valuable lessons in conduct.

The ensuing influence of Horace’s poetic art

Horace’s poetic art, without being sophisticated, had a significant impact on
the poetic reflection of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, because it was
regarded as one of the aurei libelli, which meant that it was considered even

16 In D. M. Pippidi, Formarea ideilor literare în Antichitate. Schiță istorică, (Iași: Polirom
Publishing House, 2003), pp. 144–145.

29
more important than Aristotle’s Poetics. The thorough study of the Greek liter-
ary models, his main reference, inspired him to devise all the rules and precepts
worth observing in the poetic activity. And if his poetic art became so successful
during the following periods, it was probably due to the coincidence of inter-
est in the same reference: the Greek culture of antiquity seen as the peak of
the aesthetic thinking of mankind. Proposing governing principles of drama, a
genre which was comparatively unappealing to his contemporaries, the author
of the Epistle to the Pisos was establishing, without even being aware of it, the
normative content, namely the set of regulations for the future, Horace thus
becoming a reference himself. It was equally important that he had the same
concern for the two essential aspects of every literary work: the subject, the
content of ideas, and the manner in which they were expressed, which was not
without effect upon the consciousness of the creators as well as of the theorists
of poetics in the periods that followed. Castelvero, Du Bellay and Sidney were
the most important theorists of the 16th century to whom Horace was a source
of inspiration.17 Undoubtedly the most Horatian of the 17th century theorists
was Boileau with his famous Art of Poetry (1674).

1.2.4. The poetics of the Latin world. The treatise On the Sublime

The treatise On the Sublime had a privileged role among the works of criticism,
poetics and rhetoric of antiquity although it was neither cited nor mentioned
in them in order at least to certify its circulation at the time of its appearance
or even later. For precisely that reason the identification of its author has been
merely a matter of speculation. It cannot be claimed with absolute certainty that
it is by Dionysius Longinus, Dionysus of Halicarnassus or Cassius Longinus. It
is, however, a fact that the author is a rhetorician,18 conventionally referred to as
pseudo-­Longinus. He probably wrote his treatise in the first half of the 1st century
AD and examined one of the categories that ended up having the most significant
impact upon, as we know, Kant’s philosophical work as well as upon the entire
Romantic period, a category that would eventually lay the foundation of modern
aesthetics alongside other categories.

17 On the other hand, there is another famous name, Scaliger who, in 1561, criticized
Horace’s poetic art by claiming that it “educated” with so little … art, that the entire
work seemed more of a satire (Poetics).
18 It is believed that Anonymous was a naturalized Greek Jew living in Rome, taking
into account the fact that he considered himself Greek but he proved to have solid
knowledge of the Judaic faith.

30
 Until then, however, the treatise On the Sublime functioned as a link between
Classicism and the Enlightenment due to Boileau’s translation of the book into
French that he published during the same year as his Art of Poetry, namely 1674.
The rediscovery of this anonymous writing of antiquity, however, was the merit of
Francesco Robortello who published it in 1554 but, at that time, it remained com-
paratively unnoticed.19 An entirely different impact was made by the translation
into English by John Hall in 1652 and Boileau’s above-­mentioned translation into
French. Boileau had been aware from the very beginning that he was dealing with
an “excellent” study that very few had really understood. The French translator
noted that the author of the treatise who was “the most famous and erudite critic
of antiquity” and who analysed the sublime “was himself sublime.”

The complexity of the sublime

The main reference of the treatise, hypsos, which meant peak, ridge, or summit,
had been translated by ‘sublime’.20 This is, in the view of the anonymous writer,
“the echo of a great soul”; it is the characteristic of monumental creations, the
feature that can be equally encountered at the level of content and at the level of
expression in the writings of geniuses such as Homer, Demosthenes and Plato who
were admiringly considered almost demigods. It is a rare mixture of intuition,
inspiration, enthusiasm and elation, but also of transcendence, “an intuition of
the truth, of the latent being within all things,”21 as Marc Fumaroli described it.
The dispute in which Horace had also been involved concerneing the impor-
tance of the contribution of natural endowment to artistic creations and the ex-
tent of the input of other elements such as toil and precision of refinement was
resumed by the author of the treatise On the Sublime. Thus, he would rather
find excuses for the small imperfections of genius than declare his enthusiasm
for the strenuous, correct but mediocre work of someone who was striving to
abide by the rules. The treatise seemed, as Alexandre Gefen22 rightly remarked, a
sort of Aristotelian anti-­Poetics as it opposed any rationalization of the mimetic
phenomenon. The shift of emphasis that Aristotle had originally placed on the
typical and universal, on the atypical, on brilliance, on what is uncommon and

19 With the exception of Francesco Patrizzi who used to make reference to it and com-
ment upon it.
20 The title Peri Hypsous could be translated as greatness or magnificence.
21 Marc Fumaroli, “Le grand style” in: Qu’est-­ce-­que le style? (Paris: PUF, 1994), p. 142.
22 This statement can be found in the collected works entitled La Mimèsis. Gefen, Alex-
andre, ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 2002).

31
above average, is the main source of compatibility between the perception of the
anonymous author of the treatise and the precepts of Romanticism, except that,
if later on, for the Romantics, poetry is considered the almost unique repository
of imagination, the pseudo-­Longinus distinguished between imagination inclined
towards exaggeration in poetry and the restrained imagination of prose and ora-
tory which were more dependent on truth and reality. Fantasy plays a crucial role
in artistic composition, according to the interpretation of the anonymous writer,
and because this characteristic of art is positively valued not only by Romanticism
but also by modernity, one realizes why the treatise On the Sublime is one of the
most important references in aesthetics.

The sources of the sublime

The order that the author decided upon when presenting the sources of the sub-
lime wasdefinitely hierarchical. In the foreground there were the solid and noble
ideas that stemmed from the reasoning of the genius as great writers reach the
sublime through the greatness of their own thinking. Therefore, the first reference
and the main source of the sublime is the very nature of the author. Adjacent to
this source of the sublime is the inspiration of masterpieces, of history and poetry.
The association with Horatian thought can still be made as once again we are not
dealing with a subservient type of imitation but rather with an empathic com-
munion between model and the one that creatively reflects it. The grandeur of the
written work, its brilliance, is thus determined to an overwhelming extent by the
author’s choice of content. The form that ideas take is just as important. It is true
that the anonymous author, a rhetorician as stated above, paid the same attention
to the qualities of discourse, the elocutio section within the rhetorical structure.
The enumeration of the sources of the sublime brings about a rather interesting
insertion between the two classical components of a literary work: the system of
ideas and the one of expression. It is emotion, regarded as part and parcel of the
arsenal of the sublime. Unfortunately, a gap in the text hindered a more detailed
account of the author’s vision of this source of the sublime which came second
in his hierarchy. Undoubtedly it involved the emotion of creation, but mostly the
intensity of the emotion experienced by the audience and by the readers to whom
one may convey a unique sensation that pseudo-­Longinus called ecstasy, eksta-
sis. Consequently, the greatness of the work is attested by the affective response
that it receives.23 Aristotle did not minimize the affective value of poetry either,

23 Some scholars considered that the echoes of the conflict between the representatives
of the Attic and Asiatic styles could be discerned.

32
its cathartic purification through tragic emotion being one of the aims that any
author of tragedy should have pursued. But the author considered the affective
reaction triggered by the work of art its main form of axiological validation. Nor
is this mere attraction. The degrees of intensity of the emotion as well as their
depth are important, and it is only ecstasy that engulfs the soul, thus being above
mere persuasion, pleasure or delight.
The other sources of the sublime, all connected to the formal aspect of the
creation, the figures (both of thought and of speech), and the inspired choice of
words that form the sentences of a written work, are no less the endowment of
exceptional artistic thought. Thus, knowing the purely technical aspects is not
useless (in fact the author tackles them with pedagogical thoroughness), but nor
is it enough. Genius is equally required in this respect. Finally, the mixture of
admiration, awe and surprise that results from the greatness of the idea and the
exquisiteness of discourse all contribute to the creation of this ecstatic affective
disposition, which is both the best marker of the existence of the sublime and the
best certification of the durability of the creation: “true beauty and the sublime
have been cherished by everyone at all times,” the author claims. The enthusiastic
trust in the endurance of art and in theeternal values can undoubtedly be ex-
plained by the following assertion: written works that had been created centuries
ago managed to preserve their inventiveness and inspired the same aesthetic ela-
tion and emotion. The author would harshly judge the decline that he had noticed
in his contemporaries’ artistic production and even found the main cause of this
state of affairs, namely their almost exclusive interest in money. Yet art rises above
contingency, goes beyond petty interests, and brings about the spiritual affirma-
tion of the human being.

The sublime, a transgeneric aesthetic category

The unifying principle chosen by the anonymous author, i.e. the sublime, suc-
ceeded in conferring a rarely-­encountered coherence on the critical vision due to
its transgeneric character. The examples provided by the author brought together
poets, rhetoricians and philosophers, equally connecting them to various types
of art. Alongside poetry there were painting, sculpture and music. Nor were il-
lustrative metaphors inspired by the most overwhelming natural phenomena
overlooked: lightning, torrent, large rivers, Etna, etc. …
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian formalists insisted on the need
to study literature from the perspective of techniques, an idea which was more
recently embraced and developed theoretically by Gérard Genette. The aesthetic
category of the sublime can therefore be considered a guiding principle. The dif-

33
ference from the theories of the 20th century consists in the emphasis laid on the
affective involvement of the reader, the effect for which the artistic creation rep-
resents the starting point, and the reference as well as the outcome of the creative
effort deployed by a brilliant writer.
Quality, which is considered fundamental to a genuinely great work of art, is
the reference in this case: the sublime is a feature that is not only dependent upon
style, as it had been mistakenly believed. The amendment was made by pseudo-­
Longinus’ French translator, Boileau: “One has to be aware” – he noted – “that by
Longinus’ Sublime we don’t imply what the rhetoricians call the sublime style, but
the extraordinary and the miraculous that emerge from the discourse in such a
way as for the respective creation to be able to elevate, to delight, to carry away.
The sublime style always seeks great words, but the Sublime can only be found in
a single thought, in a single figure, in a single turn of phrase. Something might be
presented in sublime style and still not be sublime; in other words, it might have
nothing extraordinary or surprising about it. For example, the supreme Judge of
Nature made light with only one word. This is something that was uttered in a sub-
lime manner but which is not however sublime, because there is nothing wonder-
ful about it. Nonetheless, And God said: Let there be light! And there was light, is an
extraordinary expression which is truly sublime and has something divine in it.”24
The sublime is nevertheless a difficult objective to achieve and that is precisely why
the text has a predominantly prescriptive character. It is also important to notice
the view on literature conveyed indirectly in the argumentation: this type of art
can teach us greatness, splendour and magnificence, the most valuable qualities
of human nature, as well as the most skilful ways of talking about all the above.

1.3. The survival of poetics during the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance
At the beginning of the Middle Ages there had been relatively little debate on
poetics although it continued to be a subject of study. However, its autonomy
and independent existence were constantly jeopardized by interference or rather
by its attraction within the spheres of interest of other disciplines. It was either
grammar or rhetoric, and in the 12th century it was logic, that assimilated the do-
main of poetics which seemed to have metrics and prosody as unique references
and objects of study. That was totally against Aristotle’s firm recommendation,
made from the very beginning of his treatise, that poetry should not be defined

24 Histoire des poétiques, ed. Jean Bessière, Eva Kushner, Roland Mortier and Jean Weis-
gerber, (Paris: PUF, 1997), pp. 197–198.

34
and validated according to the criterion of versification. Nevertheless, it is true
that the Middle Ages, not as indebted to classical tradition as the Renaissance,
superficially came into contact with the Poetics only through a commentary made
by Averroes and translated into Latin in the 13th century. By no means does this
imply that the principle of mimesis, i.e. imitatio, was no longer applicable within
art theory and criticism. Furthermore, the connotations of the term were numer-
ous, just as they proved to be during the Renaissance: inventio, fictio, fabula, and
the versatile semantic reality of this concept will hardly render the task of defining
it theoretically any easier, a task that had to be and still must be carried out by
the poetics scholar.

Poetry and the Scripture

A new problem, namely the relationship between poetry and the Scriptures, was
at the centre of the humanistic debate throughout the 15th century, representing
a different theoretical manifestation of the question of the status and importance
of art as well as of its “truthfulness”. To provide but one example, Boccaccio, in
his Trattatello in laude di Dante or in Esposizoni sopra la “Commedia,” but also in
De genealogia deorum gentilium, analysed the concept of theologia poetica. The
credit that Aristotle had given to poetry was thus given a new avatar through Boc-
caccio’s sincere and manifest confidence, whose position was not unique in the
almost sacred mission of poetry. The latter, similarly to theology and philosophy,
is the repository of truth that can be expressed by ways that are specific to its field.
Yet the truth in question is not, however, accessible to anyone, as not everyone is
worthy or capable of discovering it. The esoteric endeavor that the uncovering of
the poetic truth presupposed only sublimated poetry itself, which thus acquired a
symbolic weight that went well beyond mere entertainment. Furthermore, this im-
plies that a truly valuable poet had become an ethical subject, an individual whose
probity could never be questioned. Dante, who had memorably advocated virtue
and spoken against vice in his artistic creation, was a good example for Boccaccio
and his contemporaries. The pedestal on which poetry had been placed was the
one on which poets themselves were also placed, their prestige being greater when
considered poetae vates, visionaries who were able to see the hidden meaning of
the world that they inscribed in their texts as God had inscribed the supreme
Truth within the text of the world. The poetic truth, also secret and waiting to be
revealed, was dissimulated behind the poetic images meant to reconstitute the
forms of nature as accurately as possible.
The ethical concern was not, however, the only one of great importance.
Throughout the 14th century as well as throughout the 15th, poets and theorists

35
of poetics strived to formulate a poetic ideal, a point of reference resulting from
the most harmonious merging of the ethical, usefulness and the aesthetic. It was
believed that this ideal was attainable in view of such masterpieces as Dante’s,
despite the challenges that the achievement of this ideal always presupposed.

Normativity and the doctrine of similarity

Normative poetry, which was shaped during the Renaissance and was at its peak
during 17th century neoclassicism, was based on confidence in the power of the
model. This led to the persistent practice of formulating laws, recipes extracted
from the very structure of masterpieces, which were considered to be generally
valid due to their timelessness. The absolute confidence in the perpetuity of the
model, one of the major references of the theorists of poetics of the period in
question, led to the radicalization of the doctrine of mimesis in an impressive
production of critical texts. The 17th century abounded in general or specialized
poetics in prose or poetry, in the form of pamphlets, prefaces, letters … This
could be perceived as a constant preoccupation that denoted a vivid and extensive
interest in the art of words.
This doctrine of similarity with the world, an imperative that every poetic activ-
ity had to abide by, acquired especial prestige during the Renaissance. But it was
not a matter of conceptual innovation, but only a new version of the Aristotelian
mimesis, the second important reference on poetics in the period in question,
alongside the replication of authorized literary models, namely the intertextual
imitation of tradition.
The rediscovery of Aristotle during the Renaissance was a truly important event,
although his poetic theory was filtered through Horace and his vision of the sub-
ject.25 It is also worth noting that the letter and spirit of the Poetics were altered and
so was the concept of mimesis. The norm resorted to, not only in the 17th century, but
throughout the entire 18th century, was the norm of similarity which entailed that
the works of art had to resemble nature. On closer inspection, though, the difficulties
of abiding by such a principle emerge at once. First, the artist did not have much
liberty, nor did his art have the slightest chance of competing with nature which was
perfect in its divine organization. The attempt to imitate the world had become a
sine qua non prerequisite of any creation, but the relationship was ultimately one of
subordination, not equality, as nature was always finer. Then there is the dilemma
of the extent to which the artist had to know this reality in order to be able to re-

25 We have seen, for instance, how important was the balance between the useful and the
pleasant in artistic creation.

36
produce it. Was it necessary to conduct a thorough study, similar to that performed
by a scientist? And if it did not live up to the model, was the image of reality that
the artist offered still acceptable? Last but not least, there was also the matter of the
confusion regarding who had the right to decide the degree of resemblance between
the representation and the reproduced object and whether this similitude could be
considered a mark of value. Obviously, the norm of similarity was quite inaccurate,
and it could not constitute a valid criterion in the evaluation of the relationship
established between art and reality in general. Furthermore, complying with the
canon must have been very problematic.
In fact, the oversights were even present at the theoretical level. It is true that
the main mission of the poet was the mimetic one, but poetic invention also had
to be taken into account. Sir Philip Sidney, for instance, believed that invention
could lead to the creation of even better things than those found in nature, which
actually represented a defiance of the norm of similarity to nature. The exceptions
did not only confirm the rule, but they also exposed its shortcomings. Moreover,
one must not underestimate the long-­term consequences of such views. Thus, the
European Baroque had been prepared for it ever since theorists were no longer
afraid to replace the mimesis with the miraculous.26
It was only a synthetic overview that revealed the theoretical project, the histori-
cally- dated formulae which were specific to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The connection between art and reality, the relationship between the literary dis-
course and the truth as well as with prominent literary works and, finally, with the
status of the inspired poet as “craftsman,” had been the focal points of theoretical
reflection for several centuries, from the Middle Ages to the 18th century.

1.4. Between mimesis and poiesis. The 18th century

Normative poetics was ousted with great difficulty after it had been unequivocally
dominant for centuries. As Genette pointed out, Batteux’s27 1747 treatise, in which
the author advocated imitation as the foundation of literature, represented “the
last effort of classic poetics to survive.”28 As a matter of fact, the main feature of

26 In 1586 Francesco Patrizzi, for example, would contradict Aristotle’s followers and
rejected the idea of writing a poem based on credibility, verisimilitude and truth.
According to him, only the miraculous and its sources were important within artistic
creation.
27 The treatise is entitled Traité des Beaux-­Arts réduits à un seul principe.
28 Gérard Genette, Introducere în arhitext. Ficţiune şi dicţiune, trans. Ion Pop (Bucharest:
Univers Publishing House, 1994), p. 41.

37
this century was a hesitation between banishment or refusal of the old norms and
canons and the impossibility of relinquishing them altogether. Although during
this period one cannot speak about the existence of a genuine poetics or aesthet-
ics, the 18th century however announced, due to its strive towards innovation and
its increasing interest in human individuality, the great mutations of modernity
which were bound to happen in the 19th century and mostly in the 20th century.
Significant changes were needed at all levels, especially at the level of mentality,
in order for the aesthetics of norms, of generally valid “recipes”, to be dethroned.
Antiquity ceased to represent an unattainable pinnacle, the imitation of nature
replaced that of literary models, and artists would more ever more fiercely claim
their independence and their right to creative liberty as they were tired of abid-
ing by the rules.
All the concepts that were in direct connection with literary mimesis were grad-
ually redefined; for instance, the concept of verisimilitude was now conditioned
by emotion and not by reason, whereas implacable destiny yielded to the repre-
sentation of passion. The collapse of confidence in objective laws, the increasing
regard for taste, imagination and originality – in a word, subjectivity – constituted
the premises for the expansion of an intuitionist aesthetics. Nevertheless, poetics
is essentially a theory of knowledge. When confronted with the ever-­progressing
subjective factor, it could lose the specificity which also ensured its identity. There-
fore the rationalist approach to literary arguments was not abandoned, but poetics
strove for a better grasp of receptiveness and to formulate, to a reasonable extent,
a rationale of receptivity.

The aesthetics of Bodmer and Breitinger

A very important contribution was made by the Swiss founders of the news aes-
thetics of the 18th century; one of their most important sources of inspiration was
Leibniz and his theory of possible worlds. Although literary works served as an
example to the philosopher, the imaginary worlds mostly explained philosophi-
cal matters, especially the category of possibility, and were not used for theories
regarding the artistic field. It was the merit of the Swiss aestheticians, Bodmer
and Breitinger, who used this theory productively in the interests of literature:
“Any well written poem” – Breitinger wrote – “has to be, therefore, regarded as
a story that emerges from another possible world. This perspective entitles the
poet to the name poietes, i.e. ‘creator’, as through his art he is not only capable of
endowing invisible things with visible appearances, but also to create things which
are not dependent upon sensory perception, specifically to turn their possible
state into their actual state, and thus present them with an appearance and names

38
of realities.”29 This quotation also lays emphasis on the substantial difference in
points of representation compared with normative poetics. Art – formerly subject
to nature – winds up being its competitor, the artist equalling nature through the
force of his imagination, although this is not exactly a creative endeavour but
rather the discovery of a world.
The doctrine of mimesis is not entirely abolished because, in Swiss aesthetics, it
is still a matter of imitation, the only difference being that it is a “possible world”
that is being imitated and not the real one, a world which still precedes the artistic
act and is not shaped by and through it. Nature is therefore enriched in such a way
that not only the real world is part of it but also the multitude of possible worlds;
it has its own structure and it is not merely an idealized variant. And it is precisely
these worlds that poetry “imitates”. Hence, another step was taken towards the
dissociation from reality both of the artist and of his work.

Goethe, the mimetic theory and the organic model

A prominent personality of the 18th century, Goethe founded his entire vision and
artistic creation on the classic theory of mimesis but also realized that art is nei-
ther entirely mimetic nor totally poietic. A work of his, Einfache Nachahmung der
Natur, Manier, Stil, was published in 1789 and featured the three “stages” or levels
of representation of nature. The artist aimed to create a faithful representation of
reality by trying to construct an image of it which should have been as accurate as
possible; hence the first stage is attained when the talented artist skilfully imitates
nature which could give precision and strength to his creation. However, because
the object cannot be reproduced or transposed into art with all its abundance of
details, the artist’s mission calls for choice, for selection – actions that Goethe
labelled “manner” – and which already denote subjectivity and imagination. In
the 18th century this was not yet a creative component of the human psyche, able
to dislodge the ego from the reality, as it became much later. According to the
general view, the imagination, a feature that allows for impressions in the absence
of objects, was subject to reason.
Finally, “style” was the epitome of art. In order to reach it, the artist had to go
through “imitation” and “manner,” but to leave them behind. He is thus capable,
according to Goethe, of seeing beyond the ephemera of appearances and grasps
the essence of things, to a degree whereknowing this essence in visible and palpa-
ble forms is permitted to us. The two concurrent truths thus become prominent:
the truth of nature and the truth of art that do not visibly overlap. We therefore

29 Doležel, Poetica Occidentală, p. 47.

39
infer that reference is not easily discernible every single time because the truth
that the artist offers is not, in Goethe’s view, mere invention but a superior truth
which renders nature in its refined form, in its essence.
The mimetic theory thus kept its basic configuration but a breach was still
created within it, just as in the theoretical system of the above-­mentioned aes-
theticians Bodmer and Breitinger. Although it does not relinquish the idea of
its ability and mission to mirror, imitation can have as “object” an alleged reality
that is no longer visible or perceivable. It was not just a matter of reproducing an
existing model but mostly of imitating an ideal reality. The breach, through its
gradual aggravation, would eventually lead to the erosion of the mimetic theory
in its classical form.
It was also Goethe who devised the organic model in the science of literature.
As he was interested in poetry, aesthetics and natural sciences alike, Goethe
keenly studied morphology30 as he was convinced of the fact that works of art
have “an organic nature”, resembling living nature through their very own variety
and structural unity. The morphological poetics laid great emphasis on the par-
allel between the world of plants and literature, on the resemblance of literature
to an organism, and found the most diverse similarities: structure, emergence,
evolution and extinction. The idea of this parallel was quite long-­lasting as the
20th century still considered it valid, even though, as Adrian Marino rightfully
pointed out, the “lifetime” of art has nothing in common with the “lifetime” of
life.31

Themes in the philosophy of art of the 18th century

The classic view proved its resilience as many theorists had no doubt regarding
the rightness of the theory of art as imitation and had no intention whatsoever of
undermining it. In the particular case of Italy, there was even a tendency to return
to the classical formulae, after a baroque period perceived as a time of imaginative
exaggerations. Hence, in the 18th century Italian literary world, there was a very
marked reaction against pretentiousness and against the baroque spirit which was
considered excessively artificial.
During this century, Western cultures witnessed a perpetuation of the debates
on matters that had aroused the interest of the aestheticians and theorists of po-

30 Morphology is the theory of the formation of organic bodies out of individual parts.
Hence, several parts form a superior order, i.e. complex structures.
31 Adrian Marino, Introducere în critica literară, (Craiova: Aius Print Publishing House,
2007), p. 39.

40
etry of the past, such as the importance of the moral truth in art,32 the philosophi-
cal matter of beauty which is directly linked to that of the sublime,33 and also to
that of taste. The understanding of the theoretical core of these concepts, which
have always been veritable pillars of aesthetic reflection, went through a process
of refinement and its dilemmas were mainly connected with the balance between
subjectivity and objectivity, which decisively intervene in the creative faculties and
in the perceptive ones. The aestheticians of this century have frequently wondered
whether beauty is subjective, in other words, dependent upon human conscious-
ness, or objectively exists in the surrounding world. On the other hand, taste has in
its turn proved to be a sensitive topic as several aestheticians attempted to answer
the question regarding the extent to which one can speak about a law of taste or
the possibility to train it when it seems rather to be innate, a purely subjective fact,
so arbitrary that it is beyond rational control.34
Matters related to art philosophy were, for many 18th century theorists, the
reference to art, but the attitude towards the classical theory made the difference
between them. For some of them, the idea of questioning it was therefore unac-
ceptable. Yet others, theorists and creators who paved the way for the poetics of
Romanticism, did not hide their interest in what is uncommon, original or even
deviant in art and they did not hesitate overtly to criticize the persistence of some
doctrines that they had once considered obsolete. Edward Young, for instance,
labelled imitation as a “meddling ape,” an elementary exercise; Lessing, in his fa-
mous theory,35 laid emphasis not on the resemblance between poetry and painting
rendered by the famous quotation ut pictura poesis, but rather on the differences
between the two. Poetry as the art of time and action differs from painting which
is the art of space and colour. As for Herder, he believed that imitation and its as-

32 The persistence of Plato’s theory of essences is still visible in the consideration of the
mission of art which, according to some, ought to approach only moralizing topics
with a view to unveiling the world’s ultimate truth, the moral truth.
33 In England, Burke wrote the most original treatise on beauty and the sublime before
Kant’s, continuing the traditional view of these fundamental coordinates of art which
trigger a specific, affective and emotional reaction. Burke did not only aim to find the
sources of beauty and of the sublime but also the types of aesthetic pleasure that they
engender.
34 It was still Burke who believed that taste could be perfected and that a pattern of taste
could equally be traced. Furthermore, H. Home (Lord Kames) recommended that good
taste and, eventually, one general norm regarding taste be established with reference
to the exclusive environment of the ones who were born with this feature and who
refined it through cultural and personal reflection.
35 Presented in the essay Laocoon.

41
sociated concept, i.e. verisimilitude, were relative. He pointed out that the world
was allegorical and that the symbolic content is also very significant. Then why
should art not be allegorical, symbolical, less concerned with imitation and more
oriented towards imagination? Moreover, Herder was in fact outraged that genius
was barred by rules and that therefore it was constrained when the liberty of the
creators should be nourished, encouraged and absolutely unrestricted.
The reference to art, the fundamental concern of the 18th century theorists of
poetry and aestheticians, was still the concept of mimesis which continued to alter
and to change its valences, sometimes unperceptively and at other times more
noticeably. At the same time, the collapse of this classic doctrine becomes apparent
in an indirect manner. Not only the creators but also the theorists started to be
interested in subjectivity and the artistic act as an ineffable, mysterious, fascinat-
ing and undefinable phenomenon. This reference, which was difficult to pinpoint
from a conceptual point of view, would trigger significant changes in the structure
of poetics as a discipline in the 19th century.

1.5. Poetics in the age of Romanticism

Two great revolutions, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in
England (which happened between 1760 and 1860) generated important shifts in
the European communities, but also overseas, in countries that thus passed from
feudalism to the bourgeois political and social order. As usually happens in such
circumstances, changes occurred at all levels of existence as the new mentality
brought about the appropriation of an equally new set of values. Views changed
and the reform of thought was compelled by the rise of the bourgeoisie, the revo-
lutionary class that imposed economic and political liberalism, and focused on
science, technology and, obviously, on their associated rationalism. Nevertheless,
rationalism as the genuine propeller of the modern economies was less consonant
with the aesthetics and with the sensibility of the period in question. Likewise,
individualism and nationalism at a macrosocial level had had an increasingly
significant contribution up to the point when they became fundamental concepts
that managed to overshadow formerly dominant ideologies based on tradition,
order and moderation, obsessively under the influence of statutory models.
Aesthetics and general taste shifted from object to subject, thus giving promi-
nence to the sensibility and to the uniqueness of the creator’s voice. The dreary
temperance, self-­restraint and reason which had been recommended to artists
for a considerable time were replaced by passion, spontaneity and by experiential
authenticity. Genius and the freedom implied by its status were revered, even
though only declaratively. The autonomy of art was eagerly acclaimed, and any

42
interventions which would give more prominence to other functions than the
aesthetic one when it came to art were subjected to harsh criticism. The moral and
the utilitarian, educational or social functions do not and should not prevail in
the artistic world. Ingenuity, the freshness of nature and simple living were among
the elements included in Jean-­Jacques Rousseau’s project which was enthusiasti-
cally adopted and enriched both by the theorists of poetry and by the writers of
the Romantic period. Life became more and more vibrant, and civilization was
equated with artificiality and corruption. This was precisely the reason why a
return to unspoilt nature, to the primordial and harmonious life, was advocated,
which was a profoundly idealized and slightly escapist pursuit.

The Western Romantic theory

Within the aesthetics of Romanticism there are some cultures which are very
often invoked when reference is made to the ideology of the trend. For example,
in the particular case of German Romanticism, almost all its representative writ-
ers were also theorists. Along the lines of Kantian idealism, Novalis, Schlegel and
Hoffmann dealt with the idea of beauty whose relativity they also insisted upon.
There was also a concern with the importance of the imagination in the artistic
act, with the weight of the symbolical and of the allusive, with the enchantment
of conundrums and mystery and with the extent to which excessive rationalism
destroys the emotions that art was supposed to stir. Poetry was also seen as more
than a mere enterprise, as an essential activity and a state of our being which is
quite impossible to define. Having made these statements, Novalis had the ap-
proval of almost all the representatives of Romanticism who were themselves
fascinated with the art of the ineffable, which offers safe access to the innermost
self, one that is the least altered by the conventions upon which human existence is
the most dependent. For theorists and creators, the reference focused on a wide ar-
ray of favourite themes such as pristine nature, the national past, and popular art.
Taste and sensibility were regenerated through these new sources of inspiration.
With regard to French Romanticism, the most important role in the populari-
zation and institutionalization of this trend’s ideology was played by Madame
de Staël. Even though the most frequently cited is her 1814 work De l’Allemagne,
Germaine de Staël noticed, as early as 1800 when her work De la littérature was
published, the differences between French culture, which was tributary to the
Greek-­Latin tradition, and primarily the German culture but also the British
which conformed more closely to to the direction of Romanticism. Madame de
Staël claimed that northern societies have a more acute sense of pain than of pleas-
ure; hence their imagination is richer and more inclined towards melancholy. Like

43
Rousseau, she ardently pleaded for “the progress of literature, namely perfecting
the art of thought and speech” which were necessary for safekeeping and securing
freedom, and when she referred to the skills involved in artistic creation, the claim
was that imagination was more valuable than reason.
Victor Hugo, in his Preface to Cromwell, also marked an important moment in
the configuration of the French ideology of Romanticism by vehemently speaking
against models and traditions, be they ancient or foreign. That was because the
modern genius was more complex, more varied, in clear contrast with “the uni-
form simplicity of the ancient genius.” It was high time that artistic value did not
depend on the cultural level of writers and on their skill of reproducing models.
Society thus assumed its new role. Being less “educated,” it could no longer find
spiritual and intellectual inspiration in something foreign and incomprehensible.

1.5.1. Wordsworth and Coleridge, the precursors of the poetics of

Modernity
Modern poetics originated in the pre-­Romantic and Romantic periods. The
famous authors Wordsworth and Coleridge were also considered theorists of
Romanticism, although there was no doctrine or a coherent system of thought
functioning as a critical system that the two had founded. There were only a few
theoretical texts and, above all, the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, a common36
volume considered as such because initially, Wordsworth and Coleridge used to
have many shared views on art. Their dissent emerged when the second edition
of the volume was published, two years after the first, namely in 1800. To the
1798 volume William Wordsworth decided to add a Preface in order to clarify
some aspects related to his own creations, but these explanations ended up being
deemed generally valid, comparable to a literary manifesto. Coleridge, in his turn,
wanted to outline his own view which was in disagreement with Wordsworth’s
with regard to some issues, although the theorists of poetics have often pointed
out that the two points of view were complementary rather than antagonistic.

