A teoria da literatura e as desumanidades

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing the internal development of Literary Theory as a discipline and its connection with the anti-human perspective of Modern Arts, concept once proposed by the Spanish philosopher Ortega Y Gasset. Such an anti-human perspective can be traced back in the German philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially among authors such as Nietzsche and Heidegger, as well as in its development towards a postmodern French philosophy, as practiced by Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The article brings together a variety of philosophers, sociologists and literary critics who appraise the anti-human trend, notably Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, Roger Scruton, Eric Voegelin, Daniel Bell, José Guilherme Merquior, Raymond Tallis and Tzvetan Todorov, among others, in order to discuss the role of Literary Theory as part of Humanities, now understood as Inhumanities.