Introduction to Literary Theory

The course encompasses the following topics: the concept, range and development of literary theory from historical perspectives, traditional and contemporary fields of literary theory in regard to its different disciplines, relationship between (the so called) trivial and artistic literature, basic terms and questions on poetics, style or literary stylistics, theory of verse, i.e. versification, ontology, phenomenology and morphology of a literary text, theories of the most basic modes of literary art (lyric, epic, drama) and genres, and theories of literary evaluation, i.e. literary axiology. The course also addresses the difference between the contemporary and the traditional, i.e., »substantialist« literary theory.