Wordsworth
The coordinates of the standard Romantic view are readily discernible. Hence,
the return to nature and to the inspiration that it provides, were certainly not new
topics. Rousseau and William Duff had already discussed this issue. Nevertheless,

36 The anthology comprised twenty poems by Wordsworth and three poems written by
Coleridge.

44
Wordsworth insisted upon its importance as he considered it the most direct and
unique way to rediscover a kind of receptivity that had been greatly endangered by
industrialization and urbanization. This is precisely the reason why plain rural life
was praised, especially for its spiritual benefits. Deeply involved in the quest for
authentic living, Wordsworth denounced the ephemerality of the city, thus finding
salvation in the eternity of nature. The profound, pure, essential emotions and
experiences can be revealed, he claimed, only by being in harmony with nature.
More than anyone else, the poet is endowed with a greater ability to grasp the
profound nature of the world.
In his view, imagination, which is the remarkable ability that allows for such
accomplishments, is not at odds with reason but rather completes it by being, at
the same time, directly connected to the senses that are otherwise controlled in
order to prevent the “tyranny” of the senses. Therefore imagination is the privi-
leged manner in which the poet, an individual who possesses an above-­average
sensibility, succeeds in understanding the world as it is, beyond appearances.
The comprehension of eternal truths and universal principles through poetry
advocated by Wordsworth denotes the canonical nature of his perspective. Thus
he was in agreement with Aristotle but equally pointed out that it is not the “indi-
vidual and local” truth that poetry targets, but “the general and operational” one.
In fact, the classical ideal intertwines with the romantic one. Poetry is considered
a rational endeavour and not the result of random or chaotic inspiration because
“it is the beginning and the end of any learning process.” This traditionalist view
is interwoven with the Romantic one. Remnants of classical poetics continued to
persist even during the Romantic period; thus classical and Romantic elements
coexisted in the works of many representative writers. The poet had to be able to
establish the connection between the inner world and the outer world of nature.
The emphasis was thus laid on restoring the bond that art has or should have with
life, with what matters to human beings and represents their constant focus, and
which can easily become an inspiration for artistic creation.
The poetics of transparency and simplicity that Wordsworth nourished did
not exclude an issue that was considered a coordinate of theoretical thinking,
namely that of the specific verbal channel used in artistic communication. Hence
both Wordsworth and Coleridge vehemently criticized the language of neoclas-
sical poetry for its pretentiousness and for the incongruity of this poetry with
the sensibility of the epoch. Thus, both of them promoted the need to revive the
field of poetics in both its aspects, namely the practical and the theoretical. A new
theory of poetic language in full accordance with the sensibility that rediscovered
naturalness and emotion and for which innovation and novelty were of utmost

45
importance was setting in. Wordsworth believed that poetic language had to be
to a certain extent similar to everyday language but without becoming too com-
monplace. This was the classical Aristotelian prerequisite. The poet had to be
careful with the choices that he would make because his own good taste was the
one that ensured his correct options.

Coleridge
With regard to Coleridge, he is generally considered the author of one of the
most important Romantic theories of poetic language. The latter was compared
to the language of science in order to distinguish its specificity and the conclu-
sion, which is still accurate and valid, was that, in poetry, the aesthetic function
is preeminent. Moreover, the aesthetic coordinate does not apply only to forms
(e.g. phonic models or tropes) but mostly to the semantic level. In the 20th century
these became some of the most debated issues not only in linguistics but also in
many other disciplines and trends in literary research. Coleridge, who was equally
interested in philosophy, founded his theory on philosophical bedrock. His tenet
was that it was not only the critic who had to have a personal philosophy but also
the poet who, according to Coleridge, could not have been a great poet without
being a keen philosopher.
Biographia Literaria, which was published in 1817 and which is in some ways
an ideological revenge by the poet and critic the Preface written by Wordsworth
in 1800, has a rather heteroclite character. The references to his own intellectual
progress intermingle with the detailed analysis of Wordsworth’s claims, with
considerations on literary theory or poetics, on aesthetics and philosophy. The
imagination as a superior ability is also reiterated in Coleridge’s account and
it is divided into two categories: primary, “the living force” and the main me-
diator between the human perception and the secondary one, an echo of the
former. Imagination is above phantasy, which is considered merely a process of
memory, as imagination is the greatest asset of the demiurgic poet and the one
that conveys strength to the images in the poem to such an extent that the reader
is under the illusion of entering a real world. It is Coleridge’s famous statement
that poetry brings about a willing suspension of disbelief. Furthermore, poetic
imagination, which differs from the perceptual or philosophical imagination,
is creative and possesses the ability to reconcile opposites (the general and the
particular, idea and image, judgement and enthusiasm, etc.) into a superior vi-
sion which is also unifying, a capacity that prose simply does not have. It is at
this point that Coleridge’s view distinctly differs from Wordsworth’s for whom
there is no essential dissimilarity between the language of prose and that of po-

46
etry. However, Coleridge rigorously separates the two languages by disagreeing
with both the urge to idealize the rustic and with the glorification of mundane
discourse which his peer advocated.

The poetics of Romanticism, the antipode of normative poetics

The poetics of innovation thus contradicted what normative poetics had built
and had authoritatively preserved for several centuries. Drastic rules, princi-
ples and norms had governed the artistic activity or, in actual fact, they had
restrained it because, according to this theory, beauty resulted from abiding by
the models. Given the fact that the respective models had proved their value and
endurance, it was absurd to forget or ignore them. Yet this view of art, reflected
by the theory of the norm, overlooked one of the most important features of
the ever-­inquisitive human being, namely the need to discover, to explore new
territories either pertaining to external reality or to their own inner reality.
Romanticism and its aesthetics represented precisely the rebellion against re-
strictions and limitations imposed by the norm. The latter became worthless as
the new artistic formula valued creative freedom, novelty and awe. Since then
things have not changed significantly as regards conceptions. But if we make a
further analysis of the history of poetics, the radical transformations that this
discipline went through during the 20th century turned it into a veritable sci-
ence of literary research, a very elaborate and sophisticated theory with a more
precise conceptual apparatus and remarkable methods.

1.6. Modern Poetics
There was an unprecedented development in science and technology during the
20th century which favoured another characteristic phenomenon for this period:
a population increase which was especially prominent in urban areas. The process
of delimiting nations was the centre of everyone’s attention, and other equally
important notions for our society were delineated during the last century, namely
class, gender, race, etc. Efforts were no longer targeted at revealing and imposing
universal laws or what had been traditionally considered unique. The prestige
of eternal truths faded until their validity and legitimacy were questioned and
they were eventually replaced by other coordinates and values such as relativism,
pluralism and diversity of opinion.
Literary research was also marked by these significant changes of the value
scale. At the end of the 19th century there was an impressionistic type of criti-
cism, and the amount of biographical, psychological or historical elements was

47
overwhelming. That is precisely what triggered a violent reaction of rejection of
those interpretations that had an insufficient focus on the literary work itself.
The aesthetic rigorously delimited its object by refusing its previously assumed
dependence upon other disciplines and their discourses: morals, religion, psychol-
ogy, the social, etc. In order to be taken seriously and because a structural change
was necessary, literary research progressively became a scientific activity in which
objectivity was paramount.
Another important aspect which led to a definite reconsideration of the theo-
retical tools of poetics was the recognition of the constitutive role of language
in many modern theories. Language became the main concern in all issues
connected with philosophy and was even considered essential to the structuring
of the world. The innovations that literally baffled the domain of poetics were
chiefly due to linguistics which was the discipline to which not only literary
research but also philosophy and other fields of knowledge were very much
indebted in the 20th century. Saussure’s course and Charles Bally’s linguistic
stylistics helped poetics in performing pertinent analyses of the expressive po-
tential of language and, generally speaking, they endorsed a totally different
attitude towards the text.37
One of the main concerns of poetics started to be the internal logic of the lit-
erary work, its organization and the structural connections that define it. Matei
Călinescu was wondering38 if one could speak of a wider critical Zeitgeist at the
beginning of the 20th century, when he noticed similarities between the interests
of Russian formalists, New Criticism and, in France, for instance, the theories
put forward by Paul Valéry. When the latter noticed that poetics was somewhat
obsolete as it had been using didactic acceptations based on abiding by rules
and directions for such a long time, he suggested the adoption of a definition
that would rely on a different meaning and, at the same time, on a different
purpose of poetics. Considering the etymology of the term which implies the
idea of “making,”39 Valéry suggested that the concern of poetics should actually
have been the reality and specificity of literary works, their structure and not

37 Since language was viewed as a unity between form and meaning, a new science, i. e.
semantics, which was also related to linguistics, was established. By means of the tools
made available by modern science, one of its branches, literary semantics, studied the
manner in which literary texts can convey meaning, the amount of conveyable mean-
ing, or how alterations of meaning can occur at all text levels.
38 Matei Călinescu, A citi, a reciti. Către o poetică a (re)lecturii, (Iași: Polirom Publishing
House, 2003), p. 128.
39 The meaning of poiein in Greek is “to make.”

48
their prescribed appearance which ought to have followed some guidelines that
were both difficult to follow and utterly incongruous with the general apprecia-
tion. Therefore it was high time for prescriptive philosophy to be replaced by
prospective philosophy.

1.6.1. Russian Formalism
The visible progress made by the literary studies during the last century was pos-
sible due to the relatively short but impactful activity of the Russian formalists.
Nowadays any research on poetic language relies on or is connected to Russian
formalism, which is said to mark the dawn of modern poetics. This critical and
theoretical orientation emerged and existed in Russia between 1915 and 1930, as
a result of the research conducted by the Moscow Linguistic Circle whose mem-
bers were Roman Jakobson, Osip Brik, Boris Tomashevsky and Yury Tynyanov,
and by the OPOYAZ (the Petrograd “Society for the Study of Poetic Language”)
whose members, who were to become famous, included Victor Shklovsky and
Boris Eichenbaum. By rejecting literary positivism, sociologism and psycholo-
gism, namely abusive intrusion into the critical reading of elements which are
extraneous to the artistic production, the Russian formalists were the ones who
founded the tradition of scientific research in literature. Everything related to the
external connections of the actual literary work such as the social and historical
context, psychological factors or the personality of the author eventually became
unimportant because the work ceased to be regarded as a social, historical or
biographical document.
Their focus was the intrinsic quality of the literary work and the internal or-
ganization of artistic creations, hence the idea of the autonomy of literary science
which was to rely on the linguistic evidence and not on cultural productions.40 In
the view of Russian formalists, individual literary creations are sui generis phe-
nomena, autonomous and autotelic objects that abide by their own laws and are
endowed with their own inner goals. However, autonomy does not entail the isola-
tion of the individual creation which is perceived as a whole, as a system which is

40 The idea of aesthetic autonomy is famous due to Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judge-
ment. The philosopher pleaded for the elimination from the domain of art of other
external interests: i.e. utilitarian, didactic or affective interests. Nevertheless, the for-
malists did not realize the fact that they were somehow developing Kant’s theory. Ewa
Thompson referred to the Formalists’ lack of epistemological consciousness in her
work Russian Formalism and Anglo-­American New Criticism. A Comparative Study
(Mouton: La Haye, 1971).

49
embedded into another system, namely literature. Hence the actual literary works
and literature as a system were the main points of reference, the object of study
of this particular school of thought.

Literary forms and the evolution of the literary system

The name formalists was critically and ironically assigned to them by the ones
who accused the members of the Moscow Linguistic Circle and of the OPOYAZ
of placing too much emphasis of the formal aspects and thus creating a veritable
breach between literature and life.41 However, the name whereby they became
well-­known and which, in time, lost its pejorative connotations, was not entirely
adequate for the view that Russian formalists had of themselves. They were never
interested exclusively in the study of form as they simply tried to dismantle the
arbitrary dichotomy between content and form or rather to confer to the idea of
form the prestige and importance that it had never really had. Form was under-
stood as a dynamic whole with its own value, the latter being the very “content”
and not merely a worthless coating. In order to highlight the fact that expression
had been erroneously understood throughout the centuries as being subordinate
to content, Shklovsky pointed out: “A new form does not appear in order to express
a new content but in order to replace an old form which had lost its character of
artistic form.”42 came the actual literary undertaking, the bearer of the specificity
of the verbal art. Although one might infer from Shklovsky’s statements that there
is a great diversity of literary forms, since they are constantly renewed, the reality
is that the variety was considered by the formalists to pertain to the contents that
reality furnishes and which become “inspiration” for literature, as forms consist
of a limited number of invariant elements that can be systematically described;
these are techniques that constitute the groundwork within the structure of the
literary work.
Similarly to Shklovsky, who did not perceive the transformations occurring
within the field of literature as changes at content level but as formal innova-
tions, Tynyanov also introduced a theory regarding the evolving literary sys-
tem.43 The internal dynamics of the structures is the one that leads to alterations

41 Especially the Marxists were very virulent towards the formalist movement which was
actually banned by the Bolsheviks.
42 Quoted by Pierre V. Zima in Critique littéraire et esthétique. Les fondements esthétiques
des théories de la littérature (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), p. 46.
43 See Tynyanov’s study “Faptul literar”, published in the reader entitled Ce este literatura?
Școala formală rusă (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1983).

50
which result in the elements’ inability to preserve their dominant function for a
longer period of time. When banality and routine set in, innovation materializes
through the establishment of new forms that do not stem from the previous
ones; on the contrary, they are quite their opposite, because the supersatura-
tion of the system brings about the need for techniques, forms and manners
of expression which differ from all previously known ones.44 This is an entirely
different view of evolution as it is considered in nature. That is because “there
is no perpetuation linkage between the preceding and the succeeding link”, as
Bakhtin also commented. “The succeeding link does not stem from the preced-
ing one at all.”45 The idea of dialectic literary evolution, “through struggle and
replacement”, is opposed to the point of view of other formalists according to
whom the literary work was envisaged as an organic whole whose parts coexist
in harmony, the literary system functioning according to the same principle. For
Tynyanov, however, the evolution consisted in the replacement of some systems
with others and in changing the functions of formal elements, of their role and
their weight. It can thus be inferred that the theories of the formalists were not
unitary and did not keep a steady course.

Defamiliarization and the artistic work as a collection of methods

Another example in this direction would be one of the key concepts in the
currently discussed doctrine, namely ostranenie, i.e. defamiliarization. In spite
of the fervent encouragement of artistic autonomy, the formalists who shared
some of the opinions of the Futurists, their contemporaries, counted on the
impact that artistic productions might have on one’s habits, on the values that
one cherishes and the norms that one abides by. In 1917, Victor Shklovsky, a
founding member of the OPOYAZ, wrote the essay entitled Art as technique
which was considered a sort of manifesto of the formal method. In this essay,
the author referred to the ability of art to renew the perceptions that had been
“dulled” by the automatisms that always accompany us. New dimensions of real-
ity, which would otherwise remain undetected, are revealed due to defamiliari-
zation and also due to the distancing from the common reference framework
that literature prompts. Through its set of techniques and methods, through

44 One of the examples given by Tynyanov is the following: if a period prefers an ample
genre such as extended poems, it is very likely that the next period should prefer shorter
poems like, for instance, the sonnet.
45 M.  M. Bakhtin, Metoda formală în știința literaturii. Introducere critică în poetica
sociologică (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1992), p. 210.

51
defamiliarization, art urges the individual to go from the simple recognition
of the objects that we encounter in our daily existence to “seeing” them, to
rediscovering them as well as the ingenuity of life that seems too common to
notice any more. Nevertheless Bakhtin46 accused Shklovsky of not being aware
of Tolstoy’s47 true intentions when using the technique of defamiliarization.
The writer did not envisage a “renewal” of the perception of objects as it was
not things but moral meanings that were de-­automatized by means of the use
of the defamiliarization technique!
What the formalists constantly wanted to prove was the particular character
that literary art had as compared with other types of discourse, and the demon-
stration was made by means of the comparative method. Because poetry is the
most distinctly different form of expression in comparison to all others since it
thwarts the common verbal associations, the formalists attempted, at an initial
stage of their research, to identify the principles that distinguish between poetic
language and everyday speech. Later on, they would discover and institute the key
concept of “literaturnost,” literarity, i.e “what makes a literary work literary”, which
resulted from the research conducted by Jakobson, one of the most famous for-
malists due to his international career as a linguist and theorist of poetics that he
managed to build after leaving Russia. Once this concept had been established, all
the techniques that exhibit the literarity of a text or of the literary system became
the object of study and the reference of poetics.
When referring to the discursive particularities of literature, mention should
be made of the fact that, according to the formalists, prose would mostly use the
common variety of language rather than the artistic one and thus, from the point
of view of proper language, it did not exhibit a typically artistic approach. Many
studies (such as the ones written by Brick and Jakobson) later tried to devise a
theory of traditional poetry, namely the one that involved a high level of coding:
rhythm, rhyme, meter, etc. The sounds of the verse were also a favoured object
of study because they contributed, through the disruption of the semantic aspect
which circumvented its strictly communicative goals, to the construction of a
discourse which was qualitatively different from the one of prose or from com-
mon speech.

46 Bakhtin, Metoda formală în știința literaturii. Introducere critică în poetica sociologică,

p. 85.
47 Tolstoy’s work, which he often quoted, helped Shklovsky the most in the illustration
of the technique of defamiliarization.

52
The fable and the subject
Yet prose could not be eliminated from the literary sphere and even though it
did not arouse interest from the point of view of language, it was still attentively
studied from the perspective of the structural elements of the story. Hence, the
Russian formalists made an important distinction between the fable, namely all
the events that represent the raw material for the narration, and the subject which
is structured according to the building rules of the epic genre, rules that do not
necessarily follow any particular logic of existence. Boris Tomashevsky, who was
chiefly interested in the study of prose, claimed that fabula could be defined as “all
the events in their reciprocal and intimate connection” as its evolution presup-
posed the passage from one situation to another. On the other hand, the subject
entails “the distribution of events,” their arrangement into a specific order; out of
the material furnished by the fabula, a “literary combination”48 is achieved via the
subject. The fabula is a daily, ethical or political event that took place in real time: “it
lasted for days or years and had a certain ideological or practical significance. All
of them become the material used in shaping the subject. The latter is developed
into a real timeframe of achievement and reception, of reading and of listening.
The subject line is a winding road of digressions, halts, delays, detours, etc”.49
Analogies, repetitions, digressions, interruptions, condensations, the omission
of certain occurrences that cannot be absent from the course of the real events,
delays, going back in time, chronological discrepancies, etc., are the liberties that a
creator can take when writing; they are a construct, the shaping and alteration of
facts and natural order with the purpose of moulding them into an artistic form.
By analysing various novels and short stories, the formalists reached the con-
clusion that there is a basic element in every narrative, namely the motif, and the
web of motifs actually build the subject. Vladimir Propp’s fundamental study The
Morphology of the Folktale (1929) also relies on this idea and, in the search for the
form and governing principles of the folktale structure, it reduces one hundred
Russian folktales to 7 action patterns and 31 invariant features.50 The latter are
called functions which are converted into typical scenarios and occur in an always

48 B.  Tomashevsky, Teoria literaturii. Poetica (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House,

1973), pp. 252, 254.
49 Bakhtin, Metoda formală în știința literaturii. Introducere critică în poetica sociologică,
p. 144.
50 The idea of invariant elements that lay at the foundation of narratives was already
famous in Russia, but Propp had the initiative of transposing it into a systematized
theoretical and conceptual form.

53
identical succession forming a closed set connected to the open set of motifs. The
functions are assigned to characters according to spheres51 and thus the folktale
becomes an easily formable structure, a pattern that can constitute the basis of
different subjects. Propp’s model was one of the pillars of modern narratology,
being “typical for the structural undertaking which does not involve identifying
the specificity of a text but of its structure which is defined solely as the specific
organization of the invariants existing in a superordinate code, a code of the liter-
ary genre, of discourse, of the epoch, etc.”52

The posterity of the Russian formalism

Formalism became known and gained its fame in Europe and in the United States
due to two important studies: Russian Formalism by Victor Erlich (1955) and
Théorie de la littérature (1965) which comprises a collection of texts authored by
the Russian formalists, which were translated and prefaced by Tzvetan Todorov.
In Romania the work of the formalists was mostly known due to the above-­quoted
anthology, namely Ce este literatura? Școala formală rusă. Undoubtedly, many
trends and directions in the literary research of the 20th century developed or
passed on the theories of the Russian formal school whose aim was to comprehend
the nature of literature, the laws that govern and sustain the literary system by
preponderantly studying the specificity of the artistic language and its distinctive
features in comparison with other types of discourse.
Even though the interest was mainly channelled towards the materiality of
the text (everything connected to the verbal dimension), rather than towards
the “message” of the literary work, the formalists still rejected the dissociation
between content and form by trying to discover the manner in which a particular
artistic form, different from our communicative habits, is a carrier of meaning.

New Criticism
1.6.2. 
The Anglo-­Saxon New Criticism is less of a poetics-­oriented critical trend than the
Russian formalism as its actions, which are centred on individual works, mainly
have a hermeneutic and critical character. Hence, one of the leading concepts of
the school of criticism is close reading, a very keen text reading and analysis that

51 For example, the sphere of the hero entails the decision to embark upon a quest, the
reaction to the benefactor’s requirements, marriage. The sphere of the benefactor in-
volves bequeathing the magical object, entrusting the magical object, etc.
52 Sorin Alexandrescu, “Prolegomenon II” in Poetică și stilistică (Bucharest: Univers Pub-
lishing House, 1972), p. XCVI.

54
considers phonetic, syntactic, and lexical aspects. Nevertheless, the effort to go be-
yond the borders of stylistics by identifying the general categories that define the
text as well as numerous theoretical hypotheses formulated by the representatives
of New Criticism, i.e. William Empson, Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, etc.,
entitle the inclusion of this school into the comprehensive field of modern poetics.

Attitudes and viewpoints on the literary phenomenon

Close reading emerged in the 1920s in England and became famous by the 1950s,
whereas the American New Criticism peaked between the 1930s and the 1960s
for the same reasons that had led to the establishment of the formalist doctrine:
the study of literature relied solely on biographical and historical considerations,
being almost exclusively concerned with the affective, moral, psychological
and ideological rationales of literature. The New Critics, just like the formalists,
changed the focal point of the reference of literary research: namely from what
literature communicates to how it is produced, from studies dealing with extrinsic
aspects to the immanent method of analysis. Apparently, the term New Criticism
was first used in a 1910 essay title by Joel Spingarn in which he advocated for an
imaginative Crocean criticism according to which preeminence should be given
to the aesthetic aspects of literature. It was not the right time, however, for the
configuration of a school.
During the 20s and the 30s, the protest of the new critics, both in England
and in the United States, was directed towards modern industrial civilization
and the capitalist spirit. Some people were experiencing a euphoric sensation of
confidence in the benefits of the new, but others, among whom there were many
“Southern” critics living in the USA during the interwar period, were concerned
about severing the umbilical cord that connected the individual to society, sen-
sibility being also dissociated because science would subject it to this schizoid
fragmentation. On account of the fact that New Criticism believed in the capacity
of poetry to be the source of a spiritual renaissance, it also upheld the preservation
of the socio-­cultural “Organicism” perspective on the work of art perceived as a
whole resulting from the solidarity of its constituent parts. In its turn, the work
of art was to be integrated into another system, namely into literature. Hence, the
concept of “organic form” was perpetuated after it had been adopted from Ger-
man Romanticism and from Coleridge. Thus, it could be stated that the theoretical
premise of the New Critics was of aesthetic and not of linguistic origin, as it had
been the case with the formalists. Therefore, whereas the formalists initiated the
tradition of a scientific type of structuralism, the tradition of “aesthetic human-
ism” would continue.

55
The British inspirers of New Criticism
I.A. Richards, a referential figure for the direction of New Criticism53 in general,
is considered the first greatest theorist that followed Coleridge and one of the
pioneers of the reception method which would later be known as close reading.
In his famous work Principles of Literary Criticism, the author resorted to behav-
iourist psychology in order to discuss the impulses that various external stimuli
trigger and to which the body responds. Literature, similarly to art in its entirety,
also has the ability to balance the impulses, but it does not “express” emotions.
It configures them, it constructs them discursively, yet we are not dealing with
their mimetic reflection but with a restoration accomplished mainly by poetry54
which has a non-­referential nature. The affective tensions are discernible, Richards
pointed out, both at the semantic level and at the formal one, but they are worked
out by and within the global structure of the poem and that is precisely the great
merit of poetry: i.e. its power to create harmony by engendering a beneficial state
of contemplation in the mind of the reader.
As a matter of fact, Richards shifted the emphasis from the author to the recipi-
ent, to their attitudes and reactions when exposed to art. The fact that the natural
inclination of individuals is to establish order within a chaotic mass of external
impulses justifies their attraction towards the work of art which satisfies certain
inner needs of ordering, systematizing and hierarchizing existence. In Science and
Poetry, taking his theory one step further, Richards demonstrated that poetry is
able to transmit pseudo-­statements that are particularly convincing due to their
internal organization. Science is that which conveys truth which does not entail its
superiority in relation to poetry. In fact, the latter has nothing to do with the true-­
false categories. It matters and it is valued according to its capacity to convince.
The main reason for the powerful impact of Richards’ theories was not the
psychological implication, which was actually overlooked, but the critical ap-
plications promoted by the technical, internal and verbal analyses of the literary
work.55 Moreover, Richards made a distinction between two paramount func-

53 Although there are voices claiming that the “new criticism” borrowed some of Rich-
ards’s ideas, the theorist was never part of the critical movement in question.
54 It is common knowledge that the privileged corpus of the members of New Criticism
consisted of poetry, especially metaphysical and modern poems.
55 The teaching experiment that Richards conducted with his students is very famous and
is presented in Practical Criticism (1929). His aim was to put the principles of close read-
ing into practice and to avoid stock-­responses, i.e. those reactions which are the result
of past experience and knowledge and which hinder the correct understanding of the
poem. Professor Richards submitted for analysis various poems whose authors were

56
tions of language, i.e. the symbolic function, which presupposes the transmission
of the reference to the receptor, its symbolization, and the emotive function which
involves the expression of emotions, attitudes, intentions, etc. Eventually the prom-
inent representatives of New Criticism adopted this theory. For example, J. Crowe
Ransom also made the theoretical distinction between structure – the content of
the poem that could be rephrased – and texture which referred to the quality of
the poetic expression.
William Empson was considered an equally important personality within this
the critical trend. Among his most famous books there is the one entitled Seven
Types of Ambiguity (1930), the first study that the author published and in which
a famous “reference,” i.e. ambiguity, was instituted as a defining feature of poetic
language, as a feature which was generated by polysemy and by multiple meanings.
Without firmly contesting the importance of the social and historical context for
the artistic creation, the author mainly focuses on the suggestions offered by the
constituent parts of a poem. This time it is not the overall view that takes prec-
edence, but the segment analysis. His very thorough linguistic-­semantic studies
examined both the ambiguity phenomenon which provides, according to the
critic, the vitality of literature, and that of irony and polysemy. Following his for-
mer professor, I.A. Richards aimed to demonstrate by means of his work that a
critic has to understand and decode the literary text which is a privileged manner
of communication that has to reach the reader’s heart.

The New Criticism school of thought

The American branch of the trend imposed its name due to John Crowe Ransom’s
book The New Criticism (1941), which was actually a group manifesto, and it
became even more prominent than in England. The most brilliant representa-
tives were John Crowe Ransom, Allan Tate, Cleanth Brooks, William K. Wimsatt,
Robert Penn Warren, Yvor Winters, Kenneth Burke and R.P. Blackmur.
The school of thought was not unitary as the points of view of its renowned rep-
resentatives were diverse, although there was unanimity regarding the perception
of poetry as an autonomous and non-­referential verbal act.56 The New Critics also

not specified. The interpretations and evaluations were very diverse and contradictory
which led to the conclusion that the experiment had failed.
56 Among the most important and famous studies in the domain of literary research
which examine these statements is The Intentional Fallacy (1946) which argues against
the idea that a poem could be explained through the auctorial intention, and The
Affective Fallacy (1949) which contradicts the contention regarding the expressive

57
shared the endorsement of a thorough poetic textual analysis, able to highlight
syntactic, prosodic, metric, etc. elements, close reading being actually the most
important legacy left by New Criticism to literary criticism which is concerned
with the thorough research of the structure and functioning of an artistic text.
Therefore, New Criticism was never concerned, much the same as formalism,
with the genesis of literary texts, with their reception and their ideas, or with
the political and social aspects that constitute the context of any literary work,
and that is because it was considered that the poetic discourse was incongruous
with common logic and with other types of discourse. The type of interpretation
that they relied on was the poetic and not the scientific, and therefore it was the
domains of the symbolical and of the mythical that were subjected to scrutiny
and not the domain of common reason. All that mattered for the New Critics was
the meticulous study of word nuances, of types of verse and rhyme, of images,
paradoxes, symbols, ambivalences, and particularly of the metaphor,57 the “queen
of discourse” which has the capacity to reveal truths that do not pertain to the
realm of the commonplace or to conventional logic. All these elements furnish the
unified structure of the poem by their synergism, in spite of some divergences and
contradictions emerging among component parts. The New Critics also advocated
this type of homogeneity, which they gladly recognized in the poetic creation, with
respect to culture and to regaining the harmony that, for instance, only myth and
religion could restore.

1.6.3. The Prague Linguistic Circle (1926–1948)

This was led by Vilém Mathesius, and its members were the Czechs Jan Mukařovský,
R. Wellek, Havrének and F. Vodička, and the Russians Roman Jakobson – who had
left Russia and resided in Prague for a certain period of time – and Trubetzkoy; it
had the merit of continuing the research of Russian formalism and of corroborat-
ing in a new, modern, scientific perspective all the fundamental themes of poetics.
Furthermore, it created and launched a new model that, in 1929, Roman Jakobson
would call structuralism.
The birth certificate of the first literary structuralism was represented by the
Circle’s Theses presented at the 1928 Slavic Philology Conference in Prague, in
which literature was still analysed from a linguistic perspective, similarly to the

character of poetry; the latter is considered an autonomous discourse which is beyond

the bounds of any current communicational goal.
57 Ransom, Brooks and Wimsatt placed great emphasis on the metaphor and described
it in religious and sacred terms.

58
other above-­mentioned directions of literary research at the start of the century.
Nowadays, the ideas included in this document seem banal, as if taken from a
common corpus of literary science. But at that moment they were new, espe-
cially with regard to their manner of systematization; thus, poetic language was
understood as a whole whose component parts interact, (actually a multitude of
levels among which reciprocal connections were established) because poetry was
considered the only manner in which language as creative energy was highlighted,
and which fully capitalized on its potentiality, etc.

Structure and sign

As regards the concept of structure, it is to this day considered one of the key
concepts of the movement and resulted from the adaptation of the Hegelian view
on totality, which entailed, according to the philosopher, the consistency of the
component parts. The Prague scholars believed, however, that the artistic struc-
ture was a hierarchical system with dominant and dominated elements, and hence
a system governed by contradictions which are specifically the ones that bestow
personality upon the work of art.
The matter of the sign was no less remarkable. Mukařovský, the most impor-
tant theorist of the Circle, placed aesthetics within the boundaries of the general
science of signs, namely of semiotics, the science that perceives reality as an im-
mense complex of signs. This type of semiotic aesthetics argued against any form
of determinism (i.e. the mimetic, expressive and sociological perspectives). The
contention was that art is not the reflection of a certain reality but an emerging
autonomous sign; however, the secondary functions that it fulfils (i.e. biographical,
historical, social, etc.) are neither ignored nor excluded. The immanent study of
the literary work was paramount but, as opposed to the formalists or to the repre-
sentatives of New Criticism, the Prague theorists of structuralism did not exclude
the sociological features or the ones that concern the production and reception
of a work of art from their research. Hence semiotic poetics deals with the factors
that are always present in any literary activity, specifically the sender, the receiver
and the social context. That is because literature belongs to human culture as a
different form of communication from any other forms of communication, a
status that the preeminence of the artistic function confers on it.

Mukařovský and the concepts of function, norm and aesthetic value

The imposition of the concept of aesthetic function was due to Mukařovský, but
the merit of highlighting the functions of language belongs to Karl Bühler. He
was the one who defined the speech act as the relationship between three factors:

59
the sender, the receiver and the reference, each of them having a corresponding
function, specifically the expressive function, the conative function and the refer-
ential function, respectively. It is a well-­known fact that Jakobson developed and
substantiated the functional model of speech acts but Mukařovský noticed that,
apart from the three functions put forward by Bühler, it was necessary to add a
function, which did not resemble any of the three functions because it pointed
towards the sign itself and not to extra-­linguistic realities, namely the aesthetic
function. The hegemony of this function within the work of art, a function which
is devoid of a practical purpose, has as a direct consequence the weakening of
the referential dimension of the aesthetic object and the hypertrophy of the signi-
fied, especially when dealing with the rejection of the consensus between art and
society or with defying traditions and crippling conventions.
Literature actually exerts an active influence upon the material that it uses,
specifically upon themes and language, in order to obtain an artistic structure.
Mukařovský considered that this process involved two fundamental techniques:
deformation and organization. First, “the material” is subjected to “disturbance”58
with the aim of changing its original form, and then there is the organization
which leads to the configuration of a new model, namely the literary model.
Mukařovský defined art as a dynamic and innovative element which may survive
the normative systems, which aims at permanently questioning cultural norms
and even succeeds in contributing to their change. The scholar pointed out the
fact that aesthetic norms, which blend with social norms, with the influence of
the setting and of the context, have a considerable bearing upon the final product,
i.e. the work of art.
In fact, the aesthetic value is the one that results from the combination of
extra-­aesthetic values (e.g. social, political, religious, etc.), the difference between
a literary work and other creations of the mind consisting in the dominant posi-
tion of the aesthetic coordinate. The aesthetic value does not seem immutable or
everlasting; on the contrary, it changes as it is conditioned by external factors as
well as by the interaction between the artistic structure, the norm and the aesthetic
function. Hence one might claim that the work of art does not change at all from
the point of view of its material substructure, whereas the work of art as aesthetic
object alters permanently due to the fact that it is not “a stone monument but
a living semiotic object.”59 That is why a very complex work of art, with a great

58 These types of disturbances also occur in emotional or pathological discourse, but in

those cases the aesthetic function is nonexistent.
59 Doležel, Poetica Occidentală, p. 166.

