The New Criticism and Ingarden’s Phenomenological Theory of Literature

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The New Criticism has been the dominant trend in twentieth-century Anglo-American literary theory and practical criticism. On the Continent, Roman Ingarden’s phenomenological theory of literature has had its most remarkable achievement in phenomenological aesthetics. Rene Wellek first introduced Ingarden’s theory of literature to the English-speaking world in the forties.1 After that, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka made her own contribution to make Ingarden’s aesthetic theory known in the United States.2 In 1973, Ingarden’s two main works on literary theory appeared in English as The Literary Work of Art and The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. Since then Ingarden’s theory of literature has attracted more and more attention among Anglo-American readers.