Reconsidering Literary Autonomy

From an Individual towards a Relational Paradigm

Bibliographic Data

ID5305656
AuthorsAukje Van Rooden (0000-0001-6482-535X, Yale University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume76
Issue2
Pages167-190
Publication date2015-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/jhi.2015.0010
OpenAlexW2085797433
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited14

The idea of autonomy has been constitutive of the development of modern literature. The central question occupying debates on literature's social role is whether autonomy is inalienable. The debate between "autonomists" and "anti-autonomists" is however based on a distorted historical picture. It will be argued that the notion of "autonomy" emerged within an eighteenth-century "individual" paradigm that has according to the general history of ideas transformed into a "relational" paradigm. In the literary theory this shift has however not been conceptualized. The result is a theoretical impasse after the end of Romanticism in which autonomists and anti-autonomists are opposed

Art · Autonomy · Epistemology · History of literature · Literature · Paradigm shift · Political science · Romanticism · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Theatre and Performance Studies