60
power of adaptability and change, which is able to trigger an intricate hermeneutic
process, has greater chances of surviving the changes of mentality, of taste and of
views through the centuries than a work of art that only addresses its own context.
Aesthetic value is thus determined by the ability of the work of art to outlast
the heterogeneous cultural models that it comes across, an endurance which is
determined by the capitalization on the formal and semantic potentialities of the
creation in question, which appear as conjectures until they are brought to life and
restored. This happens up to the point when the work of art has nothing more to
communicate and even though it is included in the patrimony, it is not among the
living, topical and current creations. Therefore the theoretical perception on the
reference of literary value was fundamentally altered due to Prague Structuralism.
Aesthetic Platonism, which involved the search for the unique and authentic sig-
nificance of the work of art, was replaced by the idea of polysemy with everything
that it entails, including contradictory interpretations. Hence there was no longer
a single legitimate evaluation but several acceptable interpretations in accordance
with the manifold aspects of the work of art.

Vodička’s outlook on aesthetic objects

Having borrowed Mukařovský’s ideas on the topic, Vodička perpetuated and
developed them, and thus he recommended literary historians to take into con-
sideration the transformations that literary works go through in various social
and historical contexts. A very relevant example in this sense is the Bible which
has been, time after time, studied from a religious, aesthetic, historical, political
or moral perspective. Felix Vodička pointed out that aesthetic objects and even
the very concept of literature change when they are placed in other social-­political
situations, and the aesthetic function can also work as a “disturbance” of com-
municational accuracy: “The work of art displays the features of a structure and it
is an ensemble of signs, but the communicational clarity of these signs is to such
an extent disturbed by the aesthetic function that they can evoke many different
semantic associations. Therefore, one can generally concede that the reception of
the work of art allows for several semantic and aesthetic interpretations.”60 Due
to their extensive analyses of the effects that the literary work could bring about,
as well as of the multiple interpretations, both Mukařovský and Vodička were
rightfully considered precursors of the theories of reception.

60 This is a statement made by Vodička in 1941 and reproduced by Lubomir Doležel in

his book Poetica Occidentală, p. 171.

61
 Apparently the Prague Linguistic Circle broadened its horizon starting from
the mere observation of the aesthetic object, which was widely practised by the
Russian formalists, to a more extended reference. The latter no longer down-
graded extrinsic factors so vehemently since they also contribute to the shaping
of the aesthetic object which, far from being as immovable as its material support,
changes constantly.

1.6.4. Roman Jakobson
A very important contribution to the configuration of poetics in the 20th century
was made by Roman Jakobson, the linguist and theorist of poetics with an ex-
tremely prolific output, as mentioned. His career started at the Moscow Linguistic
Circle from 1915 to 1920; it continued with the Prague Linguistic Circle from 1927
until 1938, and subsequently he refined his theoretical models in another cultural
setting, namely in the United States, at Columbia University, Harvard University,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, etc.

The linguistic functions

In the 1960s, in his particularly famous study entitled Linguistics and Poetics
and published in 1963, Roman Jakobson synthesized and systematized the most
important perspectives of Russian formalism as well as the most comprehen-
sive survey of the poetic research of the respective period. The main contention
made in this study concerns the non-­referential character of the poetic message,
a message that gives prominence to the word per se and to its autonomous value.
Drawing on Karl Bühler’s linguistic model, Jakobson indicated the existence of
six characteristic factors for verbal communication, either written or oral: the ad-
dresser, the addressee, the message, the code, the context and the contact. There are
six corresponding functions for the previously mentioned six factors: the emotive
function (oriented towards the addresser), the conative function (involving the ad-
dressee), the referential function (which is context-­oriented), the phatic function
(in charge of opening, maintaining and closing the communication channel), the
meta-­linguistic function (assures the common understanding of the code) and the
poetic function, in this latter case the message focuses upon itself thus being en-
hanced, and that is precisely why it appears surprising and unexpected compared
with other types of messages.
The six functions can be present in any message, but the difference is made by
the ranking of these functions in accordance with our communicative purpose.
For instance, the poetic function can also occur in an advertisement but a poem
can differ from this type of text through the fact that the poem’s poetic func-

62
tion is the dominant one. For Jakobson and the Czech structuralists, the notion
of dominant sorted out the problem of the relationship between the aesthetic
function and the other types of functions (social, political, moral, religious, etc.)
which can undoubtedly be encountered in literary texts. The poetic function does
not exclude other functions but it subordinates them because the dominant one
is the “focal point” of a work of art due to the fact that it is the one that governs
and shapes the other components, in this case the other functions. The examples
provided by the theorist of poetics facilitate a more thorough comprehension of
the matter. Thus, in epic poetry, in which the focus is on the third person and on
the context, the referential and the poetic functions are included. On the other
hand, lyric poetry is centred on the first person; therefore the emotive function
is present alongside the poetic function.

The poetic function, between selection and combination

Jakobson then tried to find an objective criterion that would permit the detection
of the presence of the poetic function. This criterion was discovered departing
from the difference that Saussure made between the possible relationships in the
field of verbal signs: syntagmatic relationships (in praesentia) and paradigmatic
relationships (in absentia). Jakobson labelled the two operations on which any
linguistic construction relies, as follows: selection, which entails equivalence, simi-
larity or synonymy relationships, and combination, in which the verbal sequence
is founded on a contiguity relation. Conveying a message presupposes the com-
bination on a syntagmatic axis of several units selected from many other more or
less equivalent units reunited on a paradigmatic axis. In everyday communication
we choose the word that we want to use from a set of equivalent words and then
there is the stage of combining that particular word with another or with others
which were selected in a similar manner, according to the principle of equivalence.
Poetry maximizes these processes. The particularity of the poetic function con-
sists in the projection of the principle of equivalence from the selection axis to the
combination axis or, in other words, “similarity overlaps contiguity” and what is
eliminated on account of contiguity becomes an equivalent. This is one of the es-
sential laws of literary communication, a law which rightfully gained its notoriety.
The correlatives of these two axes of language are two fundamental types of fig-
ures: the metaphor, which relies on similarity and selection, and metonymy, which
involves contiguity and combination.61 In his 1956 essay Two Aspects of Language

61 In the case of metaphor, a sign substitutes another because it is somewhat similar: for
example, passion becomes a “flame”. In metonymy an object is referred to by a term that

63
and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances, Jakobson put forward the theory of the bipo-
lar structure of human language which oscillates between metaphor and metonymy.
Any normal behaviour comprises the two processes and their interaction, but there
are preferences for one or the other according to various circumstances and personal
psychological characteristics. In this sense, literary trends also display inclinations;
thus romanticism and symbolism preferred the metaphor, whereas prose, which is
generally interested in reference and contiguity, favours metonymy.

Literarity
Hence Roman Jakobson turned the poetic language into the real star of poetics
which became the science that adopted linguistic theory during the 20th century. This
language ended up being regarded as a special idiom which was able to transform
the common verbal sign into a poetic component that did not adhere to reference.
Jakobson termed this specificity of the literary text literarity (literaturnost), a very
important concept for the Russian formalists and considered by most scholars to
be the true object of poetics. What does it actually entail? It entails that literature
does not simply appropriate elements from reality. It presents utterly diverse peo-
ple, objects, experiences and phenomena which acquire, in the work of art, other
meanings than the ones that they possess in reality. Through the contemplation of
this unique form of organization or reorganization of reality that is literary crea-
tion, one is invited to reconsider prior knowledge or, at least for a while, to abandon
one’s communicative and perceptive usages and everything that can be considered
a stereotype or a cliché in our understanding of the world and of life.
Later on, in 1991, in his work which was translated into Romanian in 1994
as Introducere în arhitext. Ficțiune și dicțiune, Gérard Genette confirmed the vi-
ability of the concept. But when also noticing the lack of theoretical guidelines
regarding the span of literarity, he further noted that a distinction should at least
be made between two types of literarity: constitutive literarity which includes fic-
tion (defined logically and pragmatically) and diction (poetry defined formally),
both having a distinguishable and declared purpose and, on the other hand, there
is conditional literarity. In this case we are dealing with marginal literary genres
such as the autobiography or the personal diary which do not have an artistic
purpose but, at some point, they can be considered as literature and acquire an
artistic dimension. What matters most is that the latter does not depend on the
formal, syntactic aspect of texts, but on the manner in which they are perceived by

designates a different object, but it is linked to the first through a logical connection of
contiguity, such as, for instance, the work referred to by the name of the author.

64
the receiver. In this case it was time for pragmatics to intervene as well as for the
focus to shift away from the text, where it had been established by the formalists,
and to move to the manner of reception.

1.6.5. Structuralism
Structuralism started to achieve an appropriate recognition in the 60s, especially
in France; its most famous representatives were Roland Barthes, Claude Bremond,
Gérard Genette and Tzvetan Todorov. Yet the real founder of the current was
believed to be the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-­Strauss, who studied the
myths of South-­American Indians as systems of oppositions, transformations and
negotiations, thus extracting rules for the configuration of signs and symbolic
systems. Lévi-­Strauss pointed out that myth, also perceived as a form of language,
has a dual structure with a historical dimension, which refers to events occurring
in the remote past, and an unhistorical one concerned with timeless values. The
anthropologist called attention to the great variety of myths, but the assembly
of this variety relied on a limited number of themes and immutable universal
structures. There are rules that govern the combination of elements with a view
to creating a myth, and they can be considered a sort of a grammar of myth which
is valid at any place and any time because it is grounded on universal mental op-
erations. During these processes, the individual subject loses its relevance62 and
collective thinking becomes essential.
In the United States structuralism was anticipated by Northrop Frye, the
most influential American theorist of myth criticism, who was at the peak of his
fame between 1940 and 1960. He wanted to restore the spirituality represented
by myths, rituals and stories in a world of alienation dominated by scientism,
technology, positivism and not by intuition, imagination, dream and magic. In
his famous study Anatomy of Criticism (1957) he offered a static model with
recurring symbolic patterns. After going far beyond the borders of France, when
reaching the United States, structuralism influenced the research in the field of
narratives (Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, Neil Cohn) and stylistics (Michel
Rifaterre). Other illustrious personalities in the domain were Seymour Chatman,
Jonathan Culler, Claudio Guillen and Gerald Prince. The impact of this new school
of thought was extremely powerful and the expectations were very high. It was
believed that structuralism was able and bound to reform all humanist sciences,
and it actually coincided with the development of some multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary trends.

62 Structuralism relied extensively on the idea of “decentring” the subject.

65
The sources of structuralism
The origins of the movement within literary research can be traced back to Rus-
sian formalism whose sole focus was also the text and its internal connections, to
the structuralism of the Prague School, and to Hjelmslev’s linguistic studies, but
mostly to the research of language conducted by Saussure. The latter pleaded for
a synchronic study of language and noticed, among other things, that language
is a system of interconnected signs, any sign becoming incomprehensible if it is
isolated from the others. Saussure mostly laid emphasis on the social dimension
of language rather than on the individual one, on langue rather than parole, on
grammar rather than its application; he favoured models over their materializa-
tions, competence over performance. The theorists of structuralism wanted to
shift from the subjective to the objective, from impressionism and dilettantism to a
systematic and scientific type of study63; they wanted to be considered genuine sci-
entists which even led to the emergence of a new discipline, namely narratology.64
Structuralism was perceived as being related to Marxism due to their common
interest in invisible mechanisms, the structures that govern human activities. Yet
Marxism was based on the theory of historical determinism and on the theory
of materialism that held in high regard the idea of an economic basis, whereas
structuralism was more partial to philosophical idealism as it was relying on
the focus on the linguistic bases that were believed actually to contribute to the
construction of reality.

System and structure

In Structural Anthropology it was still Claude Lévi-­Strauss who provided a very
important ground rule for the identification of structural sciences, and that
was their common feature, namely their systemic character. Specifically, every

63 In time, the outline of a truly objective science of meaning conducted by Greimas,

Genette or Todorov was abandoned.
64 Tzvetan Todorov, in the preface to his famous Grammar of the Decameron published
in 1969, asserted his conviction that narratology, as a domain concerned with the
study of the fundamental aspects of the narrative, ought to gain a good reputation
within literary research, not as a science that investigated the surface structure of the
text but, on the contrary, one that dealt with its deep structures. In its turn, Genette
published Discours du récit in 1972, a book that became truly referential for literary
studies and in which the author, departing from Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time,
devised a generally valid theory of the narrative. Also, the seminal contributions made
by Greimas, Claude Bremond and Roland Barthes should not be disregarded.

66
structure whose elements could not be modified without bringing about altera-
tions of the other elements that belonged to that particular structure could be
considered a system. Thus any biological, logical, formal, historical, literary,
anthropological or economic phenomenon was perceived as a network formed
of its elements and their interconnections, elements that did not matter un-
less they entered into relationships in order to form a “system of interactions”.
Hence the meaning and the reference that used to be of interest were no longer
sought for at the level of terms but at the level of the network that subordinated
and incorporated them; the relational perspective and “anti-­humanism”65 at
that point replaced anthropocentrism which had been dominating the general
outlook for centuries. “The new object for structuralism is the system that is
endowed with all the attributes (autonomy, self-­regulation, unity, etc.) of the
traditional individual.”66
The concept of structure, a concept of the interpersonal and of the super-
individual, of transpersonal forces, without any connection to psychological or
subjective-­emotional aspects, became the key term of the new direction. It desig-
nated, according to Lalande’s definition, “a whole composed of accordant elements
within which every element is dependent upon all the others and it can only be
what it is among and through them.”67 This notion was intended to replace others
such as essence, form, eidos and totality, without actually eliminating them from
the semantic composition but, on the contrary, by incorporating and overcoming
them in order to mark a conceptual progress. Adrian Marino drew attention to the
fact that, actually, the fundamental principles of structuralism were not exactly
new. They presuppose, if the reference is art, “the internal cohesion” of the work of
art, its “logic” and “organic structure.” In more general terms, one might claim that
“there is a latent ‘structuralism’ in any type of organicist perspective and included
in any integrative direction of the human mind”68 and this approach as well as the

65 Although “anti-­humanism” seems like a rather “strong” term, it perfectly illustrates

the objective of structuralism to play down the human agent (be it the individual or
society) by bringing language to the fore and turning it into a veritable institution with
a determining role for the whole of human activity. Consequently, the transpersonal
forces rank first due to the fact that they allegedly govern all the different levels of hu-
man life, and reality itself is no longer mirrored by language but “generated” by it.
66 Terry Eagleton, Teoria literară: o introducere, (Iași: Polirom Publishing House, 2008),
p. 112.
67 Quoted by Savin Bratu in Analiză și interpretare. Orientări în critica literară
contemporană (Bucharest: Editura Științifică, 1972), p. 83.
68 Marino, Introducere în critica literară, p. 71.

67
principles that derived from it had been stated before and discussed at different
moments in the history of universal culture.

Structuralist opinions and analyses

Gérard Genette, a prominent voice during the affirmation of structuralism, ad-
vocated the study of the elements that transcended the individual literary work
which was perceived as a product of poetic techniques. Therefore it was important
to take into consideration history, forms, techniques and literary themes, not only
the literary works per se. To the same end Tzvetan Todorov set the individual
work, which should not have been the interest of the theorists of structuralism,
in opposition to the abstract object of poetics. A.J. Greimas referred to the impor-
tance of writing a structural history with comparative semiological structures, a
history that could replace the outdated, chronological one. Although there seems
to be a consensus regarding the opinions of the most important representatives
of structuralism, the differences are numerous and baffling and the structural
analyses differ from one author to another.
Perhaps the most famous structuralist analysis is the one jointly conducted in
1962 by Roman Jakobson and Claude Lévi-­Strauss, whom Jakobson introduced
to structural linguistics, on Baudelaire’s poem Les chats. The two theorists aimed
to highlight the existing correspondences between the phonetic, metric, morphe-
mic and syntactic elements and the semantic structure of this poem. It was an
extremely thorough analysis which revealed not only the correspondences and
connections between levels and between various structural elements but also the
existing contrasts.
As regards the narrative, the most famous studies were conducted by Barthes,
Bremond and Todorov who examined the actantial narrative schema, whereas
Genette and Franz K. Stanzel are the most prominent representatives of narratol-
ogy who explored the formal structures of the story.
In his study entitled Mirajul lingvistic69, Toma Pavel identified three directions
of the structuralist movement, primarily according to the relationship with lin-
guistics. Hence moderate structuralism, which was predominant in the 70s and 80s,
was concerned with the study of linguistics whose methods and concepts it did not
exactly borrow. In this category Toma Pavel includes the analyses of Jean Rousset,
of Paul Zumthor and of J.P. Richard. On the other hand, scientistic structuralism
extensively resorted to linguistics because the latter was considered “the most
evolved of all social sciences.” Among the most illustrious representatives of this

69 Toma Pavel, Mirajul lingvistic (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1993), pp. 12–13.

68
direction we can mention Lévi-­Strauss, Barthes (specifically his 1970s research)
and A.J. Greimas. Finally, there was speculative structuralism with a philosophical
orientation, represented by Foucault, Derrida, Barthes (i.e. his 1980s studies) and
the school of psychoanalysis founded by Jacques Lacan.
Due to the fact that structuralism had never had the features of individual
literary works as a primary reference but rather their deep structure as well as
the general features of literature, one might claim that it attempted to set up a
general poetic theory. From antiquity until the 19th and especially the 20th century,
poetics had never known a more visible development. Nevertheless, formalism
and structuralism marked the rebirth of authentic poetics, the one that Aristotle
established, namely the formal analysis of the literary phenomenon. And even if
structuralism waned, we have to keep in mind that apart from the undoubtable
influence exerted upon the “sciences of the sign” such as anthropology, psychoa-
nalysis and philosophy, it also revolutionized literary studies, and therefore its
study is essential for the correct understanding of the evolution of 20th century
poetics.

1.6.6. Semiotics
In the 1960s and 1970s, the tendency was for the term structuralism to be replaced by
either that of semiotics or semiology.70 Saussure’s final important concept was that of
semiotics, the origin of the term being the Greek word sêmeion. As a matter of fact,
it may be claimed that semiotics existed since antiquity and was used in many fields
of study: philosophy, grammar, rhetoric for the analysis of significance.71 Modern
European semiotics is very much indebted to Saussure who defined language as a
system of signs, the latter aspect making it comparable to the sign language alphabet
or to symbolic rituals and politeness formulae. Hence the linguist suggested the

70 Hjelmslev defined the difference between semiotics and semiology as the opposition
between the general and the particular, semiology being the general science of the
system of signs whereas semiotics described particular systems. Greimas used the term
semiology for content-­related sciences and the term semiotics for the form-­related ones.
In Romania, Maria Carpov used the noun semiology and the adjective semiotic. In
general, the continuators of Saussure’s theories prefer the term semiology whereas
American and British scholars use its variant, namely semiotics. However, the two
terms are considered to be synonyms.
71 Divination, for instance, was the art of sign interpretation with the aim of predicting
the future, and medicine can also be considered, starting from antiquity, as a domain
in which the reading and interpretation of signs/symptoms is very important in the
treatment of illnesses.

69
setting up of a “science whose object of study should be the life of signs within the
social life,” a science that should be part and parcel of social psychology. Semiotics
deals with the factual existence of signs, with their production, transmission and
organization into systems and their interpretation. The signs can be oral, written
or non-­verbal. The application area of semiotics is very vast as it can cover various
disciplines such as mythology, anthropology, film studies, visual arts and, certainly,
literary works for which the term semiology is preferred. This was precisely what
triggered the emergence of several specific semiotics such as discursive semiotics
(legal, political, etc.), visual semiotics or the semiotics of sounds.

Charles Sanders Peirce and Charles Morris

Logic and semantics made their own contribution to the delimitation of the do-
main of semiotics, especially the research conducted by Charles Sanders Peirce
which took place in the same period as Saussure’s. The latter was interested in the
internal analysis of semiotic systems and, furthermore, he believed that the sign
was based on the relationship between a signifier and a signified, a perspective
which excluded the referent altogether. On the other hand, Peirce concentrated on
the production and use of signs, on their reference to objects and to the manners
in which objects were represented by signs, on sign systems and mainly on the
language of sciences. According to him, significance is the relationship between a
sign-­vehicle, an object and an interpretant. Moreover, Peirce made the distinction
between “icon” signs (photography, for instance) which are based on a relationship
of similarity, “index” signs, based on contiguity or causality, and “symbol” signs
in which the sign is arbitrarily or conventionally associated with its meaning.
Charles Morris developed Peirce’s theory in the US because he too considered
semiotics to be a science but also an instrument of scientific investigation. That
is why he claimed that linguists, philosophers, logicians, psychologists, etc., had
to make their own contribution to the field of semiotics. It is Morris’s contention
that any language is comprised of three axes: the semantic (sign/referent), the
syntactic (sign/sign) and the pragmatic axis (sign/receiver). Semiotics imposed a
series of conceptual distinctions: between denotation and connotation72, between
codes, namely the rules that govern the structures and the messages transmitted by
these structures, between language and metalanguage – in other words, a system
of signs that refers to another system of signs.

72 Hjelmslev introduced the distinction between the explicit meaning of the linguistic
sign, i.e. denotation, and its additional meaning, connotation. Obviously, connotative
language cannot exist without denotation.

70
The semiotics of A.J. Greimas
One of the most famous directions in semiotics is the one led by Greimas, which
was in some respects adopted by Barthes and by Julia Kristeva73. First, A.J. Greimas
expressed his belief that any text, not only a literary one, can be defined by means
of a theoretical discourse, and therefore it is accessible from a conceptual point of
view. Therefore he believed in one single, authentic meaning that only a scientific
undertaking could reveal. He also introduced the concept of semantic universe
for various sections of reality, but these universes cannot be studied entirely, and
therefore the semiotic analysis is actually an analysis of micro-­universes.
The literary discourse represents such a universe and Greimas dealt with the
analysis of the story, an analysis that he intended to be as objective, as formalizing
and as abstract as possible, a truly scientific study. The point of departure was rep-
resented by the smallest semantic units and then the analysis became increasingly
comprehensive: from signs to individually considered words, to verses, sentences,
stanzas and finally to the whole poem. Greimas wanted to accomplish a global
interpretation by means of the constant integration of meaning into a superior
level. Certainly this method is virtually impossible to apply to the novel.
But perhaps his most significant contribution is the semiotic square through
which the narrative text (and sometimes the entire literary work) is reduced to
four terms:74 term 1, term 2, term not-1 and term not-2. Terms 1 and 2 are op-
posites, for instance life and death. Between term 1 and term not-1 or between
term 2 and term not-2 there is a relationship of contradiction, i.e. life and non-­life.
Finally, between term 1 and term not-2 or between term 2 and term not-1 there
is a relationship of implication. These terms and their relationships are connected
to the deep structure and Greimas’ model was extensively used in the analysis of
narrative texts. Still, although the deep structures should have been more or less
universal, they differed from one theorist of structuralism to another. Barthes,
Todorov or Bremond had totally different manners of envisaging this kind of
deep structure.
Equally well-­known is the actantial text model which consists of three levels:
the level of the deep structure, the level of the surface structure of agents and
actions, and the level of discursive structures with elements such as space, time,
characters and images. In fact, Greimas adopted Propp’s roles and turned them
into actants that acquire a syntactic function rather than a role. Greimas further

73 Roland Barthes in The Fashion System, a study published in 1967, and Julia Kristeva
in Semiotike. Recherches pour une sémanalyse, published in 1969.
74 Greimas attempted to simplify Propp’s functions.

71
introduced the concept of isotopy, which was given numerous definitions and
which presupposed, on broad lines, the recurrence of certain semantic elements
that assured the coherence and homogeneity of the collocations and of the text.
Apparently, however, these recurrences do not appear only at content level but
also at the level of expression75 and the mandatory prerequisite for the existence of
isotopy is the presence of at least two units. Literary texts generally contain more
isotopies on account of the fact that polysemy can be defined as the coexistence
of two or more heterogeneous isotopies in a text. Greimas terms this coexistence
poly-­isotopy.

Cultural phenomena from a semiotic perspective

Umberto Eco focused on the analysis of the literary work viewed as a commu-
nication act as he was convinced that, in fact, all the cultural phenomena ought
to be studied as communication processes. Hence, the primary codes of natural
language, which fulfill communicative functions (economic, political, scientific)
are transformed by and within literature into secondary codes, “private” codes
or idiolects constructed by authors. And the decryption of truly valuable literary
works never leads to an equivocal meaning.
In The Open Work (1962), Eco defined the work of literary but also musical
or plastic art as a system of signs. The openness that he refers to, starting from
the title, entails the possibilityof the work (especially the modern or contempo-
rary one) being interpreted in various manners without its signifying potential
to be completely exhausted. The openness of the work equally refers to the invita-
tion extended to the reader, by the work itself and its author, to contribute to its
achievement, the work that is “to be completed” thus being a challenge for the
interpreter. The emphasis is placed on the openness of literature and art in general.
However, as opposed to Roland Barthes who carried this idea to the extreme by
pointing to the unlimited polysemy of the signifier, Eco adopted a more moder-
ate hermeneutical perspective and highlighted the opposition between liberty of
interpretation and respect or loyalty towards the text, the latter having the ability
to confirm or legitimize some interpretations and to reject others. This is the
intentio operis, but according to the trichotomy that Eco devised there is also an
intentio auctoris as well as an intentio lectoris.
The process of the reception of the work of art represented a distinct chapter
in the research of the theorist of semiotics who, in Lector in fabula, spoke about
an “encyclopedic competence” of the reader which was related to the knowledge of

75 Alliterations and assonances can be considered phonetic isotopies.

72
the world, cultural knowledge, literary and non-­literary knowledge, the linguistic
competence possessed by the reader when getting acquainted with the subject,
and the narrative structures of the text. As opposed to other theorists of semiot-
ics (such as Greimas, for example) who had little or no interest in the reactions
of readers, Eco granted them due attention in order to create a balance between
the three “intentions.”

Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes, a figure with a remarkable role in the establishment of the semiol-
ogy of signification, is probably the most eloquent example of the heterogeneity
of structuralism as well as of semiotics. Mostly in agreement with Saussure, the
French theorist integrated semiology into linguistics and not the other way around
(i.e. linguistics subordinated to semiology) as the Swiss linguist had done. As op-
posed to Greimas, the orthodox representative of structuralism, Barthes spoke
against the authoritative domination of the signifier, of the concept, as well as
against another authority which had been wrongly considered the sole guaran-
tor and provider of the unique and homogenous meaning of the literary work,
namely the author. Nevertheless, he advocated for the autonomy of the signifier,
for the affirmation of expression, for the text which is generated by the body and
not by rational or conceptual thought. The theorist praised the rediscovery, due
to linguistics, of psychoanalysis and structuralism, and of the symbolic nature
of language. Moreover, as a defender of the diversity of meaning allowed by the
fluctuating signifier, Barthes considered the fear of relativism utterly ill-­founded.
Polysemy was a resource that called for appreciation, not a reason for concern. As
for his evolution as a scholar, Barthes himself mentioned three stages: the first one
was centered on the criticism of ideologies (Le degré zéro de l’écriture – 1953 and
Mythologies – 1957), the second was marked by the ideal of scientism (Le Système
de la mode -1967) and, finally, the third stage was characterized by the ludic ad-
hesion to the polysemy of the signifier, especially in its capacity of graphic sign.

Other French semiologists: Julia Kristeva

Not only Barthes but an entire generation wanted the replacement of the con-
cepts that were considered obsolete, outdated, and incapable of rendering the
dynamic essence of the reality that they embodied. There were concepts such as:
subject, truth, meaning, representation. For example, the Tel Quel literary maga-
zine founded in 1960 and enlivened by Philippe Sollers, assiduously promoted
the concept of text. The reason was that the text could no longer be regarded as
immutable, closed, finite, as the literary work had been considered, but rather

73
resembled a scene of labour, a “scriptural practice” in which not only the “scripter”
(a concept launched by Sollers) was involved but also, to a great extent, the lector.
Julia Kristeva was another reputed semiologist of the French school who ad-
vocated the transformation of semiology into a type of philosophy of sciences
and who extensively debated the endeavour of text production. Production no
longer had anything in common with “creation” or with “representation” because
it ignored the genuinely important matter of generating meaning. It is for this
reason that Julia Kristeva’s semanalyses, devised according to Chomsky’s trans-
formational model, were preponderantly applicable to non-­representational texts
such as the ones authored by Mallarmé or Lautréamont. Kristeva employed two
concepts, among others, to the description of which the theorist made a significant
contribution, namely genotext (which was responsible for the production of the
text, for its “generation”) and phenotext (or the accomplished text).
Her contribution to the launch of intertextuality, a very valuable concept for
the theoretical field, is even more famous. Kristeva basically developed this notion
which had been outlined by Bakhtin by turning it into a key concept. Intertextual-
ity, or the “textual interaction which takes place within a single text unit,” is the
manner in which a text “reads history and gets inserted into this history” which
entails an entirely new philosophy regarding the textual space. According to this
philosophy, the text is composed of elements, collocations, sequences and codes
that actually reflect the transformation of older elements, collocations, codes,
etc. The new context into which these elements, which had been used earlier, are
inserted essentially changes their aspect and significance.

The Tartu Semiotic School

The Tartu semiotic school, founded in 1964 in Estonia, was equally renowned. Es-
sentially, its fame was, to a great extent, due to its most famous representative, Iuri
Lotman. The theorist defined the literary work as the actualization of a constel-
lation of linguistic forms, a form of communication through which information
was transmitted. According to the theory in question, language is the primary
modelling system on the basis of which secondary systems such as literature,
religion, folklore, etc., were founded. The specificity of the literary text consists
of the fact that it possesses its own methods of transmitting ideas other than the
ones applicable to the non-­artistic text. It is a sign whose content is conveyed by
the entire structure of the literary work, which enhances its informational value.
With regard to the poetic text, it was perceived as the most complex form of
discourse which was semantically “saturated” because very much information is
transmitted through it without finally ending up in an informational blockage,

74
as it would happen if the same amount of information were communicated via
ordinary discourse. This happens due to the manner in which the poetic text is
organized. Far from being redundant, it represents an assemblage of “systems”
(phonologic, metric, lexical, etc.) which bring each other out in such a way that
perception habits are annulled or enriched or transformed due to “the particular
artistic information.” The literary work constantly thwarts our expectations by
“defamiliarizing” them, as stated by the formalists. However, Lotman is not far
from the theories of reception either judging from the fact that the way in which
the meaning of a text is decrypted also depends on the readers and on their
competence. In any case, the text is an invitation to rereading because some of its
aspects and structures can only be perceived by rereading. And the promise of
intellectual joy and sensorial fulfilment is a serious argument in favour of reading
and rereading which is bound to discover the logical as well as the ludic systems
of the literary text.
The specificity of the literary text is rendered by “the simultaneous presence of
several significances for every element of the subject,” but also by the possibility of
the coexistence of contradictions which, in other non-­artistic texts, would not be
permitted. Yet the internal richness of the text76 is not the only factor generating
polysemy as meaning can also result from the relationship of the text to other texts
or to literary, cultural or social codes. Meaning can only be deciphered within
and through the context of the literary work per se, by means of similarities and
parallelisms or differences and oppositions, the text being the outcome of various
determinants that work together. The connection to reality is even more profound
than between any other two terms of comparison because the literary text models
the “unlimited object” that is the world.

Semiotics and structuralism from a poetic perspective

Theoretically, literary semiotics deals with the study of the literary system whereas
poetics would be concerned with the study of literary creation. In actual fact,
however, semiotics cannot possibly be separated from poetics. Moreover, struc-
turalism and semiotics are not only theories but also rigorous methods that ensure
the careful, thorough examination of literary texts, although of particular interest

76 Anything could be meaningful, even the absence of some figures, or “negative figures”
in Lotman’s terms, that we would expect to find in the text because that is what its
logic seemed to indicate. For example, we may think of a certain rhyme that the text
had cultivated and which failed to appear. That would be a significant moment as the
text communicated something by means of its absence.

75
for these directions were precisely the aspects that did not correlate with the par-
ticularity of a text. And because both disregard the value of the analysed objects
as well as what those objects communicate, it might be claimed that their work-
ing methods are analytical rather than evaluative. But any serious text analysis
would take into account the elements that the two research methods furnished.
Yet the literary text is more than that and interpretation, an act that inevitably
involves subjectivity, has no option but to bypass these rigid observations because
the strictly linguistic criteria do not focus on fundamental aspects such as the
intentional dimension of the text or its reception. Also, how are the so-­called
“significant units of the text” established if not with recurrence to the human
factor, to their decisions and choices?
Nevertheless, structuralism, which seemed to have focused chiefly on the study
of language, pushed literature off the pedestal on which it had been put as part
of a certain process of mythification. From that point, the literary work was only
considered as a construction among other language constructions, and its once
privileged ontological status was fiercely contested. The perspective on meaning
also changed and the constant search for the fixed, unique or “natural” meaning
lost its purpose when the structuralist belief, which postulated that reality was
actually a creation of language and of the way it was perceived, became increas-
ingly widespread. Structuralism thus triggered a radical reorientation in the ap-
perception of the world.

