Transcending the boundaries of literature, the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stanislaw Lem contribute to a dialogue between literary, philosophical, and scientific cultures. A critical approach to these writers that ignores the epistemic dimension in their works opens itself to the charge of misunderstanding their artistic goals and aspirations. In my dissertation I thus define, justify, and conduct an interdisciplinary study of Poe and Lem's works. / My project is underwritten by the epistemological assumption that literary works, and notably works of fiction, can make a contribution to knowledge that can be assessed in terms of interdisciplinary criteria. In the first chapter, where I discuss literature and knowledge within the interdisciplinary context, I examine various epistemological arguments in light of my central assertion. Next I examine the concepts involved in the discussion of literary works. Following the pragmatic re-orientation in literary and philosophical aesthetics, many fundamental concepts we take for granted--artworks, fictions, and texts among them--require exact re-examination and definition. Consequently, in Chapters Two and Three I review and refine the recent theories concerning the nature of works of art, the specificity of literary fictions, and the problem of literary interpretations. / My subsequent discussion of Poe and Lem is built on the theoretical base of (literary) epistemology and analytical aesthetics. I study Poe and Lem's literary fictions and theoretical essays, and the contributions they make to various fields of inquiry. In the process I critique, and sometimes refine, the explicit and implicit hypotheses articulated in their works. Specifically In Chapters Four and Five I discuss strategic and game theoretic models in the interpretation of fiction, including the concepts of communication and rationality. In Chapter Six, completing the epistemological circle inaugurated in Chapter One, I discuss the epistemological and cosmological theories proposed in Poe's "Eureka".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.40004 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Swirski, Peter |
| Contributors | Livingston, Paisley (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001484915, proquestno: NN12493, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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