The founding fathers of Stylistics, a double portrait: Leo Spitzer and Dumitru Caracostea
The founding fathers of Stylistics, a double portrait: Leo Spitzer and Dumitru Caracostea

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims at throwing some light on the way in which stylistics as a new literary science emerged, in the studies of two significant literary theorists of the 20th century. Both their theorizing positions are derived from the experience of World War I. D. Caracostea and Leo Spitzer were doctoral colleagues, in Vienna, in the department headed by the great linguist W. Meyer-Lubke, prior to WW I. War was to separate them forever. Nevertheless, it was also the war that caused them to reflect along similar lines on the necessity of devising a new scientific basis for literary studies. His experience as a military censor in prisoner camps provided Leo Spitzer with the most “concrete” materials for defining expressive stylistics, a new discipline in literary research. Likewise, D. Caracostea’s interest in folklore prompted the young Military Academy professor in the 1920’s to search the recent memories of peasant soldiers for the stuff that could help reestablish a collective psychology, actually foreshadowing modern anthropology.

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