The Crisis of Literary History and Disciplinary Renovation: The Alternative of Systemic Theories

Abstract

[Abstract] This article reviews the principal debates and challenges to literary history after the critical revision of the discipline in the last third of the twentieth century. More specifically, the article evaluates the possibility of constructing a historiographical model founded on systemic theories, with the capacity to contribute to the renovation of the discipline of literary history. Alternative historiographical methods, based on polysystem theory, theory of literary field, and the theorization of literature as institution, are examined with the intention of showing the advantages that these approaches can bring to the study of literature, but also their failings, and the debates they have provoked that have yet to be resolved. Finally, the article proposes possible applications of these alternative approaches to literary history to the lusophone literary systems.