Teoría Literaria: Conceptos y Autores Clave
Foundations of Literary Theory and the Nature of Theory
Literary theory constitutes an explanation based on the inherent nature of literature and the specific methods employed to analyze it. It differs from a scientific theory, such as the theory of relativity, which consists of a verified series of scientific propositions. While scientific theories possess a component of scientific speculation, any hypothesis seeking the status of a theory must maintain sufficient complexity to be verified. In this context, if a proposition is merely obvious, it fails to contribute significant meaning or sense. Theory acts as a collective of reflection and writing with boundaries that are notoriously difficult to define. It is often described as a mixed genre, designating works that pose a challenge to established ways of thinking across academic fields different from one's own. Various theories serve one another, incorporating useful elements from distinct disciplines to expand their reach and efficacy.
The primary effects of theory involve casting doubt on common sense and questioning or denaturalizing what is often perceived as absolute truth. It places into question deeply ingrained common-sense ideas regarding literature, writing, and the production of meaning. For instance, in the work El pelo de la virgen by Falco Federico, theory allows for inquiries into whether faith depends on the physical authenticity of an object or the social meaning attributed to it. It asks who decided what is considered valuable and attempts to demonstrate that what is taken for granted is actually a naturalized and imperceptible historical construction. Michel Foucault used theory to demonstrate that many categories appearing natural are, in fact, historical, social, and cultural constructions. Jacques Derrida established language as a mediator between representations and reality. Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Derrida discussed writing and speech as supplements, where signs supplant the presence of individuals in dialogue. These perspectives evidence that theory implies a practical form of speculation that challenges prior conceptions.
The Concept of Literariness and Academic Development
Theory offers analogous reasoning that reveals how seemingly natural social institutions and agreements are the products of economic relations and ongoing struggles for power. There are four principal traits of theory: it is interdisciplinary, covering more than one field of study; it is analytical and reflexive, examining its own concepts and categories; it is critical of common-sense notions and naturalized concepts; and it is reflexive, meaning it constantly refers back to its own processes. The question of what defines literature and distinguishes it from other forms of discourse leads to the concept of literariness. Jonathan Culler posits that a satisfactory definition of literariness has yet to be reached due to three fundamental problems. The first problem concerns identifying specific properties possessed by all literary works that differentiate them from non-literary ones. The second involves classification based on historical perspective, as literature is socially determined by the arbiters of culture. The third problem involves the variations in opinions among different social groups, where the interest of the investigator determines the depth of the inquiry into the text.
Definitions of literariness serve as instruments for theoretical and methodological orientation, highlighting fundamental aspects of literature and guiding literary studies. Before the end of the 19th century, the study of literature was conducted in conjunction with poets, philosophers, and orators. The shift occurred with the foundation of formal literary studies, which raised the problem of the distinctive character of literature. This movement sought to promote analytical methods that advanced the understanding of the literary object while discarding methods that ignored its specific nature. In the early 20th century, Russian Formalists formulated debates on literariness, moving away from previous focuses on the author's biography, psychology, or general philosophy. Studying a text as literary requires focusing on the employment of verbal strategies that set it apart. For example, one can compare the writing procedures of a technical manual with those of a poem. In Julio Cortázar's Instrucciones para subir una escalera, the text states that stairs are climbed from the front because backwards or sideways is uncomfortable. While it adopts the form of an instructional manual, it takes an automated act and analyzes it through the procedure of estrangement, transforming an instructional text into an aesthetic one.
Fundamental Traits of Literary Language and Artifice
There are three fundamental traits that define literary production. First is the procedure of foregrounding or the manifestation of language, where the language calls attention to itself through various procedures that produce literariness. This involves the de-automatization of language through non-grammatical structures or neologisms. Second is the dependence of the text on conventions and links to other classic texts; literature is understood in relation to other discursive forms and traditional conventions known to readers. Third is the perspective of compositional integration, where words, images, and structures are organized such that each element contributes sense to the whole. Roman Jakobson explains the poetic function as the focus of language on the message itself, noting that aesthetic elements can appear in non-literary texts.
