Literature has long been understood through its relationship to reality. From the ancient theory of mimesis to modern debates concerning ideology, social structure, and artistic production, one of the most persistent questions in literary theory has been deceptively simple: What does literature have to do with reality? Yet this question has never had a single answer.
For Plato, literary representation raised epistemological and ethical problems. Poetry appeared to imitate a world already removed from genuine reality, making literature potentially a copy of a copy. At the same time, Plato recognized the powerful influence of literature upon human character and social values. Aristotle offered a different account. Rather than viewing poetry merely as an imitation of particular appearances, he understood literature as capable of representing what is possible according to probability and necessity. Literature could therefore disclose universal dimensions of human action.
This book does not suggest that one theory simply replaces another. Rather, Plato’s epistemological concerns, Aristotle’s conception of universality, Renaissance idealization, Realist observation, Russian social criticism, Marxist materialism, Plekhanov’s sociology of art, Socialist Realism, Lukács’s theory of totality, and Althusser’s concept of literary production each illuminate different dimensions of the continuing relationship between literature and reality.
