Book Review: Theory of Literature in the Context of Cultural History: Zenkin S.N. Theory of Literature. Problems and Results. Moscow, 2018
In Sergey Zenkin’s conception, theory of literature is a “unique historical movement” located chronologically between the Russian formalism of the 1920s and the international poststructuralism of the 1970s. Relying upon transdisciplinary methodological traﬃc (importations from linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and other human sciences) it was meant, paradoxically, to focus on the “essence” of the literary text. The literary theory that came to the fore in recent decades makes for a diﬀerent type of theoretic activity, focusing rather on the subject and context, “using not so much literary and aesthetic as social parameters to structure its object”. An attempt is being made to problematize the relationship of these two potentialities in the literary scholarship of today.