JOