MY A ONI, NAŠE A JEJICH V MYŠLENÍ O LITERATUŘE
US AND THEM. OUR AND THEIR WAY OF UNDERSTANDING LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: The essay inquires into the issue of subjectivity in our attitudes towards literature and in literary criticism. Iit starts from the premise that every utterance on literature is intended not only to report on the subject concerned but also to legitimize the speaker as an individual entitled to make professional comments on literature. Iin fact, the scholar's discourse includes not only the subject of his or her inquiry but also a certain community which he or she wishes to join, particularly in order to win its recognition. Thus, the scholar has to accept the supraindividual rules of the discourse in question, and employ adequate communication strategies within. Aas a result, he or she is inevitably bound to accept certain relations of value and specify his or her position along the value axis marked by "Uus and Them", or "Ours and Theirs" respectively. The fundament of the essay results from an analysis of this inevitable process in particular disciplines, i. e. literary history, theory and criticism, paying attention both to the  correspondences, and the differences between them. Or, more precisely, it inquires into the intersections of a variety of criteria, above all the national and professional ones in order to find out what influence these aspects exercise both on literature as a scholarly issue, and on the internal subject of the utterance on literature as well.

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