Jan Mukařovský

"Aesthetic function, norm, and value as social facts"

K. M. Newton

pp. 15-18

in: K. M. Newton (ed), Twentieth-century literary theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997

Abstract

"Fictionality" in literature is … something totally different from communicative fiction. All modifications of the material ties of linguistic phenomena which appear in communicative speech can also play a role in literature, and falsehood is one example. But here it acts as an element of structure and not of real-life values having practical importance. Baron Munchausen, if he had really lived, would be a swindler, and his speech would be nothing but lies. But the writer who invented Munchausen and his lies is not a liar but simply a writer, and the statements by Munchausen are, in his presentation, poetic acts.

Cited authors

Mukařovský Jan