Literatuurteorie, literatuurwetenskaplike metode en Christelike wetenskapsbeoefening*

Abstract

In this article the author attempts to highlight the conditions which have to be com plied with if literary critics working from different theoretical paradigms wish to communicate meaningfully. He indicates that the field of investigation of literary criticism can be delimited differently in terms of different literary theories, and he categorizes the various theories on the basis of this view into four main groups. He attempts to indicate that the theoretical assumptions held by a scientist have important implications for the methods which he uses in his scientific investigation, and therefore also for the results obtained by moans of those methods. He illustrates this hypothesis by way of a discussion of divergent approaches, viz. a purely text-directed approach and an ideological approach.