Literary history and modernity

Like any science, literary history "is not only a system of concepts (categories, laws). Science is always at the same time a method of knowledge. It is always not only already achieved knowledge, but also knowledge-process, knowledge-aspiration, knowledge arising from practice... 1 As for the subject of literary history, its system, the question is relatively clear - this is (generally speaking) our literary heritage. And insofar as disputes are still being waged here whether a given third-rate writer or a completely insignificant work should be included in it - then in essence these are again disputes about the method, not about the system, since in its conclusions and laws it only consolidates the results of the method. While the system is the conservative, restraining side in the process of knowledge, the method is the revolutionary, creative one. It moves science forward, it opens up new paths for it. That is precisely why now, when our literary studies - as well as all sociological sciences - are faced with new, grandiose tasks in connection with the upbringing of the new man, the man of communism, the question of method becomes so important. In fact, this is a question of the future of literary history, of its transformation into an effective, active social force. Method is an eternal movement - despite its relative definiteness, it is constantly changing and developing in order to meet the new needs, the new tasks that modernity sets before literary history. That is why the question of sociology and dogmatism in literary criticism did not arise by chance. The acute form in which it was posed is a reflection of the sharp need for a radical transformation of our literary science in order to be able to respond to its new tasks.