Roman Ingarden’s Contribution to the Reading and Analysis of the Literary Text

Abstract

If someone should ask Roman Ingarden “What is it that I perceive when I perceive a literary work of art?”, he would affirm that what is perceived is a polyphonic harmony, an interpenetration of at least four layers or strata that, taken together, make up the literary work of art.1 Both the question and the answer make the same presupposition: even though I see ink spots on paper, what I perceive is something different. What I perceive is not entirely identical with what I see. And even more, it is understood that I can perceive a literary work of art even though it is, in some sense, different from and other than what I see. To say the same thing in a different way, I perceive the literary work of art in the literary text that is, in a manner of speaking, no more than ink spots on paper. The literary work of art is found in the text, in the inkspots, but it is not identical with them. The text is “where” I perceive the literary work of art.