Culler argues that literature is inherently ambiguous and requires the imaginative participation of the reader to construct meaning. It functions as an autonomous structure governed by internal relations established by the work itself. Literature is not characterized by isolated resources but by how those resources are organized and work together, following or transforming conventions. Viktor Shklovski critiqued the idea put forth by Potebnia that art is thinking by means of images, noting that images are not exclusive to literature. Images are nearly immobile and universal, often transmitted without modification between poets. For Shklovski, the aesthetic character of an object depends on the way it is perceived. He defines an aesthetic object as one created through procedures intended to ensure aesthetic perception. The defining characteristic of art is the set of procedures that produce estrangement (ostranenie) and renew the reader's perception.
The Mechanics of Perception and Defamiliarization
In Mariana Enriquez's El carrito, a fragment describes people drinking mate in an alley without using poetic imagery, yet it remains literary due to its construction and procedures. The Law of Economy of Creative Forces suggests that language and perception become automated to save time, a tendency Shklovski opposes in the artistic realm. General laws of perception show that habitual actions become automatic, such as climbing stairs or using linguistic abbreviations like substituting "xq" for "porque". The goal of art is to provide a sensation of the object as a vision rather than mere recognition. This is achieved by singularizing objects and increasing the difficulty and duration of perception.
De-automatization is achieved through techniques such as Leo Tolstoy's procedure of singularization, where an object is not called by its name but described as if seen for the first time, often using parts corresponding to other objects. Where there is an image, there is singularization, as the image's purpose is to create a particular perception of the object. Art is a consciously constructed artifice designed to break automatic perception. This allows the reader to experience objects anew rather than recognizing them automatically. Jorge Spíndola’s poem El ciclista illustrates this by describing trucks carrying loads on their backs and vomiting them in cities, transforming a mundane scene into one involving an animal-like creature to break the reader's automatic perception.
Literary Evolution and Systems Theory
Jurij Tinianov proposes that a literary work, like literature itself, constitutes a system. He suggests studying literature as a science by analyzing the relations between its elements and their evolution. While literature relates to other series or systems like history and society, the literary system follows its own internal laws. A "series" is defined as a group of related phenomena. The constructive function of an element refers to its possibility of correlating with other elements of the same system and the system as a whole. An element's value is not fixed; its constructive function depends on its relationship with other elements in the system and with similar elements in other works. For example, popular language functions differently in Mariana Enriquez's El carrito than in Julio Cortázar's Instrucciones para subir una escalera. In the former, it builds the image of a deteriorating neighborhood, while in the latter, it produces estrangement by appearing within a manual-like structure.
Elements also possess an autonomous function, relating to similar elements in different series, and a synonymous function, relating to other elements within the same work. The status of a "literary fact" depends on its differential quality in a given era; what is a literary fact today might be a standard linguistic phenomenon tomorrow. Genres evolve and are often defined by dominant features within a system rather than isolated works. Literary evolution does not maintain the same rhythm as other cultural series because of the specificity of literary material. The dominant elements of a work allow it to enter the literary sphere. Furthermore, literature and social life correlate through verbal activity, and this influence is reciprocal. Characters or literary forms of speech can transcend the work and integrate into social culture. Tinianov views tradition not as a copy of the past but as the process of assigning new functions to elements inherited from previous currents.
The Construction of the Text and Social Mediations
Beatriz Sarlo and Carlos Altamirano describe the literary text as a construction of heterogeneous elements taken from language, ideology, and culture, which are reorganized to produce new sense. In Liliana Ancalao's Oración para esperar el colectivo, the text combines the structure of a religious prayer with the mundane experience of waiting for a bus. A text is defined by functional relations ordered by a hegemonic constructive principle. A text is considered "eccentric" when the constructive principle reorganizes materials so they no longer coincide with their original functions. Andrés Rivera’s La seño uses historical materials from the Argentine dictatorship, like the Ford Falcon, but organizes them through a literary principle rather than a documentary one. The lexical series in a text links it to social life, as words remit to specific classes, eras, and ideologies.
