Poetics as Interpretative Instructions. Perspectives of Applying the Terminology of the Modern Literary Studies in the Historical-Literary Studies

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to discuss the methodological legitimacy of applying the terminology used by the modern poetry studies as a tool assisting in interpretation of the contemporary literary works. The rejection of extreme pragmatism allows the author to conclude that the accurate interpretation of the literary work – understood as a certain being which is independent of its intentional perspectives – requires a reconstruction of certain literary and rhetorical conventions. In the modern age, the majority of these conventions have been codified in treatises on rhetoric and poetics. In the literary studies of the former ages one needs to take into consideration the state of knowledge of poetry in those times, as this would minimise the interpretative distortions, the most obvious examples of which are extreme and contradictory opinions on the literature of the Saxon times.