La ambigua presencia de la historia: los inicios de la teoría literaria moderna y el problema del cambio histórico de la literatura

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of historical change with respect to literary theory, with particular emphasis on the Russian Formalists. The concept of the «historical series», which has had so many repercussions for later literary theory, raises questions about certain presuppositions that are central to literary study. Modern literary theory, which defines its object of study as an autonomous system, treats the historicity of a text obliquely—an approach that makes it possible to separate, as irreducible, the two forms of analysis. Nonetheless, despite all efforts to arrive at an ontological definition of literature, literary theory must confront the problem of historical change, including those variables that are considered extra-literary, as this is fundamental to literary analysis in all of its many diverse forms.