Maurice Natanson (1924–1996)

Abstract

Natanson devoted most of his aesthetic writings to linking phenomenology with literature. He distinguishes the philosophy of literature from philosophy in literature. The former explores literature’s categories in relationship to the being of the artwork, and addresses such issues as the ontological status of a literary microcosm, the truth of art works; and the strata of meaning and their interaction—as did roman ingarden in the formal aesthetics of The Literary Work of Art (1973). Philosophy in literature, by contrast, makes explicit the philosophical achievement of an already realized literary work. Self-admittedly inclined to this task, Natanson the existentialist turned to literary experience to reconstruct it, not thereby diluting “real” philosophy, but extending it (Natanson 1962: 87, 98–99, 123; 1996: 8–9).