The mathematical poetics

1.6.7. 
The Romanian mathematician and theorist of poetics Solomon Marcus intro-
duced one of the most unusual and original contributions to the cognitive research
of poetry in his book Poetica matematică. It is true that, in the modern period,
this discipline of literary study visibly moved towards science and even strove, as
mentioned, to become a science itself. Consequently the association of the two
domains of mathematics and poetry is not in the least surprising. However, even
if the interdisciplinary dialogue is presently common, poetry still seems very far
from mathematical formulas… Solomon Marcus himself admitted that “the in-
terference of mathematics into the domain of art was rejected on account of the
predominantly logical character of mathematics as opposed to the predominantly
intuitive character of art.”77

77 Solomon Marcus, Poetica matematică (Bucharest: Academy Publishing House, 1970),

p. 29.

76
Poetic language vs. scientific language
The author also insisted upon the differences that underlie and confer identity
on the poetic language, on the one hand, and on the mathematical one, on the
other hand. That is because, in the case of the respective book, the actual refer-
ence is language – not so much the habitual, everyday language which is seen as
an “alloy” of elements from the musical, poetic and scientific types of language,
as the language of art as well as the notional, transitive language of mathemat-
ics. Hence, poetic language “dominates the ineffable” and “singularity is its most
salient feature,” it has “an infinite ambiguity,” it is reflexive,78 and it comprises “a
musical structure in its weave.”79 Seemingly at the opposite pole, the language of
science is much more concentrated and precise, with a standardized character and
stereotypical expressions, dominated by the explainable and having a “notional”80
function, thus being characterized by lucidity and routine. The open and entropic
character of poetic language is revealed by the poetic significance which Solomon
Marcus describes as “continuous,” variable in time from one individual to another,
incommensurable and unquantifiable, displaying a total lack of synonymy. By
comparison, scientific language does not display homonymy at all, as it is biuni-
vocal, whereas synonymy is infinitely displayed here because expression is unim-
portant. Therefore binary relations of synonymy and homonymy are singled out,
homonymy being defined as the association of several meanings to a single text
whereas synonymy is the exactly opposite relationship. In the same vein, it may
be stated that “poetry is the supreme modality to concentrate and to reduce to
essentials the figurative language.”81 And the value of suggestion charges the word,
according to Lovinescu, similarly to electricity, with variable action strength, but
without conveying any information because, due to its characteristic homonymy,
this language is not communicative. It is its own goal, a fact which is expressed in
terms of literary theory by the idea of the autotelic character of the poetic message.

The “spell” of poetic language

In the very clear-­cut, straightforward, pertinent description of the features of
the poetic expression that the author provides, there are, however, some terms
that are undoubtedly connected to the idea of indeterminacy, be it to the inef-

78 The distinction between reflexive and transitive was made by Tudor Vianu, quoted
here by Solomon Marcus.
79 Marcus, Poetica matematică, p. 18.
80 This reference is from Eugen Lovinescu.
81 Marcus, Poetica matematică, p. 17.

77
fable, to suggestion, to intuition or to something which is even more unusual
for this type of approach, namely the spell which apparently governs the art
of words. Although this “poetic” manner of referring to poetry appears to be
a disregard for the principle or rigorousness which preponderantly dominates
Solomon Marcus’s book, in this case it is only a matter of the legitimate indica-
tion of the author who embarks upon his research from the assumption that it
is unequivocally impossible to give an exhaustive account of poetic language,
especially when one has to give a scientific explanation of what the enchant-
ment of poetry might consist of or what is the secret behind this enchantment.
Under these circumstances, one might legitimately wonder if the aim of the
comparison between the two languages, namely poetic and scientific, is only
that of highlighting differences.
Nevertheless, in the author’s view, a mathematical approach to poetry does
not entail resorting to the formulas on which science relies. The suggestion that
Solomon Marcus makes is that the instruments that ought to be borrowed from
mathematics are the method of thought, the logical modelling that this discipline
applies and which would not only be completely harmless to poetry but it could
even be its “hygiene.” Actually the two domains are not radically different because
“mathematics has enough logic to detect the internal logic of poetry, and enough
‘madness’ not to be left very much behind the poetic ineffable.”82 Hence this pure
science, maybe the purest of all, also has an unpredictable side and the “reckless”
audacity or “madness” is not uncommon in this field that we automatically and
undoubtedly include in the sphere of lucidity. Then why should poetics not have
something to gain from all the very valuable accomplishments of the mathemati-
cal sciences, and progress through them without insisting on finding the answers
to all its questions in them?
A plausible approach to research into poetry should focus on the means by
which art attains beauty. Thenceforward, when it comes to the ineffable quality
of poetry and to the effects that poetry might have on consciousness and sensi-
bility, poetics should admit its limitations. Nevertheless, Jean-­Marie Klinkenberg
pointed out that “the most powerful model that has so far been devised in order
to explain the particularities of poetic language, undoubtedly pertains to the Ro-
manian mathematician Solomon Marcus whose essential contribution appears to
have overcome the empirical, experimental and analytical stages of poetics so as to

82 Marcus, Poetica matematică, p. 29.

78
facilitate its entering into the axiomatic stage, due to a mathematical formulation
of the opposition between poetic language and scientific language.”83

1.7. Conclusions
Poetics has had a fairly long existence, but despite its long history, apparently only
in the 20th century did it start to be considered as a specific, systematic discipline.84
Faithful to its initial aspirations, both theoretical and epistemological, poetics pre-
served its status of a discipline which is oriented towards the study of literature,
pursuing several essential matters. Firstly, there is the manner in which literature
positions itself in relation to reality. Given the fact that the departure point and
the point of arrival for art is reality, it was believed that, in actual fact, art copies
reality, or at least it attempts to do so. The confusion deepened when the norm
that postulated the obligation of literature to copy nature (normative poetics)
was explicitly and distinctly formulated. Moreover, the application of identical
evaluation criteria to works from different periods and geographical areas was
implemented. It was much later that this error, which considerably restricted the
artistic act (at least theoretically, because there were numerous deviations), was
corrected and the artist as well as the work of art gained their freedom (especially
during Romanticism). Previously subdued to reality, art became independent
and starting from modernity, mention was made of the autotelic character of the
artistic universe, although art cannot possibly be entirely isolated from reality.
Somehow it ended up evoking reality, but this was no longer a prerequisite or a
goal as it had been during past centuries.
The concern of poetics in the 20th century chiefly centered on the artistic lan-
guage, on the organization and functioning of the literary work at the verbal level.
This did not imply that the materiality of the artistic creation would not over-
shadow the values of content and of significance. Quite the contrary. Modern
poetics aimed to be a complex science, in the area of literary research, which
would successfully avoid unilateral and thus erroneous approaches (in point of
form or just from the perspective of content). It was demonstrated that decontex-
tualization was a dead-­end street inasmuch as great literary works cannot be truly
understood without also being analyzed from the perspective of other literary

83 Jean-­Marie Klinkenberg, Le sens rhétorique (Toronto: Editions du GREF, 1990), p. 83.

84 It is precisely for this reason that Tzvetan Todorov made the surprising remark that
poetics was still in its beginnings and that it displayed all the shortcomings that this
incipient stage involved.

79
works. Therefore the adequacy of a history of literature is obvious when the aim
is that of uncovering its meanings.

The deadlock of poetics

But poetics distanced itself from the traditional object of literary research pre-
cisely when structuralism wanted to go beyond the actual literary work in order
to focus on the literary “model” and on the creation process of the literary work,
and therefore on the abstract rather than on the factual. Thus individual crea-
tions were not of interest as such, but only if they related to a reality that existed
beyond them or to a possible reality. That is why poetics was even considered a
science of literary possibilities, so that its object could no longer be literature but
literarity, a concept which was still rather vague. The programmatic placement of
the discipline in the sphere of the abstract led to visible exaggerations within the
overly formalized discourse of poetics which was condemned, after the grace pe-
riod of the 60s, for over-­theorization and for its perspective – which eventually
proved to be utopic – on scientific study and on the study of art. The scientific
paradigm, with everything that it involved, namely theories, methods of obser-
vation and analysis, and concepts, however ambitious it might be, reached its
limits when it came to literature, because however detailed the observations are,
no matter how applied, thorough or objective a study is, it does not provide all
the answers, and our knowledge remains partial, incomplete. With reference to
analysis, the effort to attain a high degree of rigorousness and objectivity which
only science could achieve reveals why poetics avoided the aesthetic judgement
and the question of the value of particular works of art. Matters such as taste or
the affective response triggered by reading, the subjective evaluation of readers,
are not consonant with the perspective of poetics. Still, there is an alternative
to the acceptance of an abyss between an overly theoretical discipline, as some
described it, and its reference. In Romania, as early as the 1970s, Al. Călinescu
was the advocate of a form of poetics which was “applied, live, constructive,
not a machine for the production of abstractions.”85 He was truly a theorist of
poetics who never failed to be “down-­to-­earth” and in permanent connection
with the reality of artistic creation.
Certainly nowadays we can speak of a decline of poetics as compared to its
glory years, starting from the 1960s through the 1980s, but having survived the
considerably virulent attacks of the last decades, poetics remains a landmark
in literary studies, “the innermost circle of literary science,” as described by

85 Al. Călinescu, Perspective critice (Iași: Junimea Publishing House, 1978), p. 118.

80
Wolfgang Kayser, especially because it devised instruments that cannot possibly
be ignored by literary analyses or by analyses of the literary phenomenon in
general. Ion Vlad advocated the application of poetics research to literary forms,
especially to the narrative ones, due to the fact that “a primary epic nucleus”86
existed in literature. Such categories of poetics as genre, modality, type, register,
etc., and especially of narrative poetics (narrator, narratee, plot, time and space,
voice, point of view, and so on) consistently recur within the theoretical dis-
course, even though they do not provide any kind of orientation regarding the
reading choices that we make or, what is more, when we decide whether what
we read is good quality literature or whether it has any literary value whatsoever.

86 Ion Vlad, Aventura formelor (Bucharest: Editura Didactică și Pedagogică), 1996.

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2. Rhetoric

2.1 The glory and oblivion of a millenary discipline

Definitely one of the most prestigious and valued disciplines of knowledge in
antiquity, rhetoric almost disappeared afterwards or was assumed into related
domains (poetics, stylistics). The causes of this state of affairs lie, on the one hand,
in the circumstances of its development and, on the other hand, in the meaning
and incorrect definitions conferred on it later on, which were the reasons for its
becoming discredited. Luckily, today rhetoric is not a discipline which belongs
exclusively to the past, but it no longer resembles what it was in antiquity.

Rhetoric’s beginnings, its success

It appeared out of necessity, its birth being consistently bound up with impor-
tant historical events. The change of cities followed by the fall of the hereditary
aristocracy in the 5th century BC, the fall and expulsion of the tyrants from Sicily
and Greece gave the opportunity to recover some land that had been expropri-
ated in favor of the mercenaries. Making property claims posed difficulties due
to the absence of lawyers, and of people specialized in defending their causes in
the court. Therefore, the citizens were forced to make compose their own pleas1
and, as they had no experience, finding the best means to build up a discourse
that should convince became a necessity for very many. Theoretically, every citizen
could become a rhêtôr; practically, there were very few who knew to write and
read and who were able to deliver a speech in front of an audience. For this reason,
orators were mainly from rich, socially influential families. The status of orator as
well as rhetor,2 acquired by personal abilities and by education and talent would
confer to the one who had it, whether from an influential family or not, prestige,
glory, power and a high social status. So rhetoric, having eloquence as its object,
was primarily judicial and not literary, as might be erroneously believed, and it was
favored by the fall of the aristocracy that, by its nature, was against this discipline.

1 Solon’s law stipulated the obligation of each litigant to defend his own cause.
2 Sometimes the same person had the role of orator, i.e. public speaker, and of rhetor,or
one responsible for the composition of speeches, as well as for the theorization and
teaching of the rhetorical principles. At other times, it was about occupations that
different persons were in charge with.

83
The epideictic or demonstrative genre and the deliberative or politic genre were
actually born from the judiciary one.
Aristotle attributed the beginnings of rhetoric to Empedocles, but specialists
are more inclined to agree to award the title of its originators to Corax from Sicily
and to his pupil Tisias. Consequently, Sicily was the cradle of rhetoric, but its true
blooming took place in Greece, where the fall of the aristocratic regimes made it
extremely necessary and where it would be vigorously promoted by the Sophists.3
For five or six hundred years it would predominate in Greece, and afterwards it
would reach Rome.
Its consecration is marked by the transformation of the educational system;
it even becomes one of the most important disciplines of antiquity, a kind of
disciplina disciplinarum, as the medievals would have said, namely, a science of
sciences or a global science. But the vigour of rhetoric was due mainly to the
orators who had acquired such skill that they would present veritable displays of
rhetoric through the speeches that they delivered either in court or in the Senate.

The decline
With the ending of its heyday, the art of delivering a speech did not arouse the
same interest because it no longer had a social application. Nevertheless rhetoric
survived for a while as a subject of study, and later on it was assimilated into
grammar or equated to the art of style, of figures of speech. It no longer had a
purpose after the cause that had triggered its appearance disappeared. The fall of
democracies in Greece, the instauration of authoritarian government in Rome
after the fall of the Republic,4 the change in the balance of power in these societies,
and the gradual forbidding of the right to free expression rendered rhetoric almost
pointless in the practical sense which it had had in its beginnings and which had
evidently helped it to a great extent.

Definitions of rhetoric
The oblivion it subsequently fell into was also due to an erroneous comprehension
of the basis of the discipline, and of what it really represents. As it was conceived
by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and all the great orators of antiquity, rhetoric is the art

3 Some claimed that rhetoric appeared at the same time as language, others that its gen-
esis was due to Homer, and Cicero believed that the settlers of the citadel had founded
the discipline as well.
4 Tacitus, in Dialogul despre oratori (Dialogue on oratory), talked about the loss of politi-
cal freedom and the erosion of t oratory because of the fall of the Roman Republic.

84
of persuasion by discourse,5 of the discursive alternatives, the discourse being every
verbal, written or oral production made up of a sentence or more and having a
sense unity.6 It can be practiced in every domain, but especially in politics and
in the judicial domain. The artfulness in arguing in order to persuade rightfully
assigned it the name of “art.”
The role that peithô had, a term approximately translated by “persuasion,” was
more important than we could imagine today. Thanks to it we can identify a com-
mon reference between rhetoric and poetry, but also between philosophy and
politics. It was not only the orators but also the bards who aimed to achieve this
peithô, which was equal to delighting and unconditionally pleasing the audience.
In one of the mythic stories of Apollonius, we see Orpheus resolving by his song,
accompanied on the lyre, a violent conflict on the verge of breaking out between
two of his travel companions. The song is irresistible and this is because it has this
divine quality, peithô. The sense of persuasion in antiquity was maybe richer and
more complex than in the present, because it implies not only a harmonious but
also a voluntary agreement. The audience subjected to the magic peithô happily
consents to follow the one who knows how to achieve it.
Consequently, the artistic aspect interweaves harmoniously with the scientific
one, because the rhetoric enjoys the benefits of a very elaborate system, based on
rules for the construction and delivery of a speech, knowledge of which justi-
fies the transformation of the discipline into a school subject. Therefore, another
famous definition of rhetoric, taken from the Stoic Cleanthes, is ars or scientia
bene dicendi, namely the art or the science of elegant speech, not only that of
persuasion. Rhetoric was equally considered a science because a systematization
of the discourse was necessary, and the arguments and proofs (if required) needed
to be rational and logical, although sometimes illogic proved equally persuasive.
Nevertheless, the major changes that the definition of rhetoric would undergo
can further be deduced from the post-­Ciceronian phase of rhetoric, when the pro-
cess of turning it into literature had become obvious, because the accent switches
from what was initially essential, more precisely persuasion and argumentation, to
a proven skill in the use of language and to the way the speech was constructed.
Rhetoric ended by being, in the Middle Ages and later, an ars ornandi, the basis thus

5 Olivier Reboul in his book Introduction à la rhétorique brings into discussion a nuance,
essential in his opinion, when it concerns persuasion. When you are determined to
act, but you do not believe in the justice of this action, it is not a matter of rhetorical
persuasion, but only when we act in the confidence that it is worth doing so.
6 Not all discourses are rhetorical. A poem, for example, or a technical text without the
intention to persuade, is not rhetorical.

85
beingthe idea of embellishing the discourse. It is then explicable why it came to be
taken for grammar or, we might say today, practical stylistics, and why it was assimi-
lated to the study of figures of style, and later was even equated with the preciosity
and artificiality of various verbal ornaments. “The fall into disuse of the profession
of orator, doubled by the instauration of some authoritarian governing forms that
were not favorable to opinion diversity and their free expression as far as public mat-
ters are concerned, then the chaos which, towards the end of antiquity, culminated
with the invasion of the barbarian peoples, leading to the fall of the Roman Empire,
to the withdrawal of the spiritual life behind the monastery walls during the early
Middle Ages, to the absolutist monarchies and the centralist tendencies of the feudal
occidental states; all these have in time decided the fate of rhetoric beyond the inner
evolution of the domain, situated half-­way between science and art, and beyond the
evolution of the related domains – dialectics, grammar and logic.”7
After having gained huge and well-­deserved prestige in antiquity, during the
Roman era and modern times rhetoric was strongly opposed because it repre-
sented everything that was fake, declamatory and bombastic. Rhetoric became
the antonym of spontaneity, of true freshness of expression and, last but not least,
of creative freedom. All this was because the real significance of rhetoric was
ignored, the initial significance which presupposed knowledge, art and style, but
equally reasoning, argumentation, discourse organization, opinion and the power
to influence knowledge.

2.2 Rhetoric in Antiquity
The celebrity of rhetoric in antiquity was due mainly to certain rhetors8 and teach-
ers of oratory who established the framework of the discipline so that it could be
claimed that what was fundamental in rhetoric had been said about two thousand
years before. Nor can its complexity cannot be denied in the present day; on the
contrary, it is about the multidisciplinary character of rhetoric, which assures its
prestige especially today, when the communicative dimension of the human action
and the means used by humans to communicate have long been studied. The art of
persuasion by discourse is not of current interest only to the literate; it is indispen-
sable in pleas of whatever nature and in philosophical and theological arguments
and in education, as well as in advertising. Similarly, the presence and absence of

7 Gabriela Duda, Introducere în teoria literaturii (Timişoara: All Educational Publishing

House, 1998), p. 34.
8 The rhêtôr is the public speaker; many rhetors in antiquity transformed their perfor-
mances into a true art.

86
a knowledge of oratory in the political discourse may carry more weight than one
might believe, by influencing audiences who can appreciate a performance without
realizing what it owes to a mastery of elementary concepts for building a discourse.

2.2.1. Greek rhetoric
Yet, in the beginning, rhetoric, a discipline that appeared by reason of and thanks
to public eloquence, came to be known in its principles by an audience that knew
the ingredients which were absolutely necessary for a discourse to have the an-
ticipated success. Countless treatises were composed in this epoch; for example,
Corax and Tisias, the initiators of rhetoric, made a compendium of practical
precepts accompanied by examples, systemizing the knowledge that had accumu-
lated. It is true that, just as Cicero noticed, before them no rules were observed.
Corax has the merit of speaking for the first time about this techné as a creator of
persuasion, the first definition of rhetoric.9

Gorgias
Himself Sicilian, like Corax and Tisias (who were his teachers), he went to Athens
during the Peloponnesian War and pleased the Athenians by his art, as he was
the originator of the epideictic discourse, namely of public praise,10 delivered on
different occasions, especially public ceremonies. Becoming a teacher, Gorgias
taught philosophy and eloquence, being very well paid and travelling from town
to town. Nevertheless, he was reproached for a certain emphasis in the art he
was practicing, given the fact that he was more concerned with skill in using
language and the plasticity of expression than the subjects themselves. Yet it is
important to remember that he was among the first to be interested in the asso-
ciation of beauty with rhetoric, as beauty needs, from an aesthetic point of view,
to resemblepoetry,11 which was recommended as a source of inspiration for the

9 Corax invented an argument that has his name: that argument consists in saying that
a thing is not likely just because it is too likely.
10 Illustrative of this genre were, for example, the funerary orations uttered upon the death
of a famous person, and discourses of praiseas well of reproach. A very famous one is
Helen’s Eulogy, whose author is Gorgias and which enumerates all the possible reasons
for Helen’s abduction; in no circumstances will the orator take into consideration the
possibility that Helen left willingly …
11 Rhetoric has as expression the prose, opposing to poetry in the moment when it ap-
peared, which had verse as its basic element verse. But step by step rhetoric itself
became itself an art form, just like poetry.

87
discovery of figures of style. At the same time, he was attracted by what glittered in
the vocabulary and by the archaic terms, which burdened his style, greatly appreci-
ated while the orator lived, but then inclreasingly avoided. Gorgias predominantly
focused on elocutio because he did not believe in the power of knowledge to lead
to anything but relative results, namely to opinions that in his view were external
to the categories of true and false. The world itself cannot be known, he said, so
everything may be false. Persuasion thus became more important than the truth,
an idea which shocked Socrates Gorgias intended above all to persuade his op-
ponents in the sense that he intended …

The Sophists
Rhetoric became the object of systematic education, well organized and prestig-
ious, thanks to the sophists to whom we equally owe the first attempts at grammar
and the preoccupation with the organization of discourse, but no philosophical
system. In the beginning, the wise and the philosophers were called sophists, and
in the 5th century BC this term referred to teachers of oratory who were paid to
teach the young.
The Sophists’ ideas which largely influenced rhetoric were severely criticized,
one of the most harsh critics, in the name of philosophy and metaphysical values,
being Plato himself, who differentiated, just as in the case of poetry, between two
types of rhetoric. The rhetoric which Plato appreciated is actually identical with
the dialectics and had a philosophical character, given its interest in the discovery
of the truth.12 The other rhetoric, that of the Sophists, lacking any moral character,
could plea in favor of every cause, even an unjust one, with Plato bitterly con-
demning their preponderant interest in gain and not in honesty. It was a matter
of concern for the philosopher that a rhêtor, without any interest in the truth, or
in authentic knowledge, had the power to convince, to seduce the ignorant crowd,
and “to decide” what was just or unjust as he wished.
Truth and objective reality were, to Sophists, relative13 (one can talk about
knowledge relativism) – that is, they appeared as the result of an agreement be-

12 It is actually the rhetoric that Plato himself used in his Dialogues, having Socrates and
his disciples in the foreground.
13 Protagoras, philosophy teacher in Athens towards the middle of the 5th century BC,
claimed that there are always two sides, two opposing arguments for each thing (pros
and cons), for which he was accused that he would influence people in believing that
what is good can also be bad and vice versa. We owe to Protagoras the famous saying
“Man is the measure of all things,” which indicates that the main measuring unit in the
judgment of the world is the human person himself.

88
tween interlocutors, exactly the opposite of Plato’s conception. But, as the phi-
losopher Paul Ricoeur very well underlines in modern times, it is always possible
that “the art of speaking well” gets rid of the obligation of “telling the truth.”14
Consequently, the power of the word was speculative or, differently said, every
discourse was acceptable if it succeeded in persuading, in offering powerful argu-
ments, even when the source was not justice, but only opinion. But the language,
as Plato bluntly asserted, does not have to have pre-­eminence over thinking, on
the contrary it is necessary that it subordinates to reason.
Rhetoric was also criticized because it found probability enough; it did not
aim to serve the truth or to find out the truth, but it used discourse in order to
dominate or to cheat, becoming an expression of the power exerted by words, ir-
respective of how just or unjust the cause might be. In Ode to Helen, for example,
Gorgias wrote these memorable lines when he admitted: “When people do not
have the memory of the past, nor the vision of the present, nor the foresight of
the future, the lying discourse has all the advantages.”15 Plato denied to rhetoric
both the status of science (epistemê), because it did not have a research domain
of its own – although it is obvious that the domain of rhetoric is argumentative
communication – and that of art. It was seen as a skill of a practical nature, an
empeiria, which was based on the public’s ignorance and was far from reasoning
but close to pleasure. Actually, even today rhetoric (as well as politics and ethics)
is rather considered a practical discipline. Plato considered as totally exaggerated
the claim of rhetors to be competent in all areas of social life.

Isocrates and Demosthenes

The most famous of the orators contemporaneous with Plato, although he called
himself a “philosopher,” Isocrates excelled in epideictic discourse, and was the one
who put language at the basis of all human activities, seeing in logos a capacity that
manifests itself both in reasoning and in speaking. He opened a school of oratory
in Athens, attended by important people of the time who were interested in the
moral and political preparation that the teacher could offer.
Isocrates was convinced that the basis of education should be rhetoric, and the
rhetor should train both his mind and also his body. He believed that in order to
become an orator, three conditions needed to be fulfilled: firstly, one needed natural
skills, without which every personal effort is pointless, then intense, constant prac-
tice, because natural skills are not enough and, finally, a systematic education. His

14 Ricoeur, Metafora vie, p. 21.

15 Quoted by Olivier Reboul in Introduction à la rhétorique, p. 19.

89
disciples participated in the composition of Isocrates’ discourses; they discussed
them and worked on them together, and the teacher recommended that the prose
that they created themselves should be clear and precise, avoiding rare terms, neolo-
gisms, and too obvious rhythms. The prose did not have to be poetic, but its harmony
was important, and also it had to be euphonic, but without awkward repetitions and
too obvious figures of style. Isocrates, who declared himself anti-­sophist, differed
indeed from the sophists through the conception according to which the truth and
morality are not contradictory to rhetoric, this being defined only by the noble and
honest causes to which they must dedicate themselves.
Many specialists consider Demosthenes one of the most brilliant orators of
Hellenic antiquity; he distinguished himself especially in the domain of political
eloquence. This happened because he played an active role in the political life
of Athens, to which he devoted himself unconditionally. His discourses, which
impressed the audience every time, have a high moral message, being the result
of elaborate and very detailed work. But even if Demosthenes composed his dis-
courses before delivering them, he learnt them by heart, and did not read them;
this detail is mentioned by Plutarch, who wrote appreciatively about Demosthenes.
He skillfully used quotations, which illustrates the solid culture he had acquired,
and he used a simple, accessible language by which he always succeeded in captur-
ing the interest and attention of those he talked to. His political speeches called
the Philippics are especially famous.

Aristotle
One of the most famous philosophers of antiquity, interested in ethics, politics,
logic, metaphysics, natural sciences, and making at the same time an important
contribution to the foundation of rhetoric as as a system-­based discipline, was
Aristotle. At the beginning he adopted Plato’s position – we should not forget that
that he was his student for twenty years – but he soon deviated from this, giving
rhetoric the attention that Plato had not considered necessary.
In Techné rhetoriké, the first founding treatise of the discipline, he appreciated
it thanks to the usefulness it had demonstrated, and to the role it fulfilled socially,
as it contributed on more than one occasion to the decision-­making process in the
citadel. Just as Gorgias or other rhetors were interested in the matter of honesty,
Aristotle admitted that rhetoric can be used for unjust causes which it can serve
equally as in the case of just ones. Nevertheless, in this case, it is not rhetoric that
should be held guilty, but the one who, unscrupulously, resorts to it as a means
of manipulation. That is why he took care to distinguish the real consensus from
the apparent one with which the Sophists, always ready to cheat, were content.

90
 Aristotle underlined a particular fact which will differentiate his view from
that of Plato, namely that the purpose of rhetoric is not to obtain the truth, since
it is not, in his opinion, a technique of logical argumentation; the discovery of the
truth is the preoccupation of dialectics, situated on a superior level, because its
purpose is knowledge. In the Nicomachean Ethics he outlined that, just as it was
absurd to ask a mathematician for persuasive discourses, it is equally absurd to
ask an orator for invincible demonstrations! Thus rhetoric is based on plausibility,
eikos, and not on truth. The parties in a conflict re-­enact the intended situations, it
is in fact a mental re-­enactment, and the judge needs to decide on the basis of often
contradictory testimonies. Thus he will not rely on the truth, but on plausibility.
But even if rhetoric is an argumentation technique which is based on plausibil-
ity and has the purpose of creating convictions, this fact does not make it culpable,
although it is on an inferior level by comparison with dialectics. Eventually, the
presence of rhetoric is justified by the lack of differentiation between the just and
unjust causes. If the truth were always clear, if it were revealed and self-­evident,
it would be easy to know who was right, and trials would be useless. Yet things
are totally different in a world where uncertainty dominates, which makes debate
absolutely indispensable. And it can only be an art of finding the most appropri-
ate means of persuasion which need to be different from case to case as every
discourse has, beyond its general structure, its specific elements and those of its
subject. In this way, Aristotle situated rhetoric in the place it had gained, a place
that had been threatened by slipping into matters of form and not of content,
and on the other hand, by the indirect discrediting that it had suffered through
its association with sophistry.

2.2.2. Latin rhetoric
The art of discourse in antiquity is represented by two very important epochs:
the Greek period and the Roman period, considering that between Aristotle and
Cicero, that is, between the 4th and the 1st centuries BC, nothing really important
happened. Rome adopted rhetoric in the 2nd century BC, thanks to its expan-
sion into the Hellenistic world and to the presence of Greek rhetors and of some
schools of rhetoric in the Latin-­speaking world space, but not before rhetoric had
been violently rejected. Afterwards, this discipline becomes so highly appreciated
that the emperor Vespasian, in the 1st century AD, ordered the foundation of a
public school of rhetoric, and Republican eloquence would culminate in the ora-
tory of Cicero. An important text, dedicated entirely to instruction in the methods
of discourse, and whose author is anonymous, is Rhetorica ad Herennium. This
book, which addressed those who wanted to become lawyers, politicians, or ora-

91
tors, presents in detail the five parts of the rhetoric system, the main styles, (high,
medium and inferior), and the figures of style. At the end, there is a substantial
list, a real glossary of the speech and modes of thought , with over one hundred
types of tropes and figures of style.

Cicero
Cicero and Quintilian are the greatest representatives of the rhetoric of the Latin
world. An important personality of antiquity, “the last of the ancients and the
first of the moderns,” as Tzvetan Todorov wrote, Cicero (106–43 BC)16 became a
lawyer before turning 25, an important politician and the greatest orator, as his
contemporaries considered him. For him, the late Republic was not an era of great
rhetoric and because he regretted the loss of the initial status of the discipline,
he brought back into discussion the divisions proposed by Aristotle: inventio,
dispositio, elocutio, actio. He reminded the objectives of oratory: delectare (to
delight), movere (to touch) and docere (to teach). In the beginning, it was closely
related to philosophy, which presupposed “the knowledge of the most important
ideas,” rhetoric being “its application to life.” In three famous rhetoric writings of
his maturity, De Oratore, Brutus and Orator, Cicero tries to demonstrate that the
two disciplines, far from being opoosed, are actually complementary, and rhetoric
has not only an epistemological value but a practical utility. But unlike Aristotle
and Plato, he believes in the superiority of rhetoric to dialectics, given the fact that
he did not see any incompatibility between opinion and truth. On the contrary,
truth and opinion can combine, but the absolute truth cannot be known, but only
what is plausible and even then we do not have total access to the secrets of things,
or of the world, which is why opinion is necessary. He also debated the issue of
sincerity or insincerity that rhetoric involved, but Cicero believed it to be a false
problem. Thus an absence of rhetoric will not add extra sincerity to the speech,
but it will reveal deficiencies in expression and inability to convince.

“The complete orator”

Cicero considered the art that he used to practice an essential discipline for the
formation of the individual, and for his education and general culture, absolutely
obligatory to everybody. Wisdom without eloquence, he said, proves of little use-

16 When Cicero, a defender of the Republic, defeated his main opponent, Catiline, in 64
BC he was considered the saviour of the country, and Plutarch presented him as the
most important person in Rome at that time. Quintilian also said of Cicero that his
name was synonymous with eloquence itself, so glorious had he become.

92
fulness in a community, and eloquence without wisdom is simply dangerous.
Thus, no sapientia without eloquentia, but no eloquentia without sapientia! Cicero
was one of the most educated personalities of his time, so that his recommenda-
tions would come from his personal experience. There was no domain of human-
istic culture in which he had no interest. He was well acquainted not only with
Latin culture, but also with that of Greece – philosophy (he had listened to the
most important philosophers in their homes), literature – Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides and of course Homer –, and oratory – Demosthenes, Lysias, Isocrates.
The eloquent human being,17 a sort of humanist ideal, is required to know phi-
losophy, law and human psychology and, of course, he must talk in such a way as
to prove, to please and to convince. “An orator is required to have the shrewdness
of a logician, the thinking of a philosopher, the expression of a poet, the memory
of a solicitor, the voice of the tragedian and, I would say, the gestures of a famous
actor. That is why there is nothing rarer in the world than a complete orator.”18
Crassus, the character behind whom seems to be Cicero, claims that the rhetor
is superior to the philosopher because he has the power of the poet who touches
his audience with the help of his expressions.

Elocutio in Cicero
Style was not perceived by the great orator as an artificial addition to a content,
but actually comprised two elements, verba (the form) and res (the content) which
cannot be separated arbitrarily. Despite this, from Cicero’s writings it is obvious
that the accent switched from inventio to elocutio, since, whatever the chosen sub-
ject, an elegant and carefully ornamented style was compulsory. To demonstrate
is the privilege of necessity, to please of entertainment and to defeat of victory,
and the style needs to be adapted and precise when it comes to proofs, moderate
when the orator needs to please, and vehement when he seeks victory. For Cicero,
beauty, the compulsory privilege of every discourse, means force, kindness, pathos,
Attic transparency and Asiatic deployment. One of the exceptional qualities of
his rhetoric was represented by the way in which he knew how to unify different
principles belonging to different schools. He mastered the art of creating in his
discourses the most diverse emotions and of easily switching from one to another,
from crying to laughter, to compassion or indignation. His phrases are either
ample or short, symmetrical, well constructed for every circumstance.