Reception theory, as discussed by Jauss, emphasizes that literature must be understood through both its production and its reception. The reader participates actively in constructing sense, and the social function of literature appears when it modifies reader perception. Hans Robert Jauss proposes a double system of the horizon of expectations: the first horizon consists of expectations generated by the work's genre and form, while the second consists of the reader's own experiences and historical context. Jan Mukarovsky distinguishes between the work as an artifact (the material object created by the artist) and the aesthetic object (the work as interpreted by the collective consciousness). For example, Cortázar's Casa tomada exists as a physical book (artifact) but becomes an aesthetic object through varying interpretations, such as those relating to the historical context of Peronishm. Felix Vodicka adds that the aesthetic object is realized in the reader's consciousness but is conditioned by community norms. This process involves "concretizations," which can affirm, deny, or innovate community aesthetics.
Fictionality, Focalization, and the Literary Field
Umberto Eco introduces the fictional pact, an agreement where the reader accepts the narrative facts as true within the fictional world. This requires a model reader capable of activating the necessary inferences. In El pelo de la virgen, the reader cooperates by accepting the symbolic value of religious relics. Verisimilitude is defined not by truth but by internal coherence with the rules of the fictional world. In contrast, common sense is a set of socially learned beliefs that present a specific order as natural. Juan José Saer argues that fiction is not the opposite of truth; it is a speculative anthropology that explores complex emotions and contradictions that verifiable discourses cannot. While non-fiction requires proof, fiction establishes its own credibility. Fictionality uses the false to increase its own specific treatment of the world, distinguishing it from movements like Socialist Realism, which Saer critiques for limiting fictional freedom.
Narrative focalization, as analyzed by Gloria Pampillo and Mieke Bal, refers to the perspective from which events are presented. In Casa tomada, the story is limited to one brother's interpretation, creating a boundary of information. Focalization can be internal (within the story) or external (outside the events). Tzvetan Todorov categorizes narrative knowledge into three types: the narrator knowing more than the character (), the narrator knowing as much as the character (), and the narrator knowing less than the character (). Pierre Bourdieu's concept of the literary field defines it as a structured space of positions with invariable laws and internal struggles. Each field is governed by a "habitus," a set of beliefs and techniques necessary to play the game of the field. Authors write with knowledge of the field's traditions and rules, and their work is legitimized by the field's power structures. Finally, Todorov defines the fantastic as a period of hesitation experienced by a person who knows only natural laws when faced with an apparently supernatural event. The fantastic requires that the reader vacillates between natural and supernatural explanations, rejects poetic or allegorical interpretations, and often involves identification with a character who also vacillates.
Questions & Discussion
Question: How does the concept of the "aesthetic object" differ between the artifact and the collective interpretation?
Answer: According to Mukarovsky, the artifact is the physical, material creation of the artist, such as the printed book. The aesthetic object, however, is the work as it is signified and given meaning by the collective consciousness of a society. This means that while the artifact remains static, the aesthetic object can change over time as different generations and social groups apply new interpretations and ideological frameworks to it, such as the political readings applied to Julio Cortázar’s Casa tomada.
Question: What is the specific role of the "Model Reader" in the fictional pact?
Answer: The Model Reader is a construction within the text itself—a set of instructions or a profile of the ideal recipient whom the author envisions. This reader is capable of accepting the fictional pact, which is the agreement to treat the narrated events as true within the world of the fiction. The Model Reader activates the specific knowledge, cultural references, and inferential leaps that the work requires to function as intended.
Question: Why does Shklovski reject the definition of art as "thinking in images"?
Answer: Shklovski argues that images are not unique to art; they are universal, static, and often passed down through history without changing. He believes that defining art through images focuses on what is perceived rather than how it is perceived. Instead, he posits that art is defined by the "procedure"—the specific techniques like estrangement that break down automatic perception and force the viewer or reader to see the object in a new and prolonged way, rather than just recognizing it based on a pre-existing image.