Exploring the theory of Poetics and Literature and Bulgaria-French Philosopher and Literary Critic Todrov
- Knowledge of language is crucial to poetics. However, the relation is not just between poetics and linguistics but between literature and language
Souad Khalil | Libya
Poetics, a term rooted in ancient philosophy yet still relevant today, traces its origin to Aristotle. Though the concept has evolved, it fundamentally revolves around the general idea of literary discourse — where words gain their value and meaning. Human beings express their humanity through various discourses, revealing reality anew in a quest for truth. The challenge remains to discover the essence of humanity itself, this small world we create but whose hidden foundation we often fail to understand.
In this paper, we embark on exploring symbols, signs, and the semiotics of meaning within literature and poetry, guided by linguistics, formalism, and structuralism, as discussed by those who have deeply studied these fields.
Who highlights the approach of Western intellectuals towards discourse—a perspective often overlooked. As we uncover aspects of these concerns, the traditional discourse’s utility diminishes, yet it remains essential to highlight key points, especially focusing on poetics as seen through Tzvetan Todorov’s lens.
Main text:
Literary texts were once considered alien to the social and human sciences, representing a strange world apart from other domains. Despite its ancient origins—from the Epic of Gilgamesh and earlier—literature’s essence remained elusive. Among those interested in its nature was Jean-Paul Sartre, who in 1949 published What Is Literature?, discussing the relationship between the text and its intended audience.
Maurice Blanchot contributed significantly with his works The Space of Literature (1955) and The Book to Come (1959), seeking to grasp the elusive space where literature roots itself. His inquiry was a search for the metaphysical choice that drives the writer to the first line of the text.
It was not until the 1960s that literary theory underwent profound transformation, largely due to the structuralist methodology influencing the entire humanities field. Under the influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss, structuralism took new directions, developing in linguistics before extending to ethnology and anthropology, gaining a prestigious status.
However, structuralism in literary theory favors theory over interpretation. Todorov, a key figure in poetics and literary theory, observed that literary studies in his generation moved towards integrating literary discourse into a general theory of discourse. This reflected the view that literary specificity is not linguistic or universal by nature but rooted in historical and cultural contexts.
Literal or physiological interpretation also formed a significant trend in literary studies, dating back to Spinoza and Origen. This literal interpretation has two branches: linguistic and historical. A discourse’s meaning arises only within a specific context, making thorough knowledge of this context vital for understanding.
Every act of reading imposes an interpretative perspective on the text—shaped by the reader’s culture and era. Understanding, therefore, is a dialogue between two discourses. Complete identification with the other’s discourse is impossible and, if achieved, useless. Ethnology as a science shows that being different from the one you seek to understand is beneficial. Interpretation—both as translation and understanding—is essential for the survival of the old text and the discourse itself. Interpretation is neither right nor wrong but can be rich or poor, fertile or barren.
The scientific study of literary theory became the domain of contemporary structuralists and linguists, reducing the literary text to a vehicle of their theories. This formalization created a break between the history of literary theory and the theory of literature itself.
Aristotle’s Poetics was the first complete book dedicated to literary theory, though it primarily dealt with mimesis (imitation) through speech, focusing especially on epic and drama, considering both sequence and segmental levels.
According to Todorov, literature in the 20th century remained part of a broader range of theoretical discourses, many not strictly literary. Among these was rhetoric, which in some way incorporated literary aspects.
Reflection on literary genres has a long history, almost as old as literary theory itself. Aristotle’s Poetics described the qualities of epic and tragedy, inspiring various subsequent works. The Renaissance marked a flourishing of studies on the rules of tragedy, comedy, epic, and narrative genres, intertwined with dominant ideological frameworks.
The idea of the unity of arts gradually took hold, leading to theories attempting to frame the most revered artistic practices—poetry and painting. This theory evolved in the 18th century into a specialized branch of aesthetics, advanced by thinkers like Kant and Schiller.
The concept of literature gained autonomy during the German Romantic period, with significant developments in Russia during the early 20th century through formalism. The center of gravity later shifted to Germany between the wars. Literary theory then divided into several trends, some linked to stylistics, others to morphological approaches.
In England and America, this movement became known as New Criticism, grounded in Romantic aesthetics, affirming literature’s and literary theory’s independence. Poetics emerged as a distinct approach to literary texts.
Tzvetan Todorov and Poetics:
Todorov’s approach is historical poetics, where the historical subject transcends specific literary works, involving established literary discourse and its stable compositions—often called literary histories. It occupies a middle ground between the universality of discourse theory and the specificity of interpretation.
Formalist and ideological analyses both play roles because literary genres are linked to linguistic forms and the history of ideas. Literary studies focus on the text (the ‘body’ of work) rather than rhetorical skill, considering literature’s historical context—for example, examining the novel’s form during the rise of capitalism or exploring conceptions of time and space in prose from antiquity to the Renaissance.
Understanding poetics requires distinguishing two complementary perspectives: first, treating the literary text as a self-sufficient object of knowledge, and second, considering each text as an expression of an abstract structure.
Interpreting a work as an autonomous whole without abandoning its identity or detaching it from itself is nearly impossible. Such an interpretation would amount to a literal restatement of the work. Reading is a journey within the text’s space, not just connecting letters from right to left or top to bottom. It separates connected elements and unites distant ones, shaping the text in its spatiality rather than its linearity.
The well-known interpretative circle demands the presence of whole and parts, rejecting an absolute beginning and necessitating multiple interpretations. However, these interpretative circles vary in scope, allowing some elements to be emphasized or omitted.
Poetics sets limits to the parallel between interpretation and science in literary studies. Unlike interpretative analysis of specific works, poetics aims to discover general laws governing the birth of every literary work. Unlike psychology or sociology, it seeks these laws within literature itself.
Thus, poetics is both an abstract and intrinsic approach to literature.
Valéry noted that poetics applies broadly as a name for anything related to literary creation—where language is both essence and means—not limited to strict rules or aesthetic principles of poetry. Poetics is a general theoretical approach to the text to interpret and clarify its foundations and principles.
The relationship between poetics and interpretation is complementary. Theoretical reflection on poetics without reference to actual works is sterile. Interpretation precedes and follows poetics, with poetics’ concepts shaped by concrete analysis. Analysis cannot advance without tools developed by theory.
According to Todorov, all poetics is structural poetics, since the subject of poetics is not the sum of empirical facts (literary works) but an abstract structure—the literature itself, a linguistic product. Mallarmé said, “The book is an extension of the letter.”
Therefore, knowledge of language is crucial to poetics. However, the relation is not just between poetics and linguistics but between literature and language, and thus between poetics and all language sciences.
Poetics is not the only field studying literature, and linguistics is not the sole language science. Linguistics focuses on specific linguistic structures (phonetics, semantics, grammar), while other forms of discourse analysis exist in anthropology, psychoanalysis, or philosophy of language.
Poetics can benefit from these sciences as long as language remains their subject. Other sciences dealing with discourse are closer allies, especially rhetoric in its broad sense as the science of discourse.
Literary theory, linguistics, semiotics, poetics, structuralism, and new criticism constitute the forefront of Western studies in this field—a domain from which Arabic studies can greatly benefit.
Read: Creative Relationship of Literature and Art
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Souad Khalil, hailing from Libya, is a writer, poet, and translator. She has been writing on culture, literature and other general topics.
All images provided by the author