17 For Cicero, real eloquence is oratio grandis.

18 Cicero, “De Oratore” in Opere alese, vol. II. Trans. G. Guţu (Bucharest: Univers Printing
House, 1973), p. 51.

93
 In one of the writings of his maturity, De Oratore, composed as a dialogue
between various speakers including Antonius and Crassus considered by Cicero
the most important men of the previous generation, all the important Ciceronian
themes are present. Rhetoric is described as the central art which is connected
to all aspects of civic and public life, which not only differentiates people from
beasts, but can contribute fundamentally to the civilization of humanity. In fact
it had flourished exactly where peace and tranquility dominated. His discourses
have as their subjects history and its lessons, and to an equal degree political life,
moral principles, and civic duties.

Quintilian
Cicero’s ideas did not remain unanswered, being taken further by famous names
such as Quintilian, the most important teacher of rhetoric that the Romans ever
had.19 De institutione oratoria (The oratorical art), his treatise in twelve books,
published in 96 AD, is one of the fundamental writings of classical, not only Latin,
oratory, in which a whole tradition is systematized. His literary work has a spe-
cial importance20 taking into account the precarious situation of rhetoric. Public
liberties had suffered after the fall of the Republic and the establishment of the
Empire, and in the educational system, even though rhetoric was still a subject,
it did not have the same importance. Tacitus21 regretfully noted in Dialogus de
Oratoribus that rhetoric had been transformed into an ever more ornamental and
empty exercise, since its main preoccupation had become the study of figures of
style and tropes, which were nevertheless part of grammar. In Quintilian’s view,
eloquence had declined especially because the Schools of oratory had become
accustomed, by using the wrong methods, to cultivating a corrupted, ornate ar-
tificial style, dealing with implausible themes far removed reality, when it would
have been more necessary, for example, to offer students an adequate oratorical
and moral education.
De institutione oratoria pays attention in the first pages to pedagogical prob-
lems, and to oratorical education as early as childhood. This is equivalent to a
solid education when, after the child has learnt to write and read, he will know
that it is not enough to speak correctly; he will also interpret literature. Quintil-
ian recommended Homer, Virgil, and Horace, authorities in the field and models

19 He was the first teacher to be officially paid by the state.

20 His influence in the Renaissance was second only to that of Cicero.
21 With Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Suetonius and others, Tacitus was a pupil of Quintilian
at the school of rhetoric that he had opened.

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for rhetorical composition to which the personal creativity of the pupil could
add. Declamation in schools was necessary, but Quintilian was convinced that it
needed to be practiced in forums and courts. Exercises in rhetoric should not, he
believed, have fictitious or mythological themes, but current affairs; they should
be based on real cases. Next, the definition of rhetoric the author of the book
accepts is provided, namely, ars bene dicendi, but an art more practical than theo-
retical or productive. The young orator who will acquire a solid culture backed
up by a (necessarily) prodigious memory, and by an imagination trained by solid
literary reading, will have the necessary instruments to learn how a discourse is
composed, how the most appropriate arguments are chosen and how a speech
achieves brilliance through diction. It will have a three-­fold purpose: to inform,
to impress, to delight, ut doceat, ut moveat, ut delectet.22
This monumental paper, actually the richest and the most various treatise about
the art of oratory in antiquity, refers to the parts of the discourse, the distinction
between the technical and the non-­technical tests, comedy, the presentation of
proofs, and style, but also to imitation, memory and action. The diversity of the
references can be noticed in this enumeration of the main chapters of the treatise.
The paper is more eclectic than homogenous and original; Quintilian presents the
multitude of information he has access to, sometimes adding a personal touch to
the themes he takes over. Being a great admirer of Cicero, he did not stray away
from his ideas; that is why to him rhetoric was synonymous with culture and,
indeed, it did not have to be, and could not be, separated from philosophy. Ad-
ditionally, the orator tried to combine this discipline, as we have seen, with ethics
and virtue, expressing his conviction that “where the cause is unjust, there is no
rhetoric.” There is thus a dependence of true oratory on the moral qualities of the
orator. His insistence on the moral qualities can be explained by the decadence of
rhetoric at the time. Yet his educational project and his ethical recommendations
did not, unfortunately, produce significant results in the following eras.

2.2.3. Asianism
Beyond the Latin-­speaking world, where Greek rhetoric offered a starting-­point,
it also provided an inspiration for rhetoric in Asia Minor rhetoric (the provinces
of Caria, Phrygia, Mysia). The oriental style developed here; unlike the sober,
reserved, Attic one, it seemed strange and excessively opulent, and was called Asi-
atic. This style was characterized by theatrical, dramatic effects and the numerous

22 See the introductory study by Maria Hetco in the volume M. F. Quintilianus, Arta
oratorică, trans. Maria Hetco (Bucharest: Minerva Publishing House, 1974).

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exaggerations, which triggered blame on the part of those who appreciated the
polished and balanced elegance of the Attics. Quintilian, for example, considered
them rude, emphatic, and unbalanced. That does not mean that this style did not
enjoy any success. Cicero himself, at the beginning of his career, cultivated this
style, appropriate for an enthusiastic youth, but not for maturity, when he adopted
the Asiatic style himself.
The confrontation between the two styles is not strictly one of documentary
interest. Ernst Robert Curtius, who studied the European culture of the Middle
Ages in depth, pointed to the phenomenon which is of special importance for
the comprehension of literature, “because it represents the first manifestation of
what we will call from now on literary mannerism. The Asiatic is the first form
of European mannerism, and the Atticism of European classicism. Atticism de-
veloped a classicist literary esthetics which imposes itself victoriously after the
middle of the 1st century BC.”23 This is a further proof that rhetoric was familiar
with the literary forms and genres which it inspired more than once, and, in the
post-­Ciceronian period, rhetoric itself becomes literature, its references and its
objectivest actually coinciding with literature.

2.3. Another type of rhetoric: sacred rhetoric

No longer having a social and political vocation, oratory, i.e. the speech delivered
in front of an audience and rhetoric, the art of delivering a speech, lost their public
role. When it was no longer delivered in forums, political as well as judiciary elo-
quence declined with democracy. Historically, this occurs about the first century
AD, and famous writings such as Petronius’ Satyricon, the last chapter of On the
Sublime, Quintilian’s De institutione oratoria or Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus
mention the decline of rhetoric. The explanation for this situation is, in the au-
thors’ view, the moral corruption that affected education as well.
The technical component of rhetoric was in decline, the deliberative and the
judiciary genres became insignificant, and their place was taken by the epideictic
genre. It was little concerned with persuasion, and it focused almost exclusively on
the art of the orator, on his capacity of embellishing his discourse, so that a new
trend appeared, that of fictitious causes which emphasized only the mastery of
the orator in using the language, so that virtuosity counted more than the content
of ideas. Thus, “rhetoric will be transformed into familiarity with the language

23 Ernst Robert Curtius, Literatura europeană şi Evul Mediu latin, trans. Adolf Armbruster
(Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1970), p. 84.

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which shows off,” it will become a “celebration of language.”24 Once excluded from
politics and courts, the orator could only prove his talent by gratuitous and sterile
exercises that sounded agreeable and enraptured those interested in this form of
cultural life. Rhetoric became synonymous with the study of the rules of literary
composition and, because the style acquired such great importance, grammar
books multiplied simply because they were much in demand.
Later, Christianity, at least in its early stages, did not want to have anything to
do with the rich and influential Greek and Latin tradition. For the first Christians,
rhetoric and dialectics were seen as creations of the devil, expressions of the pagan
idolatrous culture like that of the Sophists. To them, the so-­called skill in speaking
and the use of the word were culpable as a means of cheating and manipulation.
Because of that, the first Christians would impose the idea that the truth of the
Bible is self-­sufficient, without needing “an artificial and fabricated” rhetoric;
their discourse needed to be sincere, inspired by faith. They would insist on the
importance of authentic morality, not on a simulated one, as was believed to have
happened in antiquity. Saint Augustine25 recommended, for example, a simple,
direct and pleasant speech that should influence the audience towards observance
of and respect for the precepts preached. The Christian orator almost disappeared
in the relationship between logos and pathos, just because he was submitted to the
temptation of falling into the sin of amor verborum (attachment to one’s verbal
performances), and rhetoric itself was degraded from the central position it had
had in antiquity.
Saint Augustine pronounced on the thorny matters that had given rise to count-
less debates and established that rhetoric was legitimate when it referred to the
Christian truth and illegitimate when it ignored this desideratum. The rejection
by the first Christians of rhetoric, a highly sophisticated system, can be explained
by the popular character of Christianity, and by the absence of experience in the
art of discourse that could compare with the performances in antiquity.
But as the church took its missionary responsibility more seriously, it was only
natural that it should develop its own oratory and learn from the technique of
building a discourse from the great rhetors of antiquity, although not all of them
aroused their interest. Their ideas were similar to those of the Stoics, who despised
eloquence and advocated sobriety of speech. Naturally, truth and morality were
the undeniable purposes of every Christian orator, but they were not interested, as

24 Tzvetan Todorov, Teorii ale simbolului, trans. Mihai Murgu (Bucharest: Univers Pub-
lishing House, 1983), p. 93.
25 Before converting to Christianity, Saint Augustine was an eminent rhetoric teacher,
and an advocate of Cicero’s ideas.

97
the classic orator was, in persuasion because the audience was already convinced
in terms of the acceptance of the divine truth. The purpose of the preacher was
to urge his hearers to observe the religious norms and precepts. It is sure that as
soon as this type of oratory had gained prestige, going beyond the rudimentary
stage of the first discourses, this rhetoric would be regarded as the expression of
God’s power and not Satan’s, as it had been considered by the first Christians.

2.3.1. Sacred rhetoric in Romanian culture

The first Romanian manifestation of eloquence was occasioned by sacred rheto-
ric. It relates to the 17th century and the preaching of Varlaam, followed by that
of Antim Ivireanul. The Romanian educational book of Varlaam’s Cazania in
1643 does not stand out by its originality, but because it circulated intensively
in the intra- and extra-­Carpathian region, it had an overwhelmingly important
role by reason of the “diction of the moral idea,” as Elvira Sorohan26 emphasized.
As for Antim Ivireanul, even if he seems to deny rhetoric, just because he was
informed about the theological disputes on this subject, he nevertheless practiced
it skillfully. His personality breathes from his vibrant sermons, because Antim
saw himself in the role of the “soul fisherman” who confidently appealed to “the
charm of education” and “the fishing rod of the word”, and thus to the persuasive
effect of words. This case is also a case of religious and moral eloquence fervently
sustained in his didache by special figures of style used in rhetoric: prosopopoeia,
allegories, interrogations, exclamations, etc.
Dimitrie Cantemir was the first author in Romanian culture to use the terms of
classical rhetoric, drawing attention to the cunning oratorical devices and to the
merits of great personalities such as Aristotle, Demosthenes or Cicero.

2.4. Rhetoric in the centuries which were not favorable to it

Ars ornandi
In late antiquity27 rhetoric was marked by the Christian anathema, and in the
Middle Ages it was given a secondary importance, being taught in the Triuvium
of the liberal arts, namely with grammar and dialectics. It will be reduced to the
study of elocutio and of the ornaments of the discourse, as the deliberative genre

26 Elvira Sorohan, Introducere în istoria literaturii române (Iaşi: “Al. I. Cuza” University

Publishing House, 1997), p. 120.
27 The main representatives of this period were Tertullian, Saint Augustine and Isidore
of Seville.

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had disappeared, because the political confrontations did not have any role in
the public life.
The Renaissance brings with it the rediscovery of the values of antiquity, and
implicitly of rhetoric, which once again becomes a fundamental study discipline,
completing, more precisely, the philological culture. This fact indicates the con-
tinuation of the process of transformation into literature of the discipline which,
although especially esteemed, will not recover its initial complexity, rhetoric being
in its beginnings, as previosuly noted, multidisciplinary. But, due to its preoccu-
pation with style, it is no wonder that it was taken for poetry given the fact that
the border between the two disciplines was not clearly delineated. The study of
Latin once again brings Cicero and his writings into the limelight to become a
real model for education and the notions of clarity and naturalness regain their
reputation. In Renaissance rhetoric must reflect things, res, yet paying attention to
the words it uses, verba, it needs to encourage the genius, ingenium, but it should
also intensify it by the imitation of the antics.
The end of the Renaissance does not mean the return of of rhetoric to obscu-
rity; it continued to be a school subject. Unfortunately, it was reduced to elocutio
and actio by the reform of Ramus who, in his Dialectica in 1555, added to logics
the most important components of rhetoric device, inventio and dispositio. Thus
rhetoric was no longer an art of discourse but an art of style, confined to the study
of figures of style. Tzvetan Todorov makes a subtly perceptive remark when he dis-
cusses the crises which affected rhetoric in its primary form: “Even the principle
that causes the disappearance of the old rhetoric – the efficient eloquence – keeps
alive rhetoric seen as a body of rules. The compulsory system of values for the
entire society suppresses the freedom of speech, but maintains the rules. What
dooms eloquence (and rhetoric simultaneously) contributes at the same time to its
survival.”28 It seems paradoxical, indeed, that exactly what contradicted the spirit
of rhetoric, the quality that had led it to success in antiquity, would control and
determine its survival later on, irrespective how tormented it was.
The truly cultivated persons did not ignore it, because it was the main modality
of instruction to face discussions and the much appreciated disputes at Court. In
the 17th century, preciosity imposed itself on rhetoric, because elegant manners
and cultivated and refined expression represented a necessary modality for step-
ping up the social ladder.

28 Todorov, Teorii ale simbolului, pp. 103–104.

99
The evidence against the plausible
Later, after the strict separation between art and science, rhetoric remained the
exclusive preserve of literature and, moreover, it was overtaken by grammar, which
had become the only discipline that was governed the cultivation of expression.
The development of science and the bourgeois revolutions fundamentally change
the social priorities, and realist disciplines and the capacity to produce material
goods gain preeminence, while elegant speech was seen as a trivial matter. Correct
expression, supervised by grammar, was enough.
The priorities of life changed, and the utilitarian philosophy was largely ac-
cepted. In this sense, Descartes’ theory of knowledge expresses the general con-
ception very well. It concerns the importance given to the criterion of evidence
and to that of the exclusive acceptance of facts that can be demonstrated, and the
demonstration represents a number of means by which a statement or a phrase
is transformed into an “established fact” which cannot be denied. Thus rhetoric
was seriously affected, being a domain of the opinion and, precisely as Aristotle
said, of the plausible. But Descartes asserts plainly: “everything that is plausible
must be considered almost false.” Thus, the probable and matters for deliberation
are discredited in the name of clear, checkable, obvious ideas.
And yet, while Descartes does not blame the ornaments that the orator resorts to,
he confesses that he thought at times of giving a more accessible form to his doctrine,
by resorting to … rhetorical means. His attitude is consequently ambivalent when
the truths he had found can be expressed by the help of rhetoric. In spite of this, it is
very clear that scientific demonstration, the only kind taken into consideration, had
taken over all the merits, while argumentation did not have any; it was despised or
ignored. A new value was imposed and did not leave any space for rhetoric because,
as Barthes wrote: “evidence is self-­sufficient and it steps away from language, or it
believes it steps away or at least it pretends it needs it only as an instrument, a media-
tion, an expression.”29 Nor was Descartes the only philosopher who emphasized the
so-­called uselessness of rhetoric. Of the same opinion were Spinoza,30 John Locke
and, later, Kant, who did not give it any credit because for the art of persuasion
he uses the synonym ‘the art of cheating’- an art that takes advantage of human
weaknesses, an art that “borrows” from poetry what it needs in order to attract the
spirits to its side for which reason it does not deserve any respect. In The Critique of

29 Roland Barthes, “L’ancienne rhétorique”, Communications, No. 16 (1970), p. 192.

30 He is more than skeptical when it comes to paying too much attention to the language,
which he considers a communicative instrument full of imperfections, sprung from
imagination and not from reason.

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Judgement, the philosopher confessed to what degree reading the discourses of an
orator created an unpleasant feeling within him, given the way in which these dis-
courses led people to a mechanical acceptance of valueless judgments. Kant referred
precisely to rhetoric’s capacity for manipulation, hence his contempt.

Rhetoric in the 18th and 19th centuries

In Romanian culture, rhetoric appears, until the end of the 18th century and the
beginning of the 19th century, as a necessity for the educational system, an instru-
ment for the cultivation of the literary language. Şcoala Ardeleană tried to use
what classic rhetoric had to offer, not to say that the pupils from Blaj learnt the
principles of oratory and made exercises on texts in Latin, especially from Cicero.
In 1798 the first Rhetoric, attributed to Ioan-­Molnar Piuariu, was published. The
influence of Aristotle, who is mentioned from the very beginning, is obvious in
the paper, which has the merit of having tried to popularize this discipline. As
for Ritorica română pentru tinerime (Romanian rhetoric for the young) published
in Iaşi in 1852 by D. Gusti, it represents an evident progress in comparison to
Piuariu’s. The definitions have clarity, the welcome commentaries are accompa-
nied by various quotations, and the literary language the writer uses is very careful.
Nevertheless, in other European cultures, rhetoric suffered attacks. The positiv-
ism contested it in the name of scientific truth, and Romanticism in the name of
sincerity and of freedom in art, mainly because rhetoric had become a collection
of normative rules. “Guerre à la rhétorique et paix à la grammaire!” was the vibrant
urging of Victor Hugo and because in the 19th century rhetoric was considered a
useless discipline, it was eliminated from the educational curriculum.
But before classic rhetoric ceased to exist, two papers, one published in 1730
and the other 100 years later in 1830, reenergized the discipline, at a time when
there were no hopes that this was still possible. The first was the work of Du
Marsais, more exactly, the treatise On tropes and the other, The figures of language,
was by Fontanier; both organize and structure the domain of tropes and figures of
style in a way that will rekindle interest in rhetoric, but only temporarily.
Because it was perceived in the Romantic period as well as in the modern pe-
riod by Symbolism and Surrealism as a system of stiff, old-­fashioned rules that did
not represent the aspirations of the time – the need for spontaneity and unbound,
uncensored expression – the technique of expression, the rules and regulations
became pointless obstacles in the path of of self-­exhibition. The reverberations of
this idea can be identified even today, when one mentions the false and artificial
rhetoric of some discourses. In fact, the whole history of the discipline mirrors
the fundamental contradiction between those who wanted or want to impose a

101
simple, natural, honest rhetoric and the adepts of a rhetoric of the ornament, of
embellishments, of skill in using the words.

A chance for rhetoric in the 20th century

Nevertheless rhetoric was not condemned to disappear, even if the numerous at-
tacks seemed to have removed it from general attention. Yet, whenever the study
of the language imposed itself more prominently, rhetoric was not forgotten and
“in every of the renaissances that Europe witnessed, rhetoric played an essential
role and this role is far from referring only to pedagogy.”31 Thus, at the end of the
19th century and at the beginning of the 20th there was an unprecedented flowering
of the philosophy of language, thanks to the research of figures such as Humboldt,
Russell, Carnap or Wittgenstein. Therefore, one of the current perspectives of
rhetoric is the philosophical one, its other component being linguistics. In this lat-
ter case, the domain that is analyzed is that of figures of style, but only those figures
of style that have a persuasive role, because the rhetoric of argumentation does
not have to be separated from that of style. The differences that current rhetoric
presupposes, comparable to the old rhetoric, are immediately graspable. In spite
of all attempts to unify style and content, the tendency is still to highlight the
aspects related to form and the language procedures used especially in literature.
Although when we talk we use figures of style, it is important to know how to use
them and to be aware of the power they have. Rhetoric is thus present in daily
life as in the final analysis it is the science of human discourses in society. On the
other hand, today the purpose of rhetoric is no longer to control the production
of discourses but to interpret them, and the originality of this discipline nowadays
is the extension of its area of interest by going beyond the field of discourse. Thus
there is a rhetoric of the poster, of music, of the unconscious …

2.5. The rhetorical system and some essential matters related

to rhetoric
The apex of rhetoric was marked by Aristotle, the man who organized, in his
famous paper Rhetorica,32 the rules of the discipline in a stable, homogenous and
unitary system; this was because the plausible, the probable, the opinions needed

31 Histoire de la rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne1450-1950, ed. Marc Fumaroli (Paris:

PUF, 1999), p. 6.
32 The first part of Rhetorica is dominated by the issue of reasoning, the second by pas-
sions, and the third by style.

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a tekhné (art) of their own. The general directions (completed and unchanged by
followers) of the rhetorical device converge into four main parts (an equal number
to the main chapters of the rhetoric treatises): inventio (heuresis) or heuristics,
the choice of the type of discourse, of the subject and of the persuasive means;
dispositio (taxis), namely, the ordering, the plan of discourse, the organization of
the material; elocutio (lexis) referring to the writing or the style, everything that
is related to expression problems, and actio (hypocrisis), diction, properly refer-
ring to the delivery of the discourse. In the Roman period, memoria (mneme)
was added to actio.

The first component of the rhetorical system, inventio

Inventio is not the equivalent of today’s word invention, and it does not imply
the idea of creation based on imagination. Rather, it concerns the choice of
the type of discourse and the identification of what one needs to say in certain
situations. The choice of the type of discourse can be made from among three
types: judiciary, used in court in order to accuse (indictment) or to defend (plea),
deliberative or political, (this is usually heard in the Senate, having as its object
legislation, decisions referring to the defense of the city, the budget, the taxes,
etc.), and finally, the demonstrative discourse or the epideictic one where a god,
a human or legendary creatures are most often praised, although they may also
be blamed, which implies ostentation and pomposity. Later, a particular species
will derive from this genre, relating to the praise of the sovereign or panegyric
literature.
Aristotle demonstrates the way the three types of discourse differentiate by the
time that is uniquely theirs. Thus, the judiciary focuses on what has happened,
because it is about past events that need to be judged; the deliberative is concerned
with the future, because it weighs and imposes decisions that will be taken and, fi-
nally, the epideictic focuses on the present because it aims to obtain the admiration
of the audience by discursive performance. Not even the argumentation of every
type is identical. The judiciary that addresses a specialized public, when referring
to laws, uses especially the syllogistic reasoning, entimema,33 the deliberative genre,

33 Entimema, unlike the example, does not begin from secure prerequisites, but only
probabilities and from an implicit general prerequisite, so it is deductive. In the case
of the example, a particular fact is inserted in a more general context; one starts from
past facts to arrive at future ones, so it is inductive. Although in Aristotle’s writings
there is no clear discussion about the entimema, it can be said that this is an elliptical
form of argumentation; it is a dialectic syllogism that leads to nothing but a probability.

103
that addresses a less cultivated public, prefers to argue by using the example, and
the epideictic resorts to amplification because the facts, being already known to
the public, must be better valued so as to impress.

The second component of the rhetoric system, dispositio

Once inventio is established, this first stage involving the search for the most ap-
propriate arguments for the type of discourse chosen, the most important part in
the conception of the discourse, follows, its plan, the organization of arguments,
depending on the specificity of the cause or dispositio. The arguments are the
“common elements,” topoi, “reserves of arguments” which rely on tacit agreements
between the emitter and the receiver and which can be strategically placed at cer-
tain moments of the discourse, especially at the beginning, but also at the end or
throughout the discourse. Quite often they were learnt by heart, especially when
it was a matter of common elements that could be adapted to every subject.34
Many topoi in rhetoric would change their function in time and enter literature
in the form of clichés. Paul Ricoeur sees “one of the causes of rhetoric’s death” in
an excess of formalism, much later, in the 19th century.35
The classic plan consists of four parts. The exordium, representing the opening
of the discourse, the introduction or the preamble, is meant to attract the attention
(captatio benevolentiae), to prepare the audience and to make them favourably
disposed towards the speaker. That is why it has an emotional value, being pa-
thetic or vehement, indignant or vibrant. Aristotle said that the deliberative does
not need an exordium because the audience already knows what it is about. On
the contrary, in the epideictic style, the exordium consists in the involvement of
the audience in the topic,36 which is meant to lead to an affective participation
from the very beginning by those who are present. For example, one of the most
frequently-­used topoi in the exordium is the excuse for a lack of experience, for
incomplete preparation, and the praise of the adversary’s talent which should
draw the benevolence of the audience to the modesty and common sense of the
one who delivers the speech. Cicero, in his Orator, dedicated to Brutus, begins
by saying that the topic is beyond his power and that he is afraid that he will be
criticized by learned people, including Brutus. This kind of modesty will be ex-

34 Besides these loci communes there were also the specific loci, idioi topoi, appropriate
only to certain subjects.
35 Ricoeur, Metafora vie, p. 57.
36 One of the topoi of epideictic eloquence was the eulogy of ancestors and of their great
deeds.

104
tremely frequent in late pagan and Christian antiquity, and it is accompanied by
the excuse that the decision to write is influenced by the demand of a friend or
of a superior. In the exordial, the topos of dedication or that of knowledge that
needs to be shared with others may be encountered. Sometimes, it may happen
that the exordium is suppressed and the cause may be referred to directly, which
is also meant to attract attention. It is the case of Cicero’s famous ex abrupto, often
quoted: “How long, oh Catiline, will you abuse of our patience?!…”
The case, presented by narratio, the story, is the core of the utterance, and as
the manner of presentation itself can be an important argument, a short, concise,
simple, clear and credible narration of facts is recommended (or they should seem
credible, if objectively this is not so), preferably chronologically. The orator must
be aware of the fact that not every aspect and not every circumstance related to
the case can help him, and then he needs to know what to present from whatever
is to hand. Confirmatio, indisputably the longest part of the discourse, contains the
assembly of proofs that will result in the destruction of the adversary’s arguments.
The digressions and the moments of relaxation, which serve as indirect proofs,
can be placed anywhere, but usually between confirmatio and the peroratio which
closes the discourse and which involves moments of affection meant to attract for
good the support of the audience.

Elocutio or style
The third component of the rhetorical system, after inventio and dispositio, which
had not existed since the beginning of rhetoric, but which was imposed later,
becoming its essential component, is elocutio. Everything that referred to lan-
guage, style or adornment, the very writing of the discourse, related to elocutio.
This was the part that emphasized most strongly the personality of the author of
the discourse and his contribution and, simultaneously, this was the point where
rhetoric met art, becoming, thanks to it, an art.
But before proving its artistry, the one who composed a discourse should use
the language correctly, to observe the rules of correct expression, which was a
compulsory requirement. Besides expression in conformity with the grammati-
cal rules, there were other criteria in the appreciation of a discourse: clarity, the
most important characteristic of the style, according to Aristotle, the judicious
use of tropes and of figures of style, as well as their adjustment to the topic. The
necessity of ornamentation was imposed because it was noticed that without fig-
ures of style the discourse was too dry and boring, but when verbal adornments
appeared, they were not simply attached as a quantitative element that one could
dispense with immediately.

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 Very important for the correct comprehension of what elocutio represented is
the fact that the aesthetics of rhetoric is functional or, differently put, the beautiful
was not only meant to create pleasure in the audience without having any further
utility or role. The smallest stylistic effect or the most apparently insignificant
figure of speech needed to be justified by the obligation of persuasion. Therefore
the best style was the one that matched the chosen subject particularly well. Con-
sequently, it was not a matter of art for art’s sake, and, erroneously, rhetoric later
came to be taken for the domain of figures of style. These were only to complete
the content harmoniously,and there was a rule according to which they should
not be too evident. Every excess was blamed because an impression of artificiality,
preciosity and even vulgarity was created. Art should not be apparent; at times
slippages were mimed, the natural being much appreciated because the main
purpose was persuasion and not the display of artistic procedures.
Vasile Floreascu in his book Rhetoric and neorhetoric37 pertinently explains
what the main cause was for the change of accent in rhetoric. If at the beginning
inventio and dispositio were essential, elocutio came to change the focus of rhetoric,
diminishing the importance of persuasion and of the support of some causes by
the strongest arguments possible. This happened when a distinction between the
content of ideas and their expression was made; it involves the classic difference
between content and form. Normally, an unbreakable unity exists between them
there is, but, unfortunately, the two components were artificially separated, and
the error has not been corrected today either, except theoretically, when critics
avoid talking about ideas and themes on the one hand and about style on the other
hand in separate chapters. Yet, as early as antiquity, the matter of expression, of
art’s adornments became primordial, because the practical interest in obtaining
the audience’s support in favor of a cause disappeared when the democratic pro-
cesses were no longer possible. And then, the aspect which attracted attention was
the art of uttering a discourse, the hard work of finding and using figures of style.
For their sake they would even imagine causes, which meant that preoccupations
with problems of content were given secondary importance.

Actio and memoria

Returning to the system of rhetoric, the fourth component, actio (also called
pronuntiatio), deals with vocal effects, breathing and diction, mimicry and ges-
tures. It is not by chance that this part of rhetoric was an inspiration for treatises

37 Vasile Florescu, Retorica şi neoretorica. Geneză, evoluţie, perspective (Bucharest: Acad-

emy Publishing House, 1973).

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on the actor’s art, because persuasion could be achieved not only by what was
communicated, but also by the way it was communicated, by the very presence of
the orator, by the tone that he used, by the way in which he talked and gestured,
attracting attention and creating an impression. Demosthenes38 claimed that this
part was the most important for eloquence because he had an intuition that the
“non-­verbal signs” convince faster than words.
And as it most often happened that the speech was learnt by heart, memoria was
added to the other components of the rhetorical system. Rhetorica ad Herennium
detailed for the first time the topic of memory, discussing the technique based on the
principle of memorizing a series of places and images. It was closely associated with
the content, because a coherent, logical discourse with a well- thought-­out structure
was naturally easier to remember. Moreover, speakers would memorize quotations
from famous authors, anecdotes and other elements which were meant to enrich the
discourse. Cicero considered memory a natural characteristic and not a technique.
On the other hand, Quintilian considered it a technique which needs practice, for
which reason he indicated mnemonic procedures such as the breaking-­down of
the discourse into parts that will be easily learnt, the establishment of mental signs
for the important moments, etc. Yet, in time, they abandoned the two components
actio and memoria, considered minor and even useless, when the discourse was no
longer exclusively oral. The true loss that rhetoric suffered was when the essential
part of the Aristotelian rhetorical device was taken out, the one that controlled the
content, the subjects and the arguments meant to persuade.

2.6. The specificity of rhetoric and its reference

In rhetoric, just as Aristotle emphasized, language, which helps us communicate,
creates a bond between the orator and his audience. It is Aristotle’s merit to have
systematized and outlined in Rhetorica the three essential elements of the rhetori-
cal relationship. Thus the orator needs to demonstrate that he is competent and
simultaneously to show honesty and morality which constitute the elements on
which the persuasion of the audience essentially depends on. This is so because,
without the trust of the audience, irrespective how powerful the arguments are,
they do not have any value, and this confidence is not easily gained as there is the
basic condition of sincerity: the orator needs to be credible and he should not hide

38 Considered the greatest Greek orator, he would put into practice what Aristotle theo-
rized in his treaty Rhetorica. Demosthenes, the Cicero of the Greeks, primarily gained
his glory by his political discourses. Thus the famous Philippics were dedicated to the
fight for the freedom of Athens.

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anything of what he thinks, and, although this can be hard to prove, he can at least
create the impression that he is sincere. Thus he has one extra privilege if he is
likable, and his advice should be not only sensible, but also pertinent. It is a matter
of ethos which is, as we have seen, closely bound up with the affect, to the mood.
The part that focuses on the audience that experiences all kinds of passions
and emotions while listening to the discourse of the orator is the pathos. Aristotle
believed that the sincere emotion that the orator expressed could attract the audi-
ence, even when the orator talked nonsense. The pathos involves a lot of psychol-
ogy, for which reason a great part of the second book in Rhetorica is dedicated to
the psychology of different experiences and feelings (anger, fear, pity, etc.), and to
the different characters of the audience, depending on their age and social posi-
tion. The orator must adapt to all these variables. But even if things seem clear
as far as the ethos and pathos are concerned, Quintilian will later blur these two
concepts. He talks about the affections that dominate the calm and the balance
and which are subject to the moral control, the ethos, and about an unexpected
affection, violent at times, uncontrollable, the pathos. There is no specification that
the ethos belongs to the orator while the pathos belongs to the audience. From this
we might deduce that both the one who delivers the discourse and the one who
listens to it can manifest either one type of affection or the other.
In the end, the part which deals with the discourse, by which we understand
the plan of the discourse, the style, the proper words, the figures of style, the argu-
ments and the proper dialectic aspect of rhetoric, was called logos. Ethos was more
prominent in the judiciary genre, logos in the epideictic one, and pathos especially
characterized political debate, the deliberative genre.
Different philosophers, teachers of oratory and orators focused their attention
on one of the three dimensions. Plato, for example, did not believe in the power
of the oratorical logos to get to the truth, and he was skeptical that the ethos could
involve any value at all. Concerned almost exclusively with the impact that the
discourses have on the audience that has to be submitted to some positive, not
manipulative, influences which might create confusion and falsity, Plato has as his
main reference the pathos. Cicero, on the other hand, is convinced that the ethos
matters more than anything else; the virtue of the orator is reflected not only in
the way he speaks but also in his capacity to say the correct thing.

