Between Romanticism and Theory

The Future of Literary Studies

Abstract

The future of literary studies seems to oscillate between an intensified commitment to theory (whether cultural, critical or literary) and the theory’s total rejection in favour of a renewed attention to the literary works themselves. The analysis of those two possible developments shows that their outcome may be almost the same: both the intensified engagement with theory and the Romantic reaction against it may lead to the increased appeal to the individual (and to the sphere of the private) as the major standard of judgement. One development testifying to this turn is the renewed attention in the Humanities to the domain of emotions and affects.