The Beginnings of Literary Criticism and the Enlightenment in Bohemia
The Beginnings of Literary Criticism and the Enlightenment in Bohemia

Summary/Abstract: Whether emerging literary criticism and its role for the public in the 18th century was highlighted or contested, few of its contemporary commentators cast doubt on its influence on culture and society. It helped readers to choose from among the increasingly large annual book production and above all, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, it undermined the “ancien régime” concept of literature based on older ecclesiastical or estates-based authorities. The new kind of literary criticism, however, presented literature as the object of ongoing open discussion, following the interests of the bourgeoisie and establishing the argumentative strength of the public. Whereas during the initial stages of this process, general scholarly criticism assumed a privileged status, the gradual functional differentiation of society, i.e. detachment of literature in its narrower sense as fiction, and discussion of societal questions within this social system appear of key importance to its further development. The literary system, as opposed to otherwise specialized social systems, came to be an object of intensive society-wide debate, which had a significant effect upon the formation of modern European nations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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