A Literatura no contexto do Terceiro Milénio ocidental – Dodó ou Fénix?

Abstract

This communication proposes to reflect about the place and the social role of western literary culture in the Third Millennium – will we continue to talk about “Literature”, as in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Both History of Literature and History of Reading in the West show that the literary object is as enduring as plastic and adaptable to new aesthetic and cultural realities. Thus, shouldn’t we, before decreeing Literature’s extinction, try to understand some of the paths to where will lead it the new disorder of reading, the anarchy of creative production, the disrespect for traditional western canon and the invention of new canons? In this sense, would it still be possible that (and how?) new literary cultures come to preserve traditional aspects and be capable of incorporating new performances to them, as result of creative invention in permanent transformation and of new technological reality, and thus continuing its development in accordance with the new times? Keywords: Western Literary Culture, XXI Century, Dodo, Phoenix