Abstract
The study of literature has several dimensions each of which, it seems, was once in vogue and consequently elevated above the others to the point of their exclusion or neglect. The biography of the writer, the text taken in its immanence (intrinsic criticism), text plus author as a mere function of the socioeconomic dynamics of a given time, and finally (most recently), the role of the reader as reconstituting mind (Rezeptionsästhetikas practiced in Germany)—all these approaches to literature have had a time when they almost eclipsed any other method of literary analysis. Yet, applied in a less absolutistic fashion, i. e., as limited but equally valid elucidations of a literary text, they can all serve what we still consider to be the central purpose of literary studies: understanding a literary work.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Cf. Christoph Eykman, Phänomenologie der Interpretation (Bern: Francke, 1977).
W. K. Wimsatt, The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1954), pp. 3–18.
Ibid., pp. 3f.
Cf. Fritz Kaufmann, ‘Das Bildwerk als ästhetisches Phänomen,’ in Das Reich des Schönen: Bausteine zu einer Philosophie der Kunst (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960), pp. 20f. Kaufmann defines the nature of art as Wesensschau. We claim that this definition is also applicable to literature.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie,vol. 1, Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie,ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950), p. 142.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie,vol. 3, Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften,ed. M. Biemel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1952), pp. 85f.
Husserl, Ideen, I, p. 143.
Edmund Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925,ed. Walter Biemel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962), p. 92.
Cf. A.-T. Tymieniecka, ‘Eidos, Idea, and Participation: The Phenomenological Approach,’ Kant-Studien, 52 (1960–1961), 59–87.
Husserl, Ideen, I, p. 31.
Cf. Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen: Eine Einleitung in die Phänomenologie,ed. Stephan Strasser (The Hague: Nijhoff: 1963), pp. 82, 84.
Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (1918–1926),ed. Margot Fleischer (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1966), p. 103.
Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen,vol. 2, Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis: I. Teil (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), p. 53.
Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen,p. 105.
Roman Ingarden, Das literarische Kunstwerk (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1965), p. 112.
Fritz Kaufmann, pp. 52f.
Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen,p. 105.
L. S. Vygotsky, Thought and Language,ed. and trans. Eugenia Haufmann and Gertrude Vakar (Cambridge.: M. I. T. Press, 1975), pp. 148–50.
Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen: Mohr, 1965), pp. 279, 289, and passim.
Sophocles, Antigone,in Greek Drama,ed. Moses Hadas (New York: Bantam, 1968), p. 110.
See note 15, above.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan the Wise,trans. Walter Frank and Charles Ade (Woodbury, N. Y.: Barron’s Educational Series, 1972), p. 90.
Cf. Christoph Eykman, ‘Erfunden oder vorgefunden? Zur Integration des Ausserfik-tionalen in die epische Fiktion,’ to appear in Neophilologus,Spring 1978.
For the term “seme” cf. Algirdas Julien Greimas, Sémantique Structurale: Recherche de Méthode.(Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1966). In recent linguistic research (especially in the new field of text semantics), methods are being developed which bear a certain resemblance to phenomenology, for example, the differentiation between deep structure and “surface text” (a “deep,” i. e., unexpressed, meaning-structure can “generate” various “surface texts”). Cf. Teun A. van Dijk, Beiträge zur generativen Poetik,Grundfragen der Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 6 (Munich: Bayrischer Schulbuchverlag, 1972).
Note that several categories of the scheme are, of course, applicable to one textual meaning at the same time.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1982 D. Reidel Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eykman, C. (1982). Eidetic Conception and the Analysis of Meaning in Literature. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Philosophical Reflection of Man in Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 12. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7720-4_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7720-4_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-7722-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-7720-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive