How Literature Enters Life: An Introduction

Abstract

In 1994, a collection of articles was published under the title Critical Reconstructions: The Relationship of Fiction and Life (edited by Robert M. Polhemus and Roger B. Henkle) dealing with the relationship between works of fiction and historical ‘‘reality,’’ general ‘‘truth,’’ or an author’s personal life. In many of the chapters, questions of representation and interpretation of the (historical) world constitute the point of departure: how, for example, the composition of a work may reflect social reality or the author’s struggle for life. ‘‘Life’’ in this book is the historical or personal world fromwhich a work derives or to which it refers. If we assume that there exist manifold relationships between ‘‘literature’’ and ‘‘life,’’ ranging from cases of ‘‘life’’ entering ‘‘literature’’ at the one end to cases of ‘‘literature’’ entering ‘‘life’’ at the other, then the subtitle of that bookmight have been ‘‘HowLifeEnters Literature.’’ The ‘‘relationship of fiction and life’’ is approached there from a sociohistorical or biographical perspective, and reception data are mentioned only