Emil Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics

Authors

Edward K. Berggren, DePaul University, Chicago

Keywords

theories of poetics, genre criticism

Abstract

Originally published in · 1946, Staiger's Basic Concepts of Poetics is ostensibly an alternative introduction to traditional theories of poetics and genre criticism. However, the work actually proposes an entire reconceptualization of these theories, linking them to a more "fundamental" philosophical and anthropological project which, Staiger tells us, might more appropriately read as a work of philosophical anthropology attempting to answer the question, "What is man?" Its answer comes by way of an investigation of the existential world of poetics, because he sees poetics as one of our primary openings onto Being as well as an expression of humankind's most basic essence. which "is formed, [and] arises in what he thinks of himself, in the unfolding of his self-consciousness."

Recommended Citation

Berggren, Edward K. (1992) "Emil Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 28: No. 2, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol28/iss2/6