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    STUDIA PHILOLOGIA - Issue no. 3 / 2022  
         
  Article:   INTERVIEW: MOHAMMED SENOUSSI.

Authors:  MOHAMMED SENOUSSI.
 
       
         
  Abstract:  DOI: 10.24193/subbphilo.2022.3.10

Available online: 20 September 2022; Available print: 30 September 2022
pp. 57-60

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Q: Literary history, be it national, local, or regional, is perhaps the most conservative form of literary study, with many claiming that the method is outmoded. What can literary histories do to overcome both the risk of obsolescence and their inherent conservatism?

A: Indeed, there is no consensus among scholars on the necessity of literary histories. The way we appreciate and perceive literature changes over time; that is why there is no agreement about the rules of literary historiography. Perception, interpretation and reception of literature changes from one culture to another and one generation to another; therefore, we can write different histories about the same work. Borrowing Sartre’s famous quote “existence precedes essence,” literature and literary history are always in the process of becoming. Literature is not something that exists but something that becomes.Furthermore, literary history writers must refashion the way they write because modern literature is heavily loaded with ideologies. In other words, literary historiography must shift its focus of the ‘literariness’ of the text to the politics of the text. For instance, shall we simply define Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as the first modernist work, i.e., defining the novella and explaining its form and techniques? Or shall we discuss its functionalities? Conrad for some literary historians is a giant of English literature, but for other critics is a bloody racist. So, what history shall we write?
 
         
     
         
         
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