The problems of literary theory in an anniversary collection. ("Soviet literature for fifty years. Collection of articles edited by V. I. Kuleshova")

The theory of literature as the main discipline of literary science has gone too far in its development: it is about to become not only a theory of literature, but also a methodology of literary science. The problems of the methodology of Marxist literary science were left in the background for some time. Raised sometimes by individual authors, they were not always correctly formulated, which is why the results were partial, and the concepts of fiction as art one-sided. This underestimation of the methodology caused a certain stagnation in literary science and allowed the spread of the abstract-class approach, which has not been completely overcome even today. Here we must also look for the arguments of some Western literary scholars who underestimate or deny the importance of Marxist literary science.