The Sacred in Contemporary Literary Reflection – Selected Issues

Abstract

The sacred encompasses such diverse categories and values that it is impossible to assign it a single, unified concept – only the name remains common. In anthropological-cultural and phenomenological theories, the sacred takes on multiple forms, making this category more conceptually expansive. The sacred not only permeates the religious sphere but also shapes human experience, giving it a deeper dimension. It can also be understood nominalistically, as a purely linguistic construct. Nevertheless, in its universal denotation, it refers to religious and transcendent meanings that go beyond everyday existence and aspire to higher values.