2.7. Modern rhetoric and its two directions

In 1958 two very important books, Traité de l’argumentation, la nouvelle rhéto-
rique by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-­Tyteca and The Uses of Argument
by Stephen Toulmin, marked the comeback of rhetoric in the 20th century. The

108
Cartesian rationalism that undermined rhetoric in the 18th and 19th centuries
and in whose name the discipline was despised, criticized and eliminated from
education, enjoys the same success in the 20th century as well. What really allowed
the comeback of rhetoric and the lifting of the embargo was a greatly enhanced
interest in communication and debate, in discourse and information.39 It is true
that the analytical reasoning that Aristotle talked about is related to truth and
logic, yet there is also a dialectic reasoning concerned with opinions that do not
belong to the domain of truth, but to that of the plausible, where persuasion and
demonstration do not matter. “Aristotle, ” says Paul Ricoeur, “had the great merit
of elaborating this bond between the rhetoric concept of persuasion and the logi-
cal concept of the plausible, and of building on this rapport the whole edifice of
a philosophical rhetoric.”40

2.7.1. The philosophic neorhetoric

Chaïm Perelman, professor, philosopher and Belgian jurist, made the distinction,
in an essay entitled Prime philosophies and regressive philosophies, between the
prime philosophies which are based on clear foundations from which regres-
sive philosophies derive, with a starting-­point in the debate and arguments from
which they regress in search of a basis.41 The regressive movement which defines
these latter philosophies is not the sign of a subsequent irrationality which should
isolate them. Thus Perelman aimed to highlight the importance of opinions, for
which reason he was against a restrictive rationalism, while Toulmin is against
the Carnap type of logics, wishing for a reform of logics which had been totally
unfit for everyday situations. Stephen Toulmin, a philosopher of knowledge, tries
to demonstrate that argumentation and logics are not incompatible nor in op-
position. Nevertheless, the formal mathematical logics should be complemented
by practical natural logics. Thus, for this discipline to relate to argumentation,
it had to move from an “idealized logic” to a “working logic,” a logic applicable
to daily circumstances when we debate, we have opinions and when we look for
arguments for our positions – and an argumentation related to logics implies
consensus, not certitude. Thus the path was open to the non-­formal argumenta-

39 In America, rhetoric was re-­launched thanks to the theories of communication; in

Europe, linguistics was the main tool for the rediscovery of the discipline.
40 Ricoeur, Metafora vie, p. 24.
41 This distinction recalls the one that Pascal would make between l’esprit de géométrie
(spirit of geometry) to which the method of demonstration corresponds, and l’esprit
de finesse (spirit of finesse) to which the method of argumentation corresponds.

109
tive logics to which Toulmin drew attention, because he himself did not carry out
some clarifying systematic research.
Perelman was aware of the fact that rhetoric lost the central place among the
other thinking systems precisely because of Cartesianism, and for this reason he
wanted to demonstrate that the plausible, values and the opinions are not situated
in the area of the irrational, that they are not dominated by uncontrollable and
at times incomprehensible passions, and thus, without any exaggeration, we can
speak about a logic of the plausible and of opinions, about an order in the field of
the probable. The domain studied by Perelman, the philosopher who continued
Aristotle and Quintilian’s rhetorical tradition, the field of arguments and opinions
is situated, he says, between that of evidence and demonstration on the one hand
and the field of human affect on the other.

Doxa
The sophists were the ones who drew attention to the fact that rhetoric has opinion
as its main reference, and its method is argumentation, actually antonymous to dem-
onstration. Associated with appearances, with the feelings and sensation, i.e. with
precisely the changing sensitive nature that Heraclitus talked about, opinion was
considered the inferior stage to knowing the world. Fragile, approximate, ambigu-
ous, inconsistent, even false at times, we see it located by Plato between science
(which leads to truth) and ignorance, because it varies not only from individual to
individual, but sometimes varies in the thinking of the same person. Opinion was
long despised because it is incapable of revealing the truth, this vision being based
on the deeply-­rooted conception that there is reason in science alone. This way of
interpreting things needed revisiting when it became very clear how important
the techniques of influence and persuasion by language are for society. Thus it was
concluded that between reason and truth there is not always an irreproachable
equivalence,42 and that the rapport between justice and law accepts inadvertencies.
Then, critically analyzing the demonstration, we notice that what really matters here
is the correctness of the thinking with a view to uttering the truth. Its comprehension
and acceptance by the audience, whether it is observed or not by those whom it ad-
dresses, are secondary aspects, insignificant for the one who resorts to this method
of expression. On the contrary, if persuasion is necessary, it needs the support of
the real audience, as in the case of scientific demonstration. This audience does not
always accept the evidence; it is capricious, and decides emotionally; it has precon-
ceptions, which means that it is more difficult to convince. But these difficulties must

42 In extremis, the skeptics doubt the very possibility of the knowledge of reason.

110
be defeated as long as it is doxa which greatly regulates and stipulates social activity,
although rhetoric interferes at every step of the way. Modern culture is a culture of
opinion rather than of science, positivism and evidence.

Theories of argumentation
Argumentation attracts the attention of specialists; Perelman wanted to prove the
appropriateness of its use as a rational instrument for such fields as law, moral,
philosophy, and religion. This is because to reason does not only mean to deduce
or observe scientifically but also to deliberate, to back up ideas intelligently. The
use of argumentation applies not only when it concerns well-­circumscribed fields
such as the ones mentioned above. The bottom line is that to know how to argue is
a necessity, not a luxury, and not to know to argue is, as Philippe Breton43 indicated,
a source of cultural inequality which is similar to traditional inequalities, the social
and the economic ones. Every pluralist and egalitarian society which appreciates
democratic debate appeals to it when decisions are collective, for which reason
it has never existed in totalitarian societies or in those where authoritarianism
dominates. It is definitely used in situations where contradictions appear, a plural-
ity of opinions, situations which require the imposition of debate, but it is meant
to avoid violence and to find solutions for all kinds of conflicts. In a theory of
argumentation the obstacles appear from the initial stage of the definition. Thus,
there is no universal definition of the argument, and argumentation has a multi-
form character, which transforms it into a capricious object of study. Perelman’s
new rhetoric was based on the study of “argumentative techniques,” which allowed
“the challenge or the increase of adherence” to the hypotheses presented, and on
the study of the arguments’ typology. And even if neorhetoric may seem com-
plicated to a neophyte, Perelman stated that it addressed all kinds of audiences.
Nevertheless, the more specialized methodologies addressed a specialized audi-
ence. In any case, the philosopher focused his attention on two of the components
of the classic rhetorical system, inventio and dispositio, ignoring elocutio, actio and
memoria. Naturally, argumentation may come from a literary perspective, but in
this case, the seduction of beauty is more important than reasoning in itself, and
Perelman considered that the figures of the discourse need not be given attention,
as long as they back up the arguments, they emphasize them, or amplify them.
But the persuasive force of the figures of style is what really matters. Without the
argumentative energy which makes them significant, they are simply figures of
style, worthy of appreciation from an aesthetic point of view.

43 Philippe Breton, L’argumentation dans la communication (Paris: La Découverte 2006).

111
2.7.2. Linguistic neorhetoric
Despite this stated opposition by one of the most important promoters of ne-
orhetoric to the foregrounding of the aesthetic dimension when it concerns ar-
gumentative discourse, the ‘60s brought about the spectacular comeback of the
classic rhetoric of the 17th century, of the style figures44 and the aesthetics of dis-
course, of elocutio. This branch of neorhetoric has as its main reference its very
relationship to the science of literature. It is true that the enrichment of ancient
rhetoric by the expressive component occurred with the special recommendation
for its subordination to the persuasive dimension. Cicero himself formulated the
principle dissimulare eloquentiam by which the art, although present, did not have
to be too visible in discourse. Rhetoric was transformed gradually from antiquity
to the Middle Ages and Renaissance into a glossary of figures of style, an assembly
of rules, into a number of recommendations about how to write well by using this
glossary. The Enlightenment and especially the Romantic revolt against this too
rigid discipline was somehow justified. The beginning of the transfer process from
classical rhetoric to neorhetoric was made by Du Marsais by his Traité des tropes
published in 1730, although the perspective was that of a linguist rather than of
a rhetor. Its style focuses especially on figures of style. Later (1821), Fontanier, in
his Traité général des figures du discours, broadened the study field to the assembly
of figures of style, tropes and non-­tropes.
In the 1960s Barthes claimed that rhetoric needed to be redefined in terms of
the structural linguistics, and Genette, who compiled his studies under the title
Figures, defined rhetoric as a “system of figures.” A white writing which lacks the
figures of style is identified as the zero degree of writing, and the most important
figures of speech, representing the deviation from this basis of the system, which
the Russian formalists had long talked about and especially Roman Jakobson,
metaphor and the metonymy.

The Liège group

In the 60s and 70s, the group µ45, representing the “French neo-­rhetoric”, con-
tributed to the rebirth of rhetoric. In their famous paper General Rhetoric the
systematic sound figures are systematically presented and analyzed (under the
influence of Structuralism), namely exactly the elements which derived from an-

44 Some consider important for the renewal of elocutio Jakobson’s thesis referring to the
opposition between metaphor and metonymy.
45 Among the members of the group were J. Dubois, J. M. Klinkenberg, P. Minguet, F. Ede-
line and H. Trinon.

112
tiquity from elocutio. The group thus identified a plastic field where the figures of
speech are in the formal aspect of words, the domain of semantics, with figures of
style visible at the level of sememes, the syntactic level where the figures of speech
can be identified in the structure of the sentence and, in the end, the domain
of the reference where the figures of speech take part in the presence of facts.
Corresponding to each separate level we have the metaplasms, metasememes,
metataxa and metalogisms.
This rhetoric aimed to be general because it had the ambition to reveal, by the
analysis of the tropes, the semantic processes and the fundamental symboliza-
tion, and the field of figures of speech contains all the forms of discourse. Even
if the representatives of the Group of Liège pointed to the fact that the figures of
speech need not be isolated from the context because they are part of the textual
mechanism, nevertheless the ancient bond with the persuasive dimension is not
preserved. In fact, this literary neorhetoric of the 60s which did not include only
the theoreticians of the Group µ, but also Gérard Genette, Roland Barthes and
Jean Cohen, simply refused to subordinate the figures of speech to persuasion.
The reference was strictly a literary one, but an authentic rhetoric should not have
been talked about in this way. The aesthetic of prose, which rhetoric cultivated
programmatically, was an aesthetic marked by the idea of utility. No stylistic ele-
ment needed to be used without the justification that persuasion represented;
without it the discourse was vulgar and senseless. Thus the style needed to be
carefully adapted to the subject and to the audience as well, the orator supervis-
ing attentively his delivery which made an impression on the audience if it was
agreeable, alert, sometimes surprising or unpredictable, vivid, convincing. For
all these qualities to apply, it was necessary for the orator to know in detail the
means he could resort to; it is mainly a matter of figures of style. In his aesthetics,
Hegel had made a necessary distinction between the poet who does not have and
who should not have a purpose unknown to art and the orator who creates an
eloquent discourse, having a well-­defined purpose. Conformity to this purpose
is subsumed to the general persuasive purpose.
It is true that for a long time rhetoric was equated with literary prose, and elo-
cutio was that part of the rhetorical apparatus where literature stood out clearly.
Then there were the non-­rhetorical figures of style that were studied by some
disciplines such as the literary stylistic or aesthetic, but for a figure of style to be
rhetorical, it needs to have a very clear function: to be persuasive. In this case a
question arises related to the degree to which these figures of style are still literary.
If literature is willing to take in elements that do not have an exclusively aesthetic
function, then these figures of style with a persuasive role can find a place in the

113
literary domain as well. On the other hand, figures of style that do not have this
functionality should not be considered rhetorical, because, just as Ana Ene indi-
cates, this discourse is “rhetorically non-­marked,” unlike a “deliberately oratorical
discourse,” where the oratorical intention is clear, even explicit, as happens, for
example, in the case of advertisements or interviews.46
The group of Liège was not the only one that made glossaries of figures of
style. Every modern study, keeping in mind the expressive aspect of rhetoric, thus
brings further clarifications that respect the categories established in the classical
period. According to these glossaries there are figures of style such as the pun or
the rhyme referring to the sonorous consistency of discourse, the figures of style,
such as the metaphor, referring to the significance of words or groups of words.
Then there are the constructive figures of style, such as the ellipsis, the antithesis
which relates to the structure of the sentence or even of the discourse and finally
the thinking figures of style which refer to the relationship of the discourse either
to the orator, to his attitude, or to the object.

Rhetoric and the literary phenomenon

The literary works that are generally “rhetorically non-­marked,” but represent
exceptions and nevertheless have an obvious persuasive dimension can be rhe-
torically read, which is one of the other methods of textual analysis. It is a type of
interpretation which pays attention to the author and to his ideas, without ignor-
ing, when they are accessible, information referring to his biography and data that
may be relevant for the comprehension of the artistic thinking. Thus the intentions
of the writer are given attention, as well as the persuasive and argumentative use
of the language, the nature and the response of the audience or of the reader, the
relationship of the text to other discourses and last but not least, the social and
the political contexts of the author-­text-­reader interactions. Thus, in this type of
approach, the text is not isolated; it is within the frame where it appeared, and the
author and the receiver are given equal importance. Moreover, the advantage that
modern rhetoric brings to the study of figures of style is the demonstration of the
fact that, far from being simple ornaments, they reflect the process of thinking.
Nevertheless, the rhetorical perspective is not a major one with the textual
analysis method, as it is somewhat incidental, and this is so because the object
of rhetoric is not literature, but discourses of all types, from every domain that
uses them. There were voices that criticized modern literary rhetoric because it

46 Ana Ene, Elemente de retorică şi neoretorică. Tipologia discursului (Braşov, “Transilva-

nia” University Publishing House, 2007), pp. 114–115.

114
limited itself to classification and description, without having tried to understand
the profound nature of literature or its mechanisms. The result was therefore
an incomplete literary reference and a perspective that reflects the artistic phe-
nomenon partially and superficially. Yet it seems that the ambitions of rhetoric
have always been and still are closely related to communication, to the capacity
to construct persuasive discourses. There were tangencies with the artistic field
from the very beginning, but the reference of rhetoric was only partially literary.
Moreover, the literature of today does not seek to be persuasive at all costs; it is
hostile to ordinariness, in a word, reluctant to what is most representative for
rhetoric. Thus the two domains do not communicate too much.

2.8. Conclusions
Today, said Roland Barthes in 1970, “the world is incredibly full of the old rheto-
ric,” and this statement continues to be valid, although it seems that many are not
aware of this fact, because I have heard this type of exclamation more than once:
“Let’s leave aside rhetoric and deal with serious things or the truth!” But when
you learn to make a plan for what you will say, to choose and to combine argu-
ments coherently and efficiently, to supervise your language and to have a style
that should draw attention in order to reach your persuasive purpose, is this not
a question of rhetoric, in the finest sense of the word? And on the other hand, the
incapacity to express oneself correctly, to be aware of what you want to transmit
and thus the incapacity to organize the discourse which seems loose and hard
to follow or banal and unattractive or full of clichés – can all these be excused
or overlooked? Are they not proof of an unpardonable lack of culture? Rhetoric
exists, Wayne C. Booth notes in his book The Rhetoric of Rhetoric, whenever we
want to obtain effects by words, facial expressions or gestures.

Communication, knowledge and honesty

Rhetoric is the first field of knowledge that systematically studied language as a
means of communication. This fact is demonstrated by the rigor of definitions,
the accuracy of observations, and all the rules and techniques resulting from a
very laborious process, meant to make the communicative action still more effec-
tive. We thus understand why rhetoric underwent a significant change in modern
times, intensely based on communication.
The prestige of rhetoric was due to the fact that it knew how to explore the
resources of the language and to transform them into an efficient and persuasive
means of communication, but also into a possibility for knowledge. Rhetoric

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was, just as Cicero noticed, very close to philosophy. In spite of this and within
a short time, the two disciplines were no longer complementary but conflicting,
because rhetoric was fundamentally based on opinions which could be false or
impossible to demonstrate and not on the truth as in the case of philosophy that,
according to a prejudice, is serious and founded on serious theoretical grounds,
beyond all suspicion. Both disciplines served man, but they used different means,
which represented the main reasons for the disputes. Rhetoric, which was said
to form dishonest people by flattering vanities and cultivating a pointless pleas-
ure, was vehemently accused of a lack of morality, and of the encouragement of
dishonesty, since it pleaded in utramque partem, i.e. it served good causes as well
as bad ones. Despite this, language and the handling of all kinds of arguments
were available to everybody and were used as such, this fact giving rise to heated
debates, sometimes with much more important consequences than those of a
simple verbal confrontation. Rhetoric was and is an important means of social
propulsion. “Rhetoric guarantees not only freedom” – Vasile Florescu noticed –
“victory, in the clash of interests with other people and material prosperity; it
ensures social superiority in the modern sense, offering to the one who masters
it the possibility of satisfying his thirst for glory. Interpreting language as a means
of social distinction in the modern sense will never disappear from the European
mentality, profoundly marked by the Greek and Latin tradition.”47

Rhetoric and the plausible

As for the charge that rhetoric is the domain of the hypothetical, of the plausi-
ble, of the probable, of convictions that are not appropriate to knowledge, it is
not acceptable as a reproach in an era when ambiguity and indetermination,
the absence of certitudes and of irreproachable decisions are generally accepted.
And rhetoric involves deliberation concerning the uncertain deeds that we may
perform, so it is a very necessary instrument of social action. Thucydides, one of
the greatest ancient historians, wrote: “we do not consider that discussions are a
waste of facts, but the lack of clarification by discussion before completing what
needs to be completed.”48 The Cartesian concept of evidence and of the provable
fact is inappropriate when it is a matter of discussions in public life, given the fact
that we do not live, fortunately, in a scientific “totalitarianism”, in a world of pure
science, but rather in one of hazard, where proofs are more or less convincing.

47 Florescu, Retorica şi neoretorica. Geneză, evoluţie, perspective, p. 33.

48 Thucydides, Războiul peloponesiac, trans. Nicolae  I.Barbu (Bucharest: Editura
Ştiinţifică, 1966), p. 258.

116
 For this precise reason, the mastery of rhetoric in discovering and finding solu-
tions where they do not offer themselves is highly valued today. Our society is by
excellence one of communication where individuals express themselves, debate,
and must seduce and persuade. Opinion is part of daily life; it represents the
foundation of our choices, because mostly we argue on the basis of our opinions
and not on the basis of the truth or errors. Consequently, a resort to rhetoric is
more necessary than ever before, because the future of a person or of a nation may
depend on the ability to talk, to negotiate the differences between individuals and
communities, or to find remedies for misunderstandings. It may avoid the out-
break of a war, or, on the other hand, the starting of one; it may lead to the winning
of freedom, of prosperity, of some benefits or, unfortunately, when it fails, to the
loss of some rights or goods. It teaches one to speak simply and convincingly to
an ordinary audience, but also ornately and suggestively to a more sophisticated
audience. “In rhetoric, when it is not a matter of defending a thesis, but a cause,”
Olivier Reboul wrote, “where you do not play with ideas, because the stake of the
discourse is the judiciary, political or ethical destiny of people, thus in rhetoric,
you need to treat seriously that ‘appearance’ just as the plausible, which replaces
an always unnoticed evidence.”49

The virtues of the orator

Besides knowledge and communication, the artistic contribution of rhetoric is
remarkable. General attention may be drawn by the subtle use of figures of style,
meant to enrich the discourse, and to contribute along with arguments, to per-
suasion. The pleasure that the artistic procedures created in antiquity combined
with the emotion produced by the performance of the orator who transformed
into a real art the delivery of the speech: the gestures, the mimic, the tone, the
modulations of the voice, everything contributed to a display that addressed the
intellect, the artistic feeling and the affectivity of the audience equally. There was
a special type of communication between the orator and the audience, given the
“psychological” knowledge the orator had acquired. Thus he knew how to exploit
in his favor the reactions of the audience, if not actually to foresee them, which
could at times matter more than the cleverness of the discourse’s construction,
since it is neither rigorous principles nor the truth that can decide the advantage,
but rather an able exploitation of the states of mind of the audience. Just as Quin-
tilian rightly noticed, it was not enough for an orator to build his discourse by the
rules of the art, to memorize it and then to deliver it in front of the audience like

49 Reboul, Introduction à la rhétorique, p. 51.

117
an actor playing his part. He needed to adjust to the caprices of an audience that
did not accept the evidence, and could be turbulent, interrupting the speech. All
kinds of situations could occur, distracting the orator, who needed to keep calm
and focused, to have facilitas (Quintilian’s term), i.e. the agility and easiness to
adapt to these unpredictable situations and to convince and to guide the audience
where he wanted.
Thus a good orator had to be a good hermeneutist, as he interprets attentively
and correctly the discourse of the adversary in order to know what to answer
afterwards, and what his weak and strong points are, but also the traps that he set
and that needed a rebuff. Controversies and contradictions, attacks and defense –
the orator needed to be familiar with everything.

The merits of rhetoric

Obviously, rhetoric is equally theory and practice, the art of constructing speeches
and science; it is not by chance that it became one of the most important educa-
tional subjects in antiquity, and not only then., and the controversies about the
honesty or lack of honesty of some orators do not reduce its formative power, or
the role it had played in the education of the youth. Because rhetoric helped them
to develop and refine their intelligence, thanks to it they would learn not only
to express themselves correctly, but also efficiently and elegantly; in a word, they
would learn how to use to their own profit the communicative virtues of language,
how to emphasize their qualities and to correct their errors. The main merits of
rhetoric presented so far explain its rediscovery in our times; knowing its basis
and its tormented history, it proved very profitable for areas such as the theory
of culture, or the theory of knowledge, ethics, the theory of speech acts, general
linguistics, and philosophy of law which are directly interested in the process of
communication, not to mention publicity, which is part of the rhetorical system
as it presupposes inventio, dispositio, elocutio and especially actio. Chaïm Perel-
man, as well as I. A. Richards, Kenneth Burke and other specialists in neorhetoric,
have tried to give it a philosophical dimension, in the hope that the theories of
argumentation would transform domains of communication, such as politics or
marketing, religion or publicity, into more rigorous disciplines.

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3. Literary History

An autonomous domain endowed with qualities and specific functions, a favorite

space (like the other arts) of creativity, literature is backed up by literary research.
This one, in its quality of meta-­literary space, has won prestige and fame in its long
history, accepting at the same time – with some exceptions, as we will see – its
inevitable limitation: the impossibility of absolute autonomy. Bound to literature
which, some say, is parasitic on it, while others say, completes it, literary research
proved, in spite of contestations and suspicions, not only its utility but also its
necessity. The studies in this domain seem modest and aimed at specialists or
connoisseurs, but despite this appearance no-­one but for the literary critic is a
better intermediary between the book and the audience.
And when the utility of the critical act is denied, the gross error of denying
reading, even “for pleasure” its indispensable acuity, occurs, because every reader,
effortlessly, unintentionally, even at a rudimentary level, performs a critical act
by appreciating, assessing, weighing, comparing, making different connections
through reading. For this reason, literary criticism represents the professionaliza-
tion, cultivation and exacerbation of an innate attitude, characteristic of human
thinking. It is still true that the prestige of literary research is often diminished by
the literature that it actually feeds on and develops from. There have been attempts
in modern criticism to compete with literature and, in extremis, to gain its own
autonomy, and even the unprecedented situation when criticism challenged litera-
ture. There were creators for whom the influence of Roland Barthes’ theories was
overwhelming, to give only one example. In the relationship between literature
and criticism an extreme point has been reached, and a situation discontinued,
but it could not have been maintained, so that the relation between literature and
criticism should be restructured fundamentally. Criticism will continue to back
up literature, but this is a sign that criticism is not spiteful, it cannot be ignored
and it is perfectly capable of laiunching its own offensives.

3.1. The identity of the literary history and its relations to

criticism and literary theory
Literary theory
The triad history, criticism, literary theory is acknowledged today, each of these
fields having its functions and aims. But because they all study literature, overlap-
ping is not excluded, as the absence of tight relationships between the three do-

119
mains is unimaginable. Today, for example, without a conceptual structure which
is derived from the literary theory, history and criticism can easily be accused of
amateurism or lack of seriousness, professionalism, or scientific pertinence. This
is not because abstracting and conceptualization are fashionable, but because the
science of literature imposes systematic knowledge. But the theory of literature,
the one that proposes concepts, categories, and principles to serve as instruments
of literary research, cannot break the bonds that connect it to related disciplines
because otherwise it risks isolation within abstract frameworks which, at some
point, may have no relevance or utility.

Literary criticism
Because it had the mission to appreciate, judge, decide if a work has or not any
artistic value, criticism seems more anchored in the present. This operation of
valorization ensures for criticism, as Mircea Martin notes, and the orientation
function as well as “the lucidity regime.”1 The analysis, the commentary, work
for the discovery of codes and of the structure of writing, of its significance are
specific to literary criticism, as well as the more marked presence of the critic’s
personality. As evaluation involves his taste and intuition, the subjective factor
and the originality of interpretation are accepted quite frequently and naturally in
criticism. That is why the question whether criticism is an art, “a literary genre,”
intellectual practice or science has been asked. Although, irrespective of how
off-­handed the literary critic may be in his appreciations, the most solid of them
and the most convincing are those that prove thorough knowledge of the field of
literature, including that of the past, and implicitly of the literary history. Relat-
ing to this matter, René Wellek commented: “Yet I do not think that the critic
is an artist or that criticism is an art (in the strictly modern sense). Its purpose
was intellectual knowledge. It does not create a world of imagination similar to
the world of music or poetry. Criticism is conceptual knowledge or, in any case,
it aims at such knowledge. It needs to aspire, lastly, to systematic knowledge of
literature, to literary theory.”2

1 Mircea Martin, Singura critică (Bucharest: Cartea Românească Publishing House,

2006).
2 René Wellek, Conceptele criticii, trans. Rodica Tiniş (Bucharest: Univers Publishing
House 1970), p. 4.

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Literary history
Literary history3 aims at studying literary evolution theroughout certain periods
or from its origins to a certain time, its vocation being to offer information on
the literature of the past. It is thus interested in writings, authors, sources, but
also trends and literary movements, topics and literary myths. In other words, it
is interested in the individuality of the writings that make up a literature and also
refers to the literary system, a concept included in the very idea of history. Gustave
Lanson, a famous French literary historian, suggested the comparison of literary
texts for the individual to be differentiated from the collective and originality from
tradition. The literary historian imperatively needs a solid method in the synthe-
ses he makes, and a sense of hierarchy to choose what really deserves attention,
but he equally needs to know to highlight the revealing detail. The overall vision
is implied in order to have a clear picture of continuity, of periodic coherences,
because literary history arranges writers and their writings in a chronological
order of periods and generations, but the same overall vision offers the image of
discontinuities, of changes in the process of literary evolution.
Theoretically speaking, literary history, which usually focused on masterpieces
and, generally, on writings acknowledged as valuable, is perceived as having a
more reduced degree of risk. It does not need to decide, as the initial criticism, if
it is about value or non-­value; it is not a trailblazer, and the matters to be discussed
are to some extent predictable. This is exactly the difficulty that is often disregard-
ed when literary history is globally judged. New perspectives on acknowledged
writings, more than once submitted to analysis and interpretation, are imposed
in order to justify a re-­opening of the subject, so that the work of the literary
historian can be far more difficult, and originality is still an issue. Redistribution
and reorganization in the literary system, which is not “settled” once and for all,
are natural. Despite these realities which literary history and literary historians
need to take into account, for this reason we can understand the reproach that
sometimes they are inspired in the selection of writers from writings by some
questionable criterion. The most numerous critiques appeared when the external
elements to the artistic phenomenon were predominant, such as social and politi-
cal fame, posterity, culture or nation.

3 There are specialists who differentiate between the history of literature which might
include the class of literary works and the literary history that would have the mission
of situating them, of restoring the network of historical, social, political, ideological and
cultural determinations. Because I do not consider that it is a well-­defined distinction, I
will use both variants in a synonymy relationship.

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 There are many other challenges that this discipline needs to answer: for ex-
ample, should the object of literary history be only valuable literature or any type
of literature, including that considered inferior including? It is high time that the
literary historian should focus his attention only on the periods when literature
changes or transforms significantly, or on those when there is no innovation at all.
No less important is the question of whether literary history should transcend in
its analysis the literary text in order to take into consideration other humanistic
domains such as philosophy, history, science, etc.

3.2. The beginnings of the discipline; the 19th century

The Greek term kritikós that designated a so-­called “judge of literature” or an
evaluator is noted at the end of the 4th century BC. Philetas of Kos, teacher of the
future king Ptolemy the 2nd, is called “poet and critic.” Another mention of the
term is preserved from antiquity, from the 2nd century AD. It is about a school of
criticism located in Pergamum and managed by Crates which claimed to signal
the superiority of critics to the “grammarians” of Alexandria. After this date, the
term kritikós is almost out of use (surprisingly, judging by the frequency of its use
today and its prestige) or it becomes synonymous with grammarian or philologist.
It is only the critical spirit of the 18th century, the Century of Enlightenment,
which revolutionizes all domains of thinking and action, becoming the mainspring
of Western culture, and the literary criticism reasserts itself, never to disappear
again from the concerns of those interested in literature. It should be mentioned
that the separation of the areas of literary research took place over time. The name
historia litteraturae, literary history, is used in 1551 in K. Mylaeus’s treatise De
scribenda universitatis rerum historia commentarius and then it spreads in the
17th century. But back then it designated catalogues and bibliographies. As for
literature, it subsumed both literary writings and other types (history, philosophy,
theology, journalism, etc.). Thus the concept of literature crystallized in the 19th
century. Back then, in the second half of the 19th century, the domains of liter-
ary research begin to build and impose their own identity, and then the specific
elements of literary history as a modern discipline became established. In its
rudimentary form, this domain of research was a mere chronology of writers
(especially in the 18th century) or a history of civilization, such as the Histoire
littéraire de la France, a collective work published in 1773.

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Causal literary history: the positivist influence
But in the 19th century an array of critics assert themselves by emerging from the
obscurity that the previous impartiality of the critical act conferred and build a
model of a linear and causal literary history. These include Sainte-­Beuve, Taine,
Faguet, De Sanctis and Lanson, to mention only some of the most famous. Sainte-­
Beuve, for example, the creator of “the portrayal” in criticism, paid crucial impor-
tance to biographical study. Although this tends to as great loyalty as possible to
reality, it is nevertheless the fruit of creation, which means an attempt to reconcile
objectivity with subjectivity in the critical act. The name of Sainte-­Beuve is well
known, even if Proust’s famous essay, Contre Sainte-­Beuve, discredits his methods,
one of the most important reproaches being that, incorrectly, the biographic I is
taken for the artistic one.
Step by step critical impressionism lost ground to the open path to objectivity
associated with positivist scientism. The positivist-­type criticism takes its inspi-
ration from natural sciences, history, and philology, and focuses on the context
of the literary work and on biography. Emile Faguet was convinced that “the
literary historian must be as objective as possible; it absolutely must be like that.
It is his duty only to inform, not to communicate the impression that a certain
author made on him, but only the one it made on his contemporaries.”4 But this
objectivity goes beyond the specificity of the artistic act and it switches accent, so
that for H. Taine, for example, a literary work will be relevant only if it represents
a document which contains important data on the psychology of people.
The Italian critic De Sanctis considers that art is in a close relationship to so-
ciety and even if he sees in criticism a “superior science”, he nevertheless convicts
the excesses of historic and psychological criticism. In the same spirit of objectiv-
ity, the study of literature is not considered a mode of creation; it only confers
coherence on the writing where coherence is not very visible as it can continue
and explain the senses suggested by the artistic creation.
The sonorous names of positivist criticism are Wilhelm Scherer, who wrote
Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (History of German literature), published in
1883, and Gustave Lanson, the author of Histoire de la littérature française (History
of French literature), published in 1894. Taking his inspiration from the natural
sciences, Scherer pays great importance to causality. The writer’s biography and
personality were foregrounded. Scherer considered them strongly influenced by
heredity, environment and culture in a formula that became famous: Ererbtes,

4 Emile Faguet, Arta de a citi, trans. Lidia Cucu-­Sadoveanu (Bucharest, Albatros Publish-
ing House, 1973), p. 123.

123
Erlerntes, Erlebtes – what is inherited, what is learnt, what is experienced. It needs
to be noticed that determinism can be considered an essential principle in nature,
but hard to apply to artistic creation.
Gustave Lanson firmly asserts the necessity for objectivity and the preeminence
of scientific methods in the study of literature: “we need to strive to know by objec-
tive, critical methods everything that can be known by them. We need to remem-
ber everything that can be obtained by exact, impersonal, verifiable knowledge.
We should ask intuition, emotion only what is inaccessible in any other way.”5 By
avoiding subjectivity as far as possible, Lanson nevertheless favours the exterior,
extrinsic aspects of artistic creation. The creation is like an object that reveals to
knowledge by what can be verifiable, uncontestable, and indubitable, such as the
sources and the historic context of the text. It is only the essence of creation that
cannot be revealed by summing up this data.
Positivism offered literary research moral or civil criteria; it saw in it an expres-
sion of the spirituality or psychology of a people, and it was, obviously, exterior to
the interests specific to literature. The contestation of positivism will come from
the “historical” movement in Germany, having as representatives the following:
Dilthey, Windelband and Rickert, and from others such as Bergson or Croce,
and later Husserl. Such topics as living or the comprehension of artistic creations
were brought into discussion, one of the modalities of knowledge being intuition.

