Theory of Lyricism

Jonathan Culler (b. 1944) is one of the most important literary theorists and his Short Introduction to Literary Theory (Czech: 2002, 2015) has enjoyed enduring popularity in the USA and in this country. Lyric theory aims to approach the field of lyric poetry flexibly and non-dogmatically, yet with an awareness of the rich internal connections of the tradition of poetic writing, listening and reading, which prove themselves in the author's and reader's experience and thus establish the unity of the genre. In contrast to the hermeneutic question of the meaning of a poetic text, Culler emphasizes what the poem linguistically aspires to and what it achieves by its utterance: The focus is thus on, for example, address, praise and hana or rhythm and ritual. Culler makes use of the theoretical impulses found, for example, in the work of G. W. F. Hegel, T. W. Adorno or the phenomenologically oriented K. Hamburger, but at the same time she always bases her discussion on concrete examples and makes sure that the book can also serve as a teaching introduction.