Towards a Theoretical and Methodological Background of the Theory of Fictional Worlds
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
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| Description | Lubomír Doležel (1922–2017) is known as an expert in the history of poetics and also as a co-founder and main contributor to the theory of the fictional world. Doležel’s scholarly work is extensive and many-sided. Yet the dialogue in which he engages with various theories and concepts from the fields of linguistics, literary studies, philosophy, logic, and semiotics on the pages of his studies is even more extensive and many-sided. This is, of course, also reflected in his theory and methodology. Doležel distinguishes several modes of poetics that differ in their terminological and methodological equipment. Structural poetics is one of these modes; Doležel sees the Prague School semiotic poetics as being in its prime. Considering that a research tradition is a collection of a series of general assumptions, theories, and methods, it is quite appropriate to ask the question: which are the assumptions that Lubomír Doležel builds his narrative semantics of fictional worlds upon? What is the indisputable foundation of his theoretical thinking? These kinds of questions are essential. In my paper, I explain the main methodological preconditions and strategies used by Doležel in his literary theoretical studies. |