Constructing boundaries as a way of existence and cognition of modern literary criticism

Abstract

   Modern literary criticism exists in a changing field of literature, whose boundaries are fuzzy and fluid. Critics gather up their object of knowledge, limit literary facts, set limits, conceptually formulate the boundaries of phenomena. The boundary is an important concept that allows comprehending, epistemologically and ontologically, the phenomenon of literary criticism, which is dramatically experiencing its loss of the former high authoritative status in the literary field and the impossibility of applying the old tools of interpretation and evaluation to the latest literature.

   The purpose of this article is to reveal the forms of constructing boundaries as ways of being and cognition in criticism and metacriticism. Our work is based on literary-critical articles, published in “thick” journals from 2000 to 2022.

   The study has led to the conclusion that the designation of the boundaries of “one’s own” field in criticism performs, firstly, an identifying role, defining a group community; secondly, it has an ontological meaning as a definition of the framework of existence. Gnoseologically demanding mental procedures are: conceptualizing, defining the phenomenon boundaries, going beyond the boundaries of the past-present, present-future and the evaluative (ethical) approach to the text (author) through oppositions. The article reveals the difference between the epistemological approaches of patriotic critics and liberals who carry out the designation procedure.