Genuine Hermeneutics in the Canon of Literature

Abstract

Within this article, we discuss the author’s influential relationship with the literary text and the role of literary critic in the tendencies to replace the first. By dealing, first, with the romantic spirit, then with the progressive concept of modernity, and, finally, with the denying concepts of post-modernity, we argue for the idea that the literary discourse includes the author as a normative and intentional principle to preserve the memory and knowledge, which literature offers to us. The tendency of the author’s denial has resulted in a tendency to deny the tradition, literary canon, and has caused the absurdity of an excess in the necessary methodological apparatus, an excess, which has led to the diminishing of the reading of literature, fading of its social status, and harming the utilitarian recognition of authors who form the dignity and identity of Western culture. We attempt to explain that canonical literary texts should be recognized through posterior criticism, their placing in historical time, and their reflections on our own time, in which they obtain new meanings, while preserving the stabilized meanings of iconic authors.

Keywords

• philosophy of literature
• hermeneutics
• tradition
• timeless present
• canon
• utilitarian ethics