The Autonomy of Literature at the Fins De Siecles 1900 and 2000

by Dorleijn, G. J.; Gruttemeier, Ralf; Altes, Liesbeth Korthals

• ISBN13: 9789042920446
• ISBN10: 9042920440
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-25
• Publisher: Peeters Pub & Booksellers

Summary

The autonomy of the arts and literature is a central issue in the current debate on the 'crisis' in contemporary culture. In this debate, the tension between two conceptions of art - conceived as autotelic, or as serving social, ethical, ideological or commercial ends - plays a key role. For literature, two periods are particularly interesting in this respect: the period around 1900, and the turn of the millennium. The former is considered to witness the consecration of the autonomy of the arts with respect to morality or social utility, and of its prestige as 'high art', against the background of compelling countermovements, such as the Arts and crafts movements or socialist art. The second period, on the other hand, has been analysed as displaying, in post-modern Western cultures, an opposite tendency towards deautonomization. 'High' literature and art are deemed to have lost their ideological and moral autonomy, their aesthetic superiority, and their independence with respect to commercial interests. The essays in this volume investigate these often strategic claims and conceptions, taking into account the social, political and institutional contexts in which they are articulated. To analyse the issue of the autonomy of literature offers incisive insights into conflicting standpoints about the function of literature in society, revealing its connection to law, social responsibility, gender, and political, national and religious identities. Combining in an often innovative way institutional, historical and hermeneutical approaches, the collected essays intend to shed new light on the historical and national specifics of the debate about the function of literature.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	p. vii
'The autonomy of literature': to be handled with care. An introduction	p. ix
Contributors	p. xxvii
Institutional autonomy 1840 versus aesthetic autonomy 1900? Moments of tension in Croatian Literature with respect to the idea of 'nation' in the poetic self-positionings of authors	p. 1
Criticism and engagement in the Belle Epoque. The autonomy of literature and the social function of the writer during the Third Republic	p. 29
The importation of the categories of right and left into the French literary field	p. 41
The Autonomous arts as black propaganda. On a secretive chapter in German 'Foreign Cultural Politics' in the Netherlands and other neighbouring countries during the First World War	p. 71
Autonomy and heteronomy in the Dutch literary field around 1900	p. 121
Autonomy and gender ideology. The writers of the 1880s on their female colleague, Helene Swarth	p. 145
The critic as catholic. Autonomy and heteronomy in Flemish criticism between the wars	p. 159
Law and the autonomy of literature	p. 175
Literature vs. the law. Modernity, modernism, postmodernity	p. 193
Rediscovering Aestheticism. Between 'autopoiesis' and 'transgression'	p. 213
Aestheticism at the Fin de Siecle. Postmodern German-language literature	p. 227
The evaluation and positioning of literary work by authors with a Muslim background	p. 241
Aesthetic and social engagement in contemporary French literature. The case of Francois Bon's Daewoo	p. 261
Bibliography	p. 285
Index	p. 307
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