3.3. The conception of literary history in the 20th century

The Russian Formalist school
An important contribution to the redefinition of the concept of literary history
was that of the Russian Formalist School, which was categorically against soci-
ologism and psychologism that had dominated literary research. The formalist
theories pleaded for abandoning the introduction of monographic studies in the
history of literature, in favor of the study of processes that organize literary sys-
tems. Humorously, but also very suggestively, Roman Jakobson wrote, as one of
the important representatives of the Russian Formalism: “until recently literary
historians were like policemen who wanting to arrest a certain person, would,
just in case, take everything they found in the house and arrested even those
who by chance crossed the street. Similarly, literary historians gathered all kinds
of social, psychological, political and philosophical facts and, instead of a sci-

5 Gustave Lanson, Încercări de metodă, critică şi istorie literară (Bucharest: Univers Pub-
lishing House, 1974), p. 41.

124
ence of literature they obtained a conglomerate of rough disciplines. Apparently,
it was forgotten that these facts relate to other disciplines which can use literary
facts only as secondary data. But if the science of literature wants to be a science
indeed, it is important to acknowledge the procedure as its unique hero. Thus
the primordial problem is the problem of procedures, of their thorough study.”6
But, due to the politically and historically unpropitious conditions, the theories
of the Russian Formalist School did not spread – unfortunately as it would have
deserved this at the time of its appearance – and they really came to fruition only
in the 60s and 70s.

German philology
An important contribution was that of some figures such as Ernst Robert Curtius,
the author of the unrivalled The European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages,
published in 1948, or Erich Auerbach, with his similarly famous book, Mimesis
(1946). Characteristic of these thinkers and researchers is the organicist concep-
tion that takes into consideration the writing, its form, and the representation of
the world in the vision of the author, as well as his personality. Thus the artistic
phenomenon seems to be unitary, having a particular coherence. A philosopher
of culture, with an exceptional classical education, Curtius considered historicism
a viable solution in the approach to and comprehension of European culture, and,
implicitly, of literature. It will be seen as a totality composed of the European
literatures that, in the integrative vision of the critic, become parts of a whole. Au-
erbach considered the most important representative of the comparative stylistics,
borrows from Vico the idea of the fundamentally historical nature of humanity.
This fact is reflected by the artistic creations which begin with fragments selected
from exponential writings in order to demonstrate the existence of some common
styles in European literature in different periods. He will try to discover what
unifies the assemblies and the laws that govern the changes and the development
of the general culture.

Genette and Barthes’ view of literary history

Still later, the discipline of literary history is submitted to a process of reorganiza-
tion, the proposals aiming at discussing its fundamentals and even at questioning
it as a domain. Gérard Genette, furthering the ideas of the Russian formalists in

6 Jakobson is cited by Mihai Pop in the “Preface” to Ce este literatura? Școala formală
rusă (Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1963), p. IX.

125
a structuralist conception of literary history, considers, in the study “Poetics and
history” included in the book Figures, that the principles of the literary history
need re-­discussing. If for the formalists the object of study in this field should be
the procedure, for Genette the forms, namely the narrative techniques, the poetical
structures, the rhetorical codes are those that change and at the same time last
and can be seen in their historicity. But these elements transcend the writing, so
that they need to be at the center of attention for the literary historian, more than
the individual creations. The historian of poetry saw a serious impediment to the
writing of such a history where the synchronic approach should be dominant.
Literary theory does not yet offer an adequate conceptual framework; it is
about the formal categories that should be identified in the literary tradition and
defined in a trans-­historic order, not a timeless one, because the concepts of the
literary theory are submitted to change and evolution, in accordance with the
dynamics of the literary field. Genette expressed his regret that, in the 19th century,
the history of writings and authors had erased the system of genres that rhetoric
had established. Thus it was a question of the evolution by transformation of the
theoretical domain, but of the canceling of one of its branches which might have
represented a good foundation for such a literary history.
A further radical opinion besides Genette’s is that of Roland Barthes, who, in
1960 (History or literature?),7 but also in the Tel Quel questionnaire, sees history and
literature as two systems that do not communicate directly with one another. On
the one hand there would thus be, the world (political, social, economic, ideologi-
cal), and on the other hand, writing: “solitary”, apparently, and ambiguous because it
could have several senses. The world and writing “resist”, each in its own system; each
has its own rhythm of changes, and writing cannot be seen as an ordinary historical
product. For this reason, Barthes considers literary histories as pseudo-­histories
that are nothing but simple chronicles. In his opinion, all that can be written are
histories of the literature’s functions (production, communication, spreading, and
consumption) in the society, but no literary histories in the previous acceptations.
A categorical denial, as it could be seen, of the very status of the literary history!

3.4. Extrinsic and intrinsic

The issue of representativeness that documentation needs to cover was one of the
most serious challenges that literary history confronted with. The positivism of
the 19th century visibly influenced the humanist discipline of the literary history,

7 This is one of the parts of Roland Barthes’ study, Despre Racine, rans. Virgil Tănase
(Bucharest: EPLU, 1969).

126
especially referring to the emphasis placed on objectivity and on the explanation
that invariably aimed at the cause-­effect relationship. The literary historian started
to share the conviction that he could look at the literary phenomenon, unlike his
colleague, the critic, not only from the subjective angle of individual perception,
but similar to the way the scientist analyses his object of study. The determinist
approach came to the foreground of historical literary research. The extrinsic
factors became for many the answer in the comprehension of the of the writings
which appeared in this way as the logical result of the combination of some forces
more or less related to literature itself: economic, social, political, psychological as
well as cultural aspects. The literary texts are viewed as the place where such forces
express themselves artistically. Hegel was the authority who mostly oriented atten-
tion to context and to the relationships that the text has with the exterior which
it actually reflects. Literary histories thus became a mixture of critical commen-
taries, bibliography, cultural references, social analyses, etc. Gustave Lanson, the
first important literary historian, who defined his method reflecting the guiding
principles in his discipline, noted: “Literature does not stop, it cannot stop at the
individual’s observation, at the analysis of the personal creation; it always plans,
knowingly or not, a social objective. It is thus important to understand that most
of the time we do not study individual phenomena, but phenomena of the same
order as the ones which, by definition, belong to sociology.”8

Auxiliary literary history

The work of documentation became transformed into a fundamental aspect, es-
sential in this discipline, and it was unnaturally exploited by the specialists to the
point of confusing it with the exclusive mission of the literary historian. George
Călinescu, probably the greatest Romanian literary historian, talked about the
existence of two literary histories: the literary history proper that implies the talent
of the critic,9 his capacity of pertinently analyzing a text, and the auxiliary literary
history that presupposes the examination of factual material: manuscripts, pre-
liminary notes, plans, drafts and other documents, and editions; it is responsible
for the establishment of the paternity and of variants of the critical editions, it
studies the artist’s biography and everything that could be related to the text as a
finite product. Information of this type does not have to have an absolute value

8 Cited by Clément Moisan in Istoria literară, trans. Maria Ivănescu (Bucharest: Cartea
Românească Publishing House, 2000), p. 32.
9 For this reason it seemed more natural to him to speak about literary historians rather
than of literary history.

127
or to be in the foreground of the exposure. There could be no authentic literary
research in the case of simple listing of data without interpretation, analysis and
synthesis. Thus, rightly, literary studies were blamed by more recent critical orien-
tations10 because they dabbled in matters exterior to the artistic phenomenon such
as biography, historical aspects or social conditions, and all sorts of information
that was anything but literary history.

The representativeness of the context in research into the literary

phenomenon
Views of the significance of the context changed tremendously after the Second
World War. Most literary histories were immanent-­type histories, isolating the
literary series from concrete social conditions and from external factors. Because
every context depends on the angle from which it is seen and analyzed, it was
concluded that the circumstances that define a text cannot be truly or fully known.
The perspective is therefore partial, probable, without any certain reference points
to ascertain that that part of the context emphasized by the historic element is
indeed the most relevant to the literary phenomenon described. Moreover, to pay
disproportionate attention to the extrinsic aspects of the literature is not produc-
tive, not only because the writing needs to be foregrounded, but also because
studying the context cannot offer an answer, let us say, for the diversity of artistic
creations that have the same framework, and the same external social, economic,
political, cultural conditions.
Otherwise, the writing needs to be placed in the context where it belongs, it is
said. Every literary text is, in fact, anchored in a certain reality of beliefs, values,
and specific cultural elements that cannot be ignored and that guarantee either
innovation or the continuation of tradition. Jean Starobinski noted that it would
be an error to neglect the historical context and to deny its regulating function,
because it “favors the expression of the innovating originality of the ‘personal ge-
nius’, when it excludes it rigorously to the benefit of a traditional rhetoric.”11 The
two “histories” are not incompatible; on the contrary, it is natural to combine with
any literary history that respects its status, and lately context has regained ground
in this discipline of literary research. It is only that, naturally, it has abandoned the
narrow determinism according to which the text “reflects” or is the “expression”

10 The trend was set by the Russian formalists who bluntly claimed that the evolution of
the literary system cannot be explained by facts and events external to the literature.
11 Jean Starobinski, “Préface” to the book Leo Spitzer, Etudes de style (Paris: Gallimard,
1970), p. 33.

128
of the context, bringing into discussion the issue of how the data related to the
social and historical context should be introduced: separated from criticism of
the text or in alternation with it?
In the end, when it is a matter of the proper criticism of the writings of the
past or of the presentation of circumstances exterior to them, the interpretation
is nevertheless the key, although a study of the context can suggest some scientific
work and objectivity. It is only that in order to have a science of literary writings,
of movements and trends, of writers, it is necessary for the observations on the
objects of study to lead to ideas and general laws that can be checked as often as
possible in the literary field. It is exactly the issue that poetics was confronted
with, especially in the 20th century.

3.5. Classification – the privileged method of classical literary

history
Literary history finds its justification in the attempt toorder rich, even dense ma-
terial, extremely varied, almost confusing due to its protean nature. The literary
historians who used to be involved in the work of classification of the writings
that form the literary field knew that they needed to order, categorize and dis-
tribute authors and writings into categories, classes with a higher or lower level
of generality, because the discourse of literary history was and still is a collec-
tive and generalizing one, even contradicting the unique nature of works of art.
Thus the periods, genres, schools or literary movements had the role of umbrella
concepts under which the writings were interrelated and the metaphors found,
metaphorically, their origin.
Everything that was to be being classified had, invariably, one characteristic:
heterogeneity. Then as now, the specialist had to do nothing but to choose a cri-
terion or several criteria that could not answer all particular aspects. Sometimes
even previous classifications were simply taken over without adjustments, as if
they were permanent tools. The question to be asked, consequently, is if these
classifications are not reductive and if they succeed in offering an adequate image
of the literary past despite its specific diversity. We can easily imagine how clas-
sifications became a Procustes’s bed for texts that defy any enrolment, catalogu-
ing, or introduction into categories and that are in opposition to another, which
represents the source of their uniqueness. Taxonomies have a partial validity,
because we cannot decide on the basis of firm criteria which of the classifications
should be chosen to the detriment of another. The relativity in this sense does not
need be totally confusing; the text presents itself as reference, the indicator that

129
shows when its essential, its relevant aspect is not respected and then, obviously,
the classification does not find a justification or it ceases to be a useful tool.
Although the criterion for the configuration of a classification must princi-
pally be the very literary event that it concerns, quite often it is noted that the
source of taxonomies, their reference, is in the present rather than in the past. The
aesthetic demands that the literary historian responds to are, obviously, of their
time, even the way of relating to the cultural treasure that he recovers and better
highlights for his contemporaries is determined to a high degree by the interest
of the present. The purposes aimed at and the sympathies and antipathies of the
literary historian have something to say about the classifications that were made.
Some of the classifications are artificial, even harmful, especially when they are
visibly ideologically charged, which should not make us think about the necessity
of abandoning them. Thanks to classifications, the texts find a place of their own
in a “family picture” of literature which subsequently re-­orders itself. Comparisons
can be made; “spaces” can be offered for other writings that aspire to the prestige
of being included in the literary history, the status of heritage. Literary writings
and their authors need to be grouped in order to organize the literary field that
cannot be offered to scholarship in a chaotic form, justified only by the observa-
tion of their uniqueness. In the same texts, besides the individual elements, there
are features that demonstrate choices from an assembly of aesthetic practices
common to an era, to mentalities; concepts and representations that indicate
convergences in thinking, sensibility or viewpoints. Therefore, taxonomies dem-
onstrate their perenniality even today; it is only that there is a greater attention to
the motivation of the option for one classification or another. Literary historians
are more aware than those of the past of the fact that their choices are contextual,
and the taxonomies are not immutable and, thus excessively categorical ideas or
too rigid divisions are to be avoided. Nevertheless, they are aware that by clas-
sification and organization, the literary world of the past is explained, as much as
possible, thereby becoming more accessible to the present.

3.6. Literary history: a discipline of continuity?

Every literary history is in itself a far-­reaching project and it remains so even if
the result is not the expected one and the text does not become a bibliographical
reference. Histories “from the origins to the present” have a monumental char-
acter, but histories of genres, periods and trends are not far behind in their aim
of proposing a general and sometimes unifying vision. But the huge structures
that literary histories constitute seem to be obsolete in the period when we live

130
or simply by going beyond the capacity of a single person (in those cases where
these synthetic writings are not the work of authors’ collectives).
The highly technical theoretical doctrines of the 20th century, such as formal-
ism, structuralism, semiotics, post-­structuralism or de-­constructivism, forced
literary history to become a science. The models were offered by the structural
linguistics, formal logicand the theory of communication, but literary history did
not keep peace, going through a crisis that led to an important revisiting of the
domain, both methodologically and conceptually. This new reinforcement was
offered by the fashionable disciplines, but they applied to certain constants that
have always defined literary history.
One of these was, especially in the 19th century, the concept of organic struc-
ture, of unity, of the continuity in literature. Given the fact that, from the very be-
ginning, this discipline wondered if there were close bonds between the elements
of literature and if they could be proved. Another question devolving from the
first: how is it better to relate to literary history by a series of delimitations orby
taking the long view? In the classical period of this discipline, as we may term
it, the tendency was to reply affirmatively to the first question and to choose the
second variant in the case of the second. The root of this vision, implying a manner
of understanding literature itself, is Platonic because it concerns the metaphysic of
timeless essences that, it is presupposed, should exist objectively in art and should
be discovered by the critic or the literary historian in the filiation of the texts.
From this perspective, literature is seen as a whole, and the stages that compose
its route are interconnected, so that one stage prepares for another and this one,
in its turn, for the next one. We are thus at the heart of positivist determinism,
with a great influence on the domain of literary research, which was probably
the most widely- criticized view of the history of literary history, because of the
narrow, mechanical reductionism that it promoted, as texts are not the effects of
easily detectable causes and the literary process is not at all predictable. But in
spite of accepting as justified this critic, it does not need to represent a sentencing
of the idea of the existence of continuity in the literary history. To understand
some texts some by means of others means to noting the similarities as well as the
differences between them, to take into account each time of what had happened
“before” the text, as well as what it foreshadows and announces.

The national model in literary history

In the 19th century too, the “spirit of time” or Zeitgeist was looked for – one of the
essences – England and France setting the trend in the consolidation of national
ideologies, and of histories and national literatures. The historical context was

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perceived in homogenous terms, according to a structural coherence that would
dominate global history beyond variations. “The narrative of a nation,” wrote Da-
vid McCrone, “is told and retold through national histories, literature, the media
and popular culture which together provide a set of stories, images, landscapes,
scenarios, events, symbols and rituals. Through these stories, national identity is
presented as primordial, essential, unified and continuous.”12
Certainly it is a comfortable vision, thanks to its teleology, but not necessarily
realistic. Quite often this homogeneity, motivated by the patriotic nationalism, pre-
sents literary histories as attempts to find in their objects of study the expressions
of some national particularities that are always reflected in the language of a nation.
But the effort of ordering the material equally meant forcing entrance into an inap-
propriate pattern, incapable to mould forms so resistant to serialization. The national
model was criticized because it isolated texts and national literatures from texts and
cultural context belonging to other geographical areas. Thus French literature visibly
influenced Romanian literature, especially in the period of the Wallachian revolu-
tion period, James Joyce influenced many other literatures, and Marquez influenced
postmodern English literature, and many other examples can be given.

Philosophical principles of literary history

Wilhelm Dilthey, one of the most important historians of the 19th century, can
be invoked in any discussion referring to the legitimacy or lack of legitimacy of
continuity as an organizing principle of literary history. In his view, the event un-
dergoes a series of changes and each of these changes is possible only on the basis
of the preceding one. Dilthey believed that the periods of time are unified from an
ideological and spiritual point of view, but he himself disputed the stability of this
unity, inasmuch as existence itself is very varied and equally changing. Another
resonant name, also echoed in literary history, thanks to his philosophy which
refers to dynamic phenomena in terms of vital impetus, duration and continuity,
is Bergson; Albert Thibaudet likewise noted the impact of Bergson on literary
history.
Nevertheless literary changes, as well as historical ones, do not have only primary
causes; the causal explanations are many, as was firmly stated, by a skepticiam origi-
nating in the 20th century, referring to the possibility of the existence of literary
history itself, because this, according to the original definition of the field, should
propose a single point of view or at least a limited number of points of view on the

12 David McCrone is cited in Rethinking Literary History. A Dialogue on Theory, ed. Linda
Hutcheon and Mario J. Valdés, (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 71.

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similarities and differences of the heterogeneous objects that it tries to clarify. As for
classifications, they were not referred to either, in the same 20th century, even if the
literary historian could not have managed without resorting to them as capable of
representing the realities of the past. Considered as simple conveniences, varying by
interests and the intended aims, classifications were amended in the same process
of discrediting that the literary history had undergone.

The contestation of the principle of coherence

The tone in the concert of contestations was set, among the first, by the Russian
formalists. Interested in the modalities of writing themselves and in the immanent
rules of the structure of texts, these theoreticians did not bring into discussion
the possibility or the necessity of literary history, but they contested the deeply-­
rooted idea, due to positivism, of the literary changes that might be explained by
aspects exterior to literature and to concrete social-­political conditions. In brief,
the object of study of literary history, the formalists say, does not need to be the
succession of texts, but the succession of systems, change which takes place (see
Tynianov in The literary fact) by leaps and bounds and a progress of discontinuity
in relation to the previous moments.
At the same time as the formalists, Benedetto Croce launched a strong attack on
literary history. The essence of his position consists in the idea that every literary
work is unique, the value that it represents when it is indeed a value being self-­
sufficient. Consequently, attempts at classification and generalization represented
real abuses against the anatomy and the unique character of aesthetic creation.
It could not, therefore, be a question of continuity. Some decades before, Roland
Barthes concluded in the essay About Racine that literature does not have access
to history as such, but only to a historical mythology. Literary histories are, as he
noticed, only monographs about isolated people, when they should be concerned
with the serial and the collective, with the ideological and linguistic aspects, and
with institutions, not with individuals. In this list of the opponentss of the prin-
ciple of coherence we may mention Michel Foucault, who refused to see history
in terms of linearity and development but in terms of contingency and instability.
And as literature could only be a discourse like any other with a manipulative role
and power, Foucault advised his readers to reject the traditional concept of literary
change as continuous development and to admit, on the contrary, the principle
of discontinuity in every historical representation. In the end, New Historicism,
starting from the idea that history is unpredictable and arbitrary, proposes an
image of history not as a whole made up of homogenous episodes, but as fracture
and textual pulverization.

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 If the literary history as a discipline had its beginnings under the privilege
of a total trust in the harmonious whole that literature represents and which
passes from one period to another through literary works that communicate in
synchronicity, but also in diachrony, this fact was the natural consequence of a
certain mentality – a mentality that seemed eternal due to its longevity and to
the accent placed on tradition. The need to build formal symmetries, to totalize
and unify in order better to understand and seize literary reality in its origins
made irrefutable findings: changes are unpredictable, and differences sometimes
major; the literary field is heterogeneous and controlled by contradictory forces
impossible to reduce to a common denominator of continuity. It is no wonder
that all the contesting theories enjoyed success, especially in modern times. In
spite of all this, the principle of the continuum does not seem to be a simple
myth.

The organicist conception

In 1769 Robert Wood wrote his Essay on the Original Genius of Homer. For this
work he travelled to Asia Minor, and noticed that the mentalities and the way
of life of its people were similar to the representations of life in the Iliad. Wood
explained this fact by the continuity of physical and political structures and con-
cluded that he could use without restriction the data of his present age and of the
culture that Homer had represented to interpret the Iliad, which had been written
thousands of years before.
Influenced by Bergson’s philosophy and simultaneously admitting Otto Lopez’s
law, according to which a century is the material and spiritual expression of three
generations – a generation lasts for thirty years of creative life13 – Albert Thibau-
det, in Histoire de la littérature française de 1789 à nos jours, published in 1936,
tried to present literature as an osmotic and global whole; the organizing principle,
being that of the literary generation, allowed Thibaudet to note the continuity of
the society, of inner life and literature. The writers and their writings belong to
generations, families and groups, and the belonging to a generation with every-
thing that it contains the fact of belonging to the same age, the awareness and
participation in the same events, the sharing of aesthetic opinions – create pow-
erful inner bonds in such a community. Convinced that absolute harmony is
nevertheless an illusion, Thibaudet notices that no generation is monolithic, and
the divergences in the group are at times as necessary as those between genera-
tions because, although there is experience, a sort of savoir that each generation

13 For the Latins a century was made of three aetates or three generations.

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accumulates and wants to pass on, those who come after reject this baggage; they
revise the tradition and set up new values. In this case, it seems that it is not a
matter of continuity and nevertheless what is presented at first sight as a novelty
is, most frequently, only an older value according to the principle that sons carry
on the ideals of their grandparents rather than those of their parents.
Other avatars of the principle of the continuum, expressing an ideal of coher-
ence and unity, are evoked by David Perkins in his book Is Literary History Pos-
sible? and converge with the idea of cyclicity – for example, Wilhelm Scherer’s
theory that claimed that the German literature reaches a peak every six hundred
years (600, 1200, 1800 and 2400), Yeats’ wheel of culture depending on the 28
phases of the moon, Northrop Frye’s rotation of modes from myths to irony, and
the countless theories that present the evolution of literature as a succession of
two fundamental phases: progress and decline, life and death, or the observance
of conventions and traditions and, on the other hand, their contestation.

Continuity revisited
It is an acknowledged fact today that historic realities are hard and sometimes
impossible to really know, because the contexts are, as Perkins says, “extensive” and
cannot be entirely described, many considering them “constructions” of history.
The interpretations themselves are subjective. The history of historians being an
interpretative practice and not an objective discourse, we can no longer believe,
except by being naïve, that it could serve towards the measurement of the cor-
rectness of the interpretation of literary texts. In the end, continuity is hard to be
noticed in difference, due to late influences, fluctuating tastes, and unpredictable
reception, but as Antoine Compagnon emphasizes, the history of literature needs
to be, because it cannot be otherwise, “in search of the critical equilibrium between
events and series,” since it weaves two threads: on the one hand, order and con-
tinuity, and, on the other hand, genius, difference, rupture and originality.14 Each
piece of writing is unique by virtue of its particular composition, but also by the
moment of creation and that of its reading. Nevertheless, there are functions and
common features, permanence and stability; otherwise literary fact could not be
recognized as such. Nor is the discrepancy between these features so great as to
appear incompatible: continuity does not exclude novelty, and the differences and
ruptures are in fact the expression of an uninterrupted process of transformation.
As Harold Bloom says, every poem is the “rewriting” of a previous poem.

14 Antoine Compagnon, “Faire l’histoire littéraire du XXe siècle,” in: L’histoire littéraire à
l’aube du XXIe siècle. Controverses et consensus (Paris: PUF, 2005), p. 472.

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 Today we know that the reconstruction of the past, including the literary one,
represents only one possibility among others, and this past is eventually inaccessi-
ble. Yet we can accept a partial knowledge, with possible explanations, with accept-
able and plausible interpretations. The literary historians help us to understand,
as far as possible, the sense that the texts had for those who created them and for
those to whom these writings were addressed. They succeed (if they succeed …)
in making this possible because all kinds of circumstances, values, conventions
and relations between the authors and their readers are analyzed. This is a form
of continuity as long as there is a kind of a necessary rapprochement between
the readers of other times and the readers of today. The ideal is that of the happy
meeting between the original sense and a network of senses at whose end there
is the current sense that the writing receives. Gide, a follower of Sainte-­Beuve
and of the discovery of the human beyond his writing, wrote in 1939 in Tableau
de la littérature française: “Every historian of literature is more or less concerned
with considering every author in his relationship to his time; it outlines affilia-
tions, influences; it establishes certain subtle correlations, certain motivations that
decipher this author to us.”15

The necessary “fictions”

Taxonomies are artificial and do not totally correspond to historical realities, but
only by their help we can bring the past closer. Our perceptions of the historical
components (and of literary history) are distorted, and for this reason, some say,
can be catalogued as fictions, but necessary ones. As for the “eternal essences,”
“from Plato to Husserl – Paul Veyne notes – history, like every feeling, has cease-
lessly questioned the essence; our view of living is a view of essences, but they are
jumbled: nevertheless, they give sense to the manifestation.”16
The entrance of literary history into a process of revision was one of the effects
of the discrepancy between a mentality where the desire for order, organization,
structuring, and unification of the existence under the umbrella of some classes,
categories and hierarchies is primordial and on the other hand, the awareness of
indeterminacy, heterogeneity, disorganization, lack of stability, and difference that
questions every certitude. It is symptomatic that we continue to watch the creation
of forms and frameworks, even if this impulse runs counter to the “naturalness”
of existence, which is basically fragmentary and incoherent. Also “natural” is its

15 André Gide, Tableau de la littérature française (Paris: Gallimard, 1939), p. 7.

16 Paul Veyne, Cum se scrie istoria, trans. Maria Carpov (Bucharest: Meridiane Publishing
House, 1999), p. 316.

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call for unification, organization and hierarchy, and the need to look at the liter-
ary phenomenon in its historical continuation, because “texts” – says Nicolae
Manolescu, who does not ignore the principle of the continuum – “not only fol-
low one anothers in an endless sequence, but have a specific dialogue between
text and text.”17
The continuities and the universals, as old as the discipline itself, will probably
remain the themes of literary history as long as they are noticed and differentiated,
because the phenomenon of literature has its own dialectics where even the most
daring innovations and the most radical breaks with tradition have their predeces-
sors and inevitably, their continuers. Every revolution is the result of a series of
“literary events” which involve transformations and recurrences; “periods” derive
from one another. Literary history needs to find the right balance between the
unique nature of an author and of his writings on the one hand and, on the other,
the generation he is part of, the group or the trend to which he belongs. It appears
that the “organic” model by which literary forms are born, bloom and die cleared
the place for a model called by Todorov “dialectic,” structured on the pattern of
thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
It is possible that the 21st century may bring back into discussion the recon-
struction of the continuum, namely of the bonds that unify the elements of lit-
erature. Everything will still depend on the views of literary historians. At the
moment there is a tension between those who, as Walter Benjamin would say,
want to “bomb the continuum of history” and those who still care about this
continuum.18 Any historical perspective that will leave as little doubt as possible,
that can convince us that it is plausible, coherent, and intellectually attractive,
could succeed.

3.7. Diachronic and synchronic

Literature being a dynamic phenomenon, implying the idea of change and modifi-
cation, the appearance of a discipline to study its history and having as a reference
criterion the temporal dimension is somehow natural. But literary history, being
perfectly compatible in its structure with the study object, is, in its turn, subject

17 Nicolae Manolescu, Istoria critică a literaturii române. Cinci secole de literatură (Piteşti:
Paralela 45 Publishing House, 2008), p. 13.
18 In this case, it does not only involve advocates of a traditional critical vision. Feminist
literary histories, for example, or those of Black or those of other minorities greatly
appreciate not only the feeling of unity and solidarity inside the group, but also te
temporal continuation of the situations that this groups confronted.

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to transformation, be it from the perspectives it takes, be it by the methods that
it has recourse to. The situation is not excluded when, as we have seen, the disci-
pline itself goes through reorganization or redistribution of emphasis. Referring
to the past has its benefits and advantages. The comprehensive aim of holding
in the same horizon the most different, individual or ill-­assorted tendencies can
have the advantage of unification into a coherent universe. In this way, literature
can be conceived as a system and not as a conglomerate of writings that do not
communicate between themselves. Perspectivism leads to the revelation of points
of convergence, of bonds and synonymities, just as it will lead to an emphasis on
the divergences, discontinuities and differences that make it unique. Distance
in time clarifies things and constitutes the safest way to authenticate values, and
to checking their resistance, as Marc Block suggests: reculer pour mieux sauter!

The recuperative mission of history

Beyond the matter of values, it is important to note that the inevitable distance
between the literary historian and the text in the past that he analyzes might lead
to the idea of the possible, probable, credible and certainly partial perspective of-
fered by every literary history. Irrespective of how much the specialist would like
to reconstitute as accurately as possible the initial context of the writing, this is
hard to achieve. As Mario Valdés emphasized “there is no basis for the persistent
idea that there is a determinate historical actuality, an Ur-­history that serves as
the referent and measure for our inquiries into what really happened in the past.
What really happened is to be constituted by the gradual enlargement of points
of view. […] There can be no doubt that it is we who make the past.”19 Perhaps
we are not entirely the exclusive authors of the past as long as the effort is to as-
semble, rediscover the literary “events,” and observation of them. The original
context becomes more and more difficult to perceive as time passes by, but the
recuperative purpose of history should not be minimized because it can offer
elucidations for the implied allusions that the text contains, deciphering certain
significances that were accessible only to its contemporaries. On the other hand,
the aesthetic climate where the literary historian lives may represent a serious
impediment to the perception of the other climate, that of the text. Major changes
that appeared in the interim distort the image of the past, and the interpretation is
actually a “translation,” which means that the historian does not have free access
to the original sense which unfortunately may be lost for good.

19 Valdés, Rethinking Literary History. A dialogue on Theory, pp. 80–81.

138
The guiding criteria in the study of the literature of the past
Should the literary historian adapt to the norms of the past period, reconstitute
them, and then adopt them, thus ignoring the artistic canon of his time? Some voices
answer this question in the affirmative, because every piece of writing needs to be
understood in terms of the values and aesthetic perspectives of its time. Others claim
that the approach is nevertheless utopian simply because many of the consequences
of events are hard for their agents to predict, their intentions are conscious as well as
unconscious, and the contingent factors are more or less known to them. Sometimes
it is very difficult to find out what the reception in previous periods (or in many of
them) was and what the evaluation criteria actually were. Where there are indices
in this sense, they will be part of the factual material to be analyzed, but when the
literary historian does not have the benefit of these data, he will not be taken away
his study objects, given the absence of necessary instruments. He inevitably retorts
to the criteria of his time which he cannot totally ignore, and the temporal distance
has the benefit of having clarified matters. Literary history addresses the present to
which it offers the image which it perceives of the past, i.e. filtered through the prism
of vision, taste, and contemporary aesthetic perspectives. As long as the literary his-
torian offers a point of view, his own point of view, the result of the combination of
factors such as personality, interests and values that guide it, there is no such thing as
the ideal of objectivity in literary history. Many theoreticians see literary histories as
hypothetical constructions on subjective foundations. The literary historian cannot
abandon the culture or mentality characteristic of him.

The synchronic dimension in literary history

Besides the subjective/objective dichotomy, the issue of synchrony is brought into
discussion, which was inconceivable for some, given the fact that it seemed the
exclusive preserve of the literary critic. “Founded” – wrote Michel de Certeau –
“on the cleavage between a past, that is its object, and a present that is the place
of its practice, history does not cease to find the present in its object and the past
in its practices.”20
Without opting for the preeminence of literary criticism, the Russian formal-
ists revolutionized the perspective on literary history, switching the focus from the
diachronic perspective to the synchronic one, and foregrounding procedures and
literality instead of the aspects exterior to the artistic act. Tthe theories of the formal-
ists partly derive from the Hegelian concept. Before realizing what it is made up of

20 Michel de Certeau, L’Ecriture de l’histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), p. 48.

139
and in order to understand the context where it appeared, we need to remember the
names of Herder and of Friedrich Schlegel who supported the idea of the natural
evolution of literature. In other words, because the role of the individual is mini-
mal, some forms evolve from others; their literary development, similar to that of
an organism, is continuous, slow, and obviously predictable by the laws of natural
determinism. Hegel fundamentally contradicts this idea which, aiming to find simi-
larities in nature at all costs, would alter to an unrecognizable degree the principle
of literary genesis. The philosopher would justifiably notice that the changes in the
artistic domain are not slightly perceptible, but on the contrary, the transforma-
tions that move the mechanism of literature are most often radical and sudden,
with forms being quite often replaced by their opposites. This idea was developed
by the Russian formalists; famous, for example, was the position of Tynyanov who
speaks of replacement as a fundamental law of literary evolution. It is interesting
that the Hegelian theory did not impose itself irrevocably. In the time of Darwin
and Spencer, evolutionism21 would also witness a comeback in literature.
Coming back to the Russian formalists, whose theories would be continued,
even if with a gap of a few years, they do not exclude cooperation between the two
dimensions, diachronic and synchronic. In Iuri Tynyanov’s article, written in col-
laboration with Roman Jakobson and entitled Questions of the study of literature and
language (1927) the following opinions appear: “The idea of a purely synchronic sys-
tem proved to be an illusion. Every synchronic system has its past and its future that
are inseparable parts of the system. (The archaic elements represent a fact of style:
the literary and linguistic background can be interpreted as a worn-­out, out-­of-­date
style; or, on the contrary, innovating tendencies in language and literature can be
interpreted as refreshments of the system).”22 It is obvious that the literary writings
are substantially more or less visibly related to a tradition that influences them by
the models that make them viable. Yet, at the same time, they can be perceived as
individual entities seen in their synchronicity. “More fascicles of diachronic lines” –
wrote later Paul Zumthor23 – “are really presented in the synchrony of the text.”

The reference of literary history

Tynyanov emphasized, and after him Curtius and other poeticists, that the object
of literary history is the variability of literature. That means, as Zumthor asserted,
that the evolution of the sequence and implicitly the reorganization in a different

21 See Darwin’s theories referring to natural selection or to the transformation of species.

22 According to Wellek, Conceptele criticii, p. 52.
23 Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris: Seuil, 1972), p. 12.

140
configuration of literary forms, the favoring of new procedures, or the attribution
of distinct functions, possibly different from those of the previous system. The
essential fact is emphasized by Paul Zumthor: in these redistributions, delimita-
tions are hard to make, no literary form is an isolated one or the product of some
combination of elements that are not to be found in the literary field. The viable
configurations are always different; the materials are always the same. Just as
literary writing is the product of intertextuality, the macrostructures are under
the control of the same laws of re-­arrangement and “mixture,” because “literary
history is also the history of this intertextual relay race by which the diachronic
axis is projected on the synchronic axis.”24
It is certain that the history of the literature means diachronic as well as syn-
chronic, the literary texts of the past seem to be documents of the past and aes-
thetic experiences for present. To neglect one of these dimensions is equal to
truncating and deforming perspectives on phenomenon of literature, because
“synchronic description,” Jakobson said, “deals not only with the literary produc-
tion of a given period, but also with that part of the literary tradition that remained
alive or that was resuscitated in that period.”25

3.8. Reasoning – between relativism and absolutism

In order to be more than simple archive keeping, data recording and document
ordering, literary history needs to include the axiological coordinate. It does not
have the duty only to describe, but also to assess and interpret. Thus every self-­
respecting literary historian is capable of realizing when it is a question of talking
about a value and when it is a non-­value, being a literary critic in his turn. For
this reason, G. Călinescu believed literary history to be one of the most compre-
hensive forms of criticism. The act of evaluation is or needs to be consubstantial.
It is equally true that generally the literary historian is at the forefront of some
already established hierarchies. He can nevertheless dispute the hierarchy, mak-
ing a selection and proposing another order or other criteria of appreciation,
if necessary. The authority of his point of view is checked by the fact that, once
again, the literary critic must take into account the order of the proposed values
in literary history.
The agreement about the duty that it must have to utter reason is not main-
tained when it is a question of perspectives on these values. There are two gen-
eral orientations in this sense: relativism and absolutism or, to put it differently,

24 Manolescu, Istoria critică a literaturii române. Cinci secole de literatură, p. 13.

25 Roman Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale (Paris: Seuil, 1963), p. 212.

141
either the value is seen as dependent on the era and, consequently, it is changing,
or it is considered as absolute, fixed, ahistorical, eternal. Within each category
there are, as might be expected, different variations. For example, historicism, a
movement that appeared and manifested itself in 19th century Germany, assumes
the relativist point of view. It relies on the idea that each era establishes its own
values and that there are no unitary, final and categorical criteria of appreciation.
Erich Auerbach denies the accusation of “eclecticism” brought against historicism,
clearly highlighting the fact that the literary historian will discover in the very
material that he studies the appreciation categories that he needs: “The historian
will learn to extract from the material studied the categories and concepts that
he needs in order to characterize and differentiate the various phenomena. These
concepts are not absolute; they are elastic and provisional, changing at the same
time as history.”26
By attacking this position, the theories of a famous aesthetician such as Bene-
detto Croce would become classic. For the Italian researcher, a literary text exists
or does not exist, from a value point of view, and in the case of the creations that
impose in literature, temporal conditionings and bonds between texts are out of
the question. Therefore, the most appropriate research methods might be mono-
graphs and essays that highlight the individuality of a piece of writing, its unique-
ness, beyond procedures or styles. This holistic vision of the text (the literary
creation is seen as a whole, as singularity) automatically excludes from discussion
the analytic model, the one that places the text in a family, a period or a genre.
Continuing these ideas, Eliot has a personal point of view and a new per-
spective which seems to reconcile the holistic and the analytical points of view,
however paradoxical it may seem. The truly valuable creations are simultaneous
temporal realities. In his view there is an interconnection of literary works, and
every new entry in the general system of the literature leads to a redistribution
and reorganization within this system. The consequence is not that the writings
are outshone by novelties, but that they simply do not occupy the place given by
tradition. In this way, the very concept of tradition changes, without excluding
dynamism and change. Eliot’s ideas were received enthusiastically by British and
American critics, and his point of view was not isolated, being given different
variations. In French culture, for example, the writer and theoretician Michel Bu-
tor would change the emphasis to reception and interpretation, saying that each
text can be read in different ways depending on the “reading grid” that is offered
by the other texts to which it is necessarily related.

26 According to Wellek, Conceptele criticii, p. 13.

142
Between relativism and absolutism
Because a literary text that is a definite value also belongs to the moment when
it appeared, but actually steps out of history because it lasts, time does not alter
its qualities, and the categorical option either for relativism or for absolutism is
wrong. Extreme relativism annuls the idea of judgment on the basis of certain
criteria, of certain categories, which leads to the mixture and anarchy of values.
In this sense, absolutism ignores the relevance of the changes that time brings
about. The perspectives on a piece of writing cannot be the same from one era to
another, and the norms of judgment do not have eternal validity. Certainly, the
most appropriate attitude in this matter is the combination of the two tendencies,
which is not impossible and which means to capture in one perspective what lasts
and what changes in a text, with the mention that what lasts for a period can then
change, and what changed can last for a period that is hard to predict.
On the other hand, literary histories are themselves carriers of values. For
example, when they offers information about the past, they have an informative
value; equally, they can plead for aesthetic, humanistic or political values. They are
not excluded from offering points of view, perspectives that imprint themselves
on the memory of readers, but by accepting a limit: it is not about the complete
image (what can that actually mean? …) of the literary past. Like all knowledge,
literary knowledge is fragmentary and partial, and the literary historian is actually
an intermediary a mediator, says Jean-­Marie Schaeffer, between the artist and his
potential audience. Such a mediator “can fulfill his mission but in a very narrow
historical window, the one het shares with its contemporaries.”27
Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the questionable abdications of some
contemporary literary historians, who no longer want to establish values nor to
impose any kind of canon. But in this way literary history thus functions as a
simple recording of the phenomenon of literature, archives or a neutral presenta-
tion of a discourse whose axiological relevance I still feel the need to know, even
though it may be temporary.

3.9 The narrative literary history

Paul Ricoeur’s theory relating to the way in which people narrate the temporary
experience, an essential experience for the human species, had so great an impact
on mentalities that it triggered a change in the perspective of the literary historians
on their object of study. The French philosopher explains how we resort to the

27 Jean-­Marie Schaeffer, Adieu à l’esthétique (Paris: PUF, 2000), p. 55.

143
narrative function in order to give sense and structure to events that we could
otherwise understand only chaotically, as a disordered conglomeration with an
alienating effect on us. This assignment of meaning to all human actions is con-
sciously done, but also unconsciously, as a comfortable support for our situation
in the world, for our historical way of being in the world. Having this explanation,
it is no wonder that precisely the narrative dimension was the one to have offered
an identity to literary history: “Literary history as an autonomous discipline,” René
Wellek noted, “appeared only after biography and critique fused and when, under
the influence of political historiography, it began to be used as a narrative form.”28
Paul Ricoeur points to the fact that both history and literature have a pri-
mordial common referent which is human time, which means that the two cor-
responding discourses should not be interpreted, as it has happened, as opposed
to each other. The factual discourse of history has almost never been on the same
level with the fictional one, that of literature. Like every narrative discourse that
belongs to humanist science or literature, it is built on the same principles that
forbid the creation of strict dichotomies between discourses: it never reflects the
pre-­existing world loyally or passively, it means the processing of data, of factual
material, and this very discourse means novelty and deviation from the subject.
Thus the historical narrative whose main mission is to explain events, what hap-
pened and mostly why, cannot be the unaltered image of the past, irrespective of
how much the most ambitious historian would like to it to be.
Narrative means “getting into the plot,” the configuration of the sequence of
events, their “translation” into a symbolic key, their ordering so that they seem
coherent (even when they are not). All these operations testify to the universal
capacity and human need for sense. There remains the question about what “plot”
or “subject” might mean in the case of literary history. The answer given by those
who believe in this narrative dimension is that, although it is not much, yet, the
appearance and the decline together would represent the “subjects.” The “heroes”
of these plots might be a literary genre or a style, a logical subject, a literary
trend … Thus in many literary histories there are emerging and declining literary
trends, such as the very famous example of Classicism and Romanticism which
also meant a conflict, since the second opposed the first, as a reaction against it.
Hayden White’s model of a narrative history presupposes three stages: the first
when the material to be analyzed is chronologically organized, making up a sort
of “chronicle,” the literary historian then configures this chronicle in the form of
a history and, in the end, in the last stage, the author identifies certain archetypes

28 Moisan, Istoria literară, p. 75.

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of the conflict/ victory type. The “narrative” method was successfully adopted by
one of the greatest Romanian literary historians, George Călinescu. “A history
of literature,” he stated, “is a real human comedy, having the writers as subjects.”
Certainly, the assimilation to a common narration is made with some difficulty;
the narrative literary history is not truly a narrative, but on the other hand it is
not entirely history either, because it is narrative … The “story” cannot attract
us as much as fiction, because there are no incidents that keep us breathless, nor
authentic characters or sensational intrigues. And as the narrative history already
has a tradition, inevitably reproaches appeared, maybe the most important being
that the narrative mode is artificial, as life is neither coherent nor always explicable
or capable of being given meaning and sense.

3.10. Revisions of the subject of literary history

The obsession of the second half of the 19th century and of the first of the 20th
century was the scientific spirit which had to permeate all kinds of research, ir-
respective of their object of study and specific nature. Because in its beginnings
literary history was composed of a series of author biographies and literary works
considered exceptional, the view changed radically because literary history was
criticized for being too descriptive and devoid of theory. Its subject, literature, was
seen as a form of ideology, and therefore the method chosen was the historical-­
sociological one. The literary work was considered the result of the combination
of certain social, class and political factors and the consequences of economic
determinism. This intrusive sociologism was somewhat detrimental to literary
research because it offered a deformed image of the literary phenomenon, forcing
the literary historian to abdicate from his main mission, that of including the sin-
gular within a wider picture. It is well-­known that science is generally concerned
with collective aspects, with what is serial and with the particular, exceptional and
atypical, because these last features are quite often features of literature. And thus
the uniqueness of which art is proud was ignored, the specific literary act being
disfavored and ignored. It was not by chance that later, when these errors were
fully understood, specialists seriously questioned whether the history of literature
should be written or that of its authors!
The domain of literary history was thus subjected to successive revisions in
order to correct errors; some famous names put their imprint on this process. In
the first decade of the 20th century Wilhelm Dilthey’s philosophy of history and
his orientation to national histories emerged, but the mistake was that the reader,
was not given any role at all and the way in which the reader understands the
literary work, was not given any role at all. It is exactly this omission that Hans

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Robert Jauss would remedy in the 70s, at a time when the student protests signaled
the stringent necessity for change in higher education that would revolutionize
the domain of literary history. A literary historian, he stated, needs to know the
literary work he is studying, as this is seen as a “score” which allows of several
interpretations; he also needs to know its author and his intentions, the context,
and above all the “waiting horizon” of the reader, as this is the decisive instance in
all historical analysis. When one says “waiting horizon” one needs to think of the
first audience, to their knowledge that is based on comparisons between reality
and the world of books, between the daily language and the artistic one, etc. Jauss
noticed that quite often, especially when it is a matter of innovative literary works,
there is a distance between the waiting horizon and the literary work. In any case,
the very concept of literary history was modified by the inclusion of the quasi-­
historic analyses of reception, because the initial context of the literary work was
given the necessary attention, but not only this, because it only represents part of
the equation. It is quite likely that when we want to rebuild the waiting horizon
of the past, we are, in fact, in our own waiting horizon.

Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and the New Literary History

As we have already seen, Roland Barthes set the trend in France for a virulent
attack on literary history. The occasion was offered to him as an answer to a discus-
sion in a radio show when the topic referred to the bond between art and history.
Barthes’ position is known to us from his book On Racine, when he clearly states
that it is an illusion that literary history might have access to history; rather, we
are imposed on a historical “mythology.” By conjuring up different articles, he
demonstrates that it is nothing but a series of monographs, and that, in fact, “the
history” is a … chronicle for which history is a kind of background. Barthes has
his own views and philosophy of what history means and, in this sense, he points
out that literary history is not defined by a temporality similar to that of military
history, for example. As for the literary work, it is at the same time a sign of the
history and a resistance to to it, because it is not the sum of its “sources, influences,
or models,” i.e. that is exactly what places it on the trajectory of history. For this
reason, the theoretician proposes in an astounding fashion style, to try to see not
what history tells us about the literary work, but what the literary work tells us
about history! On the other hand, Barthes rightly notes to what degree the literary
histories of his time, but equally those of other eras, paid special attention to the
author in isolation, while history, by definition, focuses on the on-­going collectives.
Is literary history indeed history? And if it becomes history, doesit not fatally lose
its aesthetic value, because it is like any other activity in the historical circuit?

146
 Foucault’s criticism, a real challenge, changed the perception of historical
works and of their validity in traditional forms, even if it did not lead to the
configuration of clear alternatives. Foucault practically “deconstructed” the
so-­called “historic truth”29 in his Archaeology of Knowledge. He catalogued lit-
erary history as a discourse among other discourses, a practice with its own
rules, argumentation strategies and rhetorical elements. The historian is one
who has a view of his own on history and consequently he imposes his way of
understanding the past, the result being an “ideological construct” that may
dominate until the appearance of another to replace it. Later, specialists agreed
that Foucault’s notion of episteme as a set of disjunctive, discontinuous re-
lationships that connects the discourse to a dominant scale of values in the
era is more appropriatet as a tool for literary history than the old notions of
period or Weltanschauung. Foucault’s “archeological” approach presupposed,
as Corneliu Bîlbă emphasized, “getting rid of those notions that are bound to
the postulate of continuity, such as: tradition, influence, development, teleology,
mentality, spirit of the era. The reason for the rejection of these categories is
that they are recent, they belong to modernity, and their retrospective applica-
tion presupposes a number of hypotheses and analogies that the pre-­modern
culture cannot stand without being deformed. Our thinking schemata are not
universal, and their application to a class of statements belonging to a different
epistemic configuration resorts to suppositions that are metaphysical, referring
to unity and historical continuity.”30 In this way Foucault decisively oriented the
Western ideas conception with reference to the “historical” character of what
had long been considered ahistorical!
In 1969 there appeared the famous magazine New Literary History, in which
there were published many studies on the matter of innovations within this field,
and about criteria for the selection of writers, literary works, genres, and values.
Many of the opponents of literary history in its traditional, static form rejected
its validity, saying that it was not truly history, but merely a glossing of data and
opinions related to styles, eras and ideas, all isolated from different contexts and
collectivities. Consequently, it was said, the literary should not focus, only on geni-
uses who created literary works “beyond time,” but rather on the literary cultures
and communities that produce them.

29 He was subsequently followed by Hayden White with, for example, The Content of the
Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, by Paul Ricoeur with Temps
et récit and by David Carr with Time, Narrative and History.
30 Corneliu D. Bîlbă, Hermeneutică şi discontinuitate. Studii de arheologie discursivă (Iaşi:
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Publishing House, 2011), p. 118.

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The concept of the “knot” in literary history
In the 80s the new historicism asserted itself more and more by studies that dem-
onstrated a return to the diachronic aspects of literature. The main reference, the
starting-­points and sources of inspiration were the theories and papers of Michel
Foucault and of the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. The literary works are seen
as a result of the clash of different social discourses, so that the idea of plurality
becomes dominant and guiding. Mario J. Valdés, taking over Foucault’s idea about
the “knot-­book” in a network of references31 to other books, other texts, and other
phrases, proposes the concept of the “knot”, intended to function as an ordering
principle, organizing the new literary histories.32 There are “temporal knots” such
as the years 1848, 1914, 1945, 1989 in Europe, or “topographic knots,” for example,
towns that generated a famous literary culture, such as Prague or Buenos Aires
at the beginning of the 20th century. In this case, demographic and urban studies
can complete the literary ones. We could equally speak about “institutional knots”
such as the Academies in Central Europe or the Jesuit schools in Latin America,
or about “figurative” ones, such as the poet, the national symbol.
Literary history can no longer be cumulative, nor can it take over, randomly
and without any critical examination or update, topics for discussion, ideological
positions, and perspectives promoted by the historians of the past. The monu-
mental literary histories, written by a single author, seem to tempt the specialists
to impose in their place those written by collectives of researchers, because the
historian is no longer, as Michel de Certeau emphasizes, the person who builds
an empire or talks about “the paradise of history.” However, the university literary
histories are equally impressive, even if they no longer have single authors but are
written by collectives of authors. They are joined by textbooks destined to teach
the history of literature and the histories published by specialized printing houses,
the differences being mainly dictated by the types of audiences they address, as
well as by ideological and cultural trends.
The models and the stereotypical national and ethnical constructions with their
rigid, homogenous dimensions are questioned because history today is seen as
relational,33 involving a variety of perspectives, being itself irremediably markedby

31 The concept of intertextuality launched by Kristeva is linked precisely to this reality

that Foucault was talking about.
32 Valdés, Rethinking Literary History. A Dialogue on Theory.
33 “The new historicists”, New Historicists, greatly influenced by Clifford Gertz, speak
about history as being irrational, unpredictable, discontinuous, which is actually no
bad thing because “Discontinuity is freedom!”, as Harold Bloom used to say.

148
the global context. Thus literary history should not ignore the social sciences such
as demography, political economy, anthropology and sociology because it needs to
frame a picture dominated by the idea of multiplicity, and not by that of unifying
totality. The nation is seen today as a concept subject to reconfigurations, since
historical conditions always change which renders dysfunctional the organicist
and teleological model of continuity that dominated literary history from as early
as the 19th century until the 1970s.

The literary history in the era of globalization

As a global, transnational identity becomes more and more predominant instead
of a national one, it is natural to question what literary history will be like in a
global world. For now, it is difficult to say as there is no new model of literary
studies. It is certain, though, that the arrogant idea of a cultural superpower and
the principles of euro-­centric humanism34 are being rejected. Let us remember
how, in his lessons on universal history, Hegel would establish a center and pe-
ripheries. Greece and Italy were presented as the theatre of world history, and
the nucleus of Europe was considered to be made up of France, Germany and
England, with visible influences on the whole of Europe. The western European
cultural model imposed itself in this way on other models and in this exercise of
power geographical and cultural territories that would otherwise have merited
attention were marginalized or even ignored.
It is known today that the historic study of literature needs to be designed as an
open system, as a network where there are data, information and interpretation
of literatures in different geographical areas, with different species, languages and
artistic and literary means of expression. Consequently, literary history will not
be limited to the canon, to what the intellectual elite selected. It will be a history
of literatures: popular, oral, written; a history attentive to gender, race, ideology
and social class differences, not in order to mask them or to overlook them, but
in order to configure a cultural painting as close as possible to reality. Gender
studies, postcolonial studies, de-­constructivism and feminist studies, because of
their demolishment of some principles and traditional values, cannot represent
a source of inspiration for current literary history.
Certainly, inherent eclectism will be a problem – not from the perspective of
the coherence that narratives presuppose, because, as we said, this model that

34 See, for example, Edward W. Said and Homi K. Bhabha’s studies: Orientalism (New
York: Vintage Books, 1979) and The Location of Culture (London, New York: Routledge,
1994).

149
does not reflect cultural polyphony was dropped. And when the imperatives of
unification, rationalization and unification do not function any more, the excuse
of getting lost in digression can no longer be used. As David Perkins says, in
literary history the form that imposes itself now is the encyclopedic one where
separate essays about separate authors are collated. Yet there is a danger that the
specialists brought together to compose a literary history may not form a real
team or there may not be a unity of vision or, even worse, of method. The results
are also eclectic from the point of view of the critical genres that are assembled
here: biography, bibliography, social history, intellectual history, data about the
reception of literary works, semiotics, Marxism, and Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Literary history was accused at the beginning of the 20th century of being
too concerned with what was exterior to literary works or to the literary system.
The formalists triggered the radical change of views within literary research that
concentrated almost exclusively on the literary work in itself. Today it seems that
general attention is directed again to the cultural network of which the literature
forms part. It is very probable (or not …) that it will not repeat the mistakes of
the past and that literary history will no longer be … a cultural history in disguise.
As long as literature remains the main reference of the discipline in discussion,
the danger is still distant. On the other hand it is very true that the era we live
in imposes the opening of horizons, a dialogue that involves agreements and
disagreements. We are citizens of the world and not of a certain country, and
the literatures that represent us are no longer strictly national ones, because they
cannot be strictly national. In the literary research this means comparative study,
for example: the literatures of Eastern and Central Europe, the literature of me-
dieval Spain, including its Arab and Jewish dimensions, the literatures of Eastern
Asia, etc. or the finding of some nuclei or “knots” to coagulate and to function as
new unifying principles for elements and heterogeneous and heteroclitic literary
phenomena.
One of the most recent tendencies is the one instituted by Franco Moretti,
known under the name of a quantitative literary history. Professor Moretti’s re-
search paper appeared in 2005 from the Verso publishing house and is entitled
Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History. Starting from a hard to
contradict reality (it is impossible to read and assimilate the literary material in
its assembly in order to be able to offer, as a literary historian, an overall vision
as well as a direct analysis), Moretti proposes a brave but risky, even debatable
approach. Instead of close reading he proposes distant reading, a method for liter-
ary history that reminds one more of poetics and of its aspirations to the general
and legitimated in the study of literature. It is thus admitted that literary works

150
would no longer be seen and attentively analyzed but viewed from afar. We can-
not but wonder if this knowledge might be trusted, if the “overview” does not
miss the necessary targets for the stakes, values and nuances of literary art to
be understood. We need to take over the fact that we are doomed to live in an
era of the result, of the “abbreviation,” of the shortening, but the historical type
studies are maybe meant to save what can be saved, or needs to be saved, beyond
the “summary.” The abbreviated form that the literary history can resort to is a
concentrated form, even if its validity cannot be long-­standing.

3.11. Conclusions
To make history means to try to recuperate, to reconstruct what no longer exists.
The attempt is, as we have seen, despite all ambitions, attempts at objectivity by
information or by “transposition” into the era, doomed to fail. Never will the past
be wholly reconstructed, even if it involves the past of the document-­book, of the
book that is preserved in its immanent immateriality. The context, which is one of
the configuring factors of literature, cannot be reconstructed entirely, nor can the
conditions that led to the writing of a literary work. But literary history is more
than a reconstruction of the context and circumstances. As Clément Moisan35
states, “History is not a compilation of facts, events or names; it is a construction
and a creation.” The fact that the history of historians is permanently doomed
to be incomplete is not so frustrating as to minimize the main benefit that the
subject represents for the culture of humanity: a barrier against forgetfulness,
against the disappearance of the significant past. History attenuates the erosion
that time causes and participates in the legitimizing and valorizing of the literary
processes. All the commentaries, analyses, notes, and explanations the literary
historian usually resorts to have this main function: to preserve, to conserve the
text and at the same time to make it more accessible to all categories of audience,
because the “professional reader, who is” the literary historian, Elvira Sorohan
says, “a specialist even in the discipline that he theorizes here, has the capacity of
placing himself in the text, experimenting with a double life: firstly reconstructing,
internally, in the imaginary, the creative act, secondly he works on an actualization
of the text here and now (hic et nunc) .”36
It is not unimportant that the most remarkable formative role that the literary
history has is it involves young men. Roland Barthes said that “literature is what is

35 Clément Moisan, Istoria literară, p. 40.

36 Elvira Sorohan, Introducere în istoria literaturii române (Iaşi: “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”
University Publishing House, 1997), p. 17.

151
being taught,” actually reducing literature to a canon and to its didactic function,
certainly a disputable idea, but highlighting at the same time the pedagogic mis-
sion of literature and implicitly of the discourse that promotes it. As early as the
Renaissance, there were exercises in schools by which literary Greek or Latin texts
were deciphered and explained from the perspective of the content and grammar,
vocabulary, versification, etc. Literary history can thus not only popularize the
literature of the past, but also can help it to be understood, making it interesting
by reducing the discrepancies that the passage of time can create. It can be asserted
that the subject has a responsibility in the education of the young.
Paul Valéry, speaking about the history that historians “recuperate,” signaled
that it can intoxicate whole nations, give fake memories, maintain open wounds,
and perpetuate illusions of grandeur and persecution. No bond exists, it may
seem, between this history and that of the literature! The literary historians ex-
press, willy-­nilly, their subjectivity; they have the power to perpetuate fake values
and they may hide, to the detriment of culture in general, other values that may
unjustly disappear. Sainte-­Beuve, for example, while studying French Romanti-
cism, searches by every means around 1828 for French forerunners of this literary
period, obstinately rejecting evidence of foreign influence. Nor did the German
critics of the 1760s want either to accept the French influence on their literature,
so they rediscover, somehow forcefully, the Teutonic ancients! The examples are
very numerous, especially when it is about cultures that have the vanity of their
own value. Reversely, the cultures willing to assert themselves want by all means
to be synchronized with the vain ones. Some theoreticians (it could be interpreted
as historians), Fernand Baldensperger ironically says, “love to look for in the
gallery of half-­length portraits where they can choose their ancestors from, not
right genuine models, but petrified archetypes in whose absence everything in
our history would be nothing but fumbling, groping and mistakes.”37 Intoxication
can thus occur in literary history as well, unlikely as it may seem.
But recuperation, albeit partial, of what existed before cannot occur from a
static perspective. Time sweeps away interpretations, analyses and reconstructions
equally. Therefore history itself needs to submit to a process of updating. As we
have seen, history is not exempt from redefinitions; in fact, it is questioned. The
main factor that triggers the recurrent reform of the domain is literature itself, dif-
ficult to define, difficult to understand precisely because one cannot talk about its
“essence”, about its immutable elements which might have been a guiding light for

37 Fernand Baldensperger, Literatura. Creaţie, succes, durată, trans. Virginia Şerbănescu

(Bucharest: Univers Publishing House, 1974), p. 149.

152
researchers. As long as the subject of literary history, literature, is a dynamic object,
a mobile and organic assemblage that exposes itself to knowledge in its functional
dimension rather than in its ontological one, literary history does not need to do
anything but adjust to the literary imperatives. Literature does not stagnate; its
forms are not petrified, not even the old ones. That is why synchronization and
adaptation of this domain of literary research to the characteristics of the object of
study are compulsory. Is literature a process? Literary history will have, in its turn,
to submit to changes by permanently adapting to the new demands of literary
evolution. Thus, from time to time, literary history needs reorientation, especially
by the new methods that it takes on, which is understood mostly by those who
noted that the dilemma of literary history was caused by an incapacity to study
literature as a phenomenon that changes over time. A rigid meta-­literature in
relation to a mobile reference is, obviously, inappropriate, deforming or, as Marc-­
Mathieu Münch expressively stated, referring to literary history: “On n’étudie pas
le train en oubliant qu’il roule” (we don’t study the train, forgetting that it moves)!
The literary text is the permanently living source of many other commentaries
and interpretations. For this reason literary history needs to maintain a permanent
dialogue with the social, historical and cultural contexts of both production and
reception and does so now even more than before … But the domain of literary
history is made not only by the literary works themselves in the context where they
appeared and in the context of their reception. More than that, there is also the
theoretical space of literary history that presupposes theories, concepts, guiding
principles. Russian formalism, Croce’s idealism, Eliot’s theories and even the new
historicism greatly contributed to the amendment of literary history, at least in its
configuration. Its resistance in these conditions indicates its perennial nature…

153
4. The Variable Reference

If we consider literature and rhetorical discourse as identifiable “realities” in poet-

ics, literary history and rhetoric, we will soon notice that we are not offered precise
and complete knowledge, although this is the aspiration that underlies each of the
three domains. But literature as art and rhetoric, an art in itself, not to mention the
fact that literary research flirts with artistry, signal by their very status its straying
from the principles of objectivity and of the axiomatic truths that are traditionally
in control in the domain of science. Nevertheless, on more than one occasion the
meta-­domains in the humanistic area have claimed a scientific character, even
if the desire to adopt the methodology and the general behavior of the exact
sciences, in an effort to align themselves with what society credited and valued
positively, was prejudicial. We cannot attain a firm and final knowledge, and the
ordering, the setting in explanations, concepts and principles of the material that
represents the starting-­point is always subject to the threat of imperfection.
But the adoption of a different attitude in relation to the diversity of aspects
that the research into literary and discourse reference generated can be fruitful.
Thus we can perceive in totality and synchrony and we can accept that the new
points of view do not annul the old ones but complete them. We have access to a
general image of literature and of rhetorical discourse that we have to accept to be
evolving, never final. This reality is no reason to trigger a feeling of powerlessness
and to lead to the abandonment of the project of knowledge.
Literature was and is studied through its particular literary works, at the level of
assemblies (directions, movements, generations, national literatures etc.), as parts
of wholes, or from a more abstract, logical-­structural perspective, as a system. As
for discourses, if the primary rhetoric is prescriptive, offering networks, sugges-
tions, and composition recommendations, in modernity it is limited to observing
or to glossing the reality of discourses, and thus it is descriptive.
For a long time the topic was limited in poetic research to the way in which
literature handles the relationship with the exterior, the observance of certain
demands that claimed to be precise, but in reality were very unclear, leading,
it was thought, to the ideal form of artistic creation. Thus the ethical or moral
content of the literary work, its rapport with the truth that it had to reflect or
its rapport with the reality that it had to copy (irrespective of what this reality
meant: mimesis praxeos, namely imitation of actions, nature, the past, Greek and
Latin literary models, popular art or an ideal reality, possible worlds, etc.) were
central concerns in poetics for many centuries. It is exactly this subordination of

155
literature to a universe that has always represented only its point of departure that
dictated the strategy of literary history in its beginnings. Some said that it was
a cultural history rather than a literary one. But things changed radically at the
beginning of the 20th century, when literary research was required to be exclusively
… literary, because literary facts would be irreducible to different extra-­literary
causal forces. As literature is by its nature verbal creation, it was natural and closer
to the “object”, the systematic research into literary material, from the internal
organization and the structure of creations, to types of verse or elements of the
story, images and figures of style, etc., namely, everything that offers specificity
to the literary discourse. The intrinsic study of literary works, of their “form” as
“literary fact” was sporadic since antiquity to modernity and it was organized,
perseveringly, since the 20th century. That happened thanks to Russian formalism
which opened the horizon to the “scientific” approach as much as possible. The
assemblies of procedures by which the literary work belongs to the domain of art
and to the aesthetic functioning of the language represent the “literality” of a text
that became a reference for poetics, but in literary history this topic is represented
by a succession of literary systems or of literary institutions, not of literary works.
The situation changes again nowadays because cultural studies brought about
an important openness in current literary history as it refers to the literary phe-
nomenon from the perspective of its relationships to society, politics and ideol-
ogy – in a word, to the context. The cultural network that also comprises literature
as well is no longer ignored, literature being, as Foucault said, a discourse among
other discourses. In fact, as early as several decades ago, Barthes recommended
that histories of the literary functions should be written (other than the strictly
aesthetic ones), histories which should pay attention to production, dissemina-
tion and consumption, which brings into discussion the sociological dimension
of literature.
In rhetoric, the way in which a discourse is organized or composed was impor-
tant from the very beginning, and the rhetoric of style with all its figures of speech,
sound, syntactic and sense represented a constant preoccupation, although that
led to the reproach that the domain came to be mistaken step by step, due to
this preoccupation, for … stylistics. Not coincidentally, rhetoric provided literary
research with the necessary categories for the identification and classification of
expressive procedures. Nevertheless, the subject of rhetoric was not essentially,
as in the case of poetics, the specificity of literary discourse, but the production,
literally, of its verbal effect. For this very reason, the logical and psychological
categories such as persuasion, likelihood, the probable and the hypothetical were
discussed in the past, and are still discussed today.

156
 The subjects of poetics, of literary history and of rhetoric exist in a complex way
and offer more perspectives which in their turn vary over time. This subject with
its varied and variable aspects suggests more solutions, answers that can satisfy.
The problems that it poses can be discovered, seen and exploited from different
angles, based on different hypotheses. Given the fact that there is such a rich field
of possibilities, certainly, the domains of the subject in literature and discourse
will be permanently moving, and this will occur most frequently in the sense of
enrichment, not of the annulment of previous points of view.

157
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