How to use literature in political theory: five questions of methodology in ‘politics and literature’

Abstract

Two influential but strangely separate bodies of research have emerged in the field of Politics and Literature. Either political theorists write about literature in a theoretical way by describing how literature enriches our understanding of politics, or they interpret individual works of literature. Comprehensive methodological accounts that aim to connect these two research literatures do not exist. In order to start such a methodological debate, the article will ask what methodology means in Politics and Literature. It will identify five methodological questions, ranging from how to read literary elements of style and how to deal with fictionality to what else to do with literature apart from interpretation. Any set of answers to these questions can be called a methodology in the field, and every methodology must find answers to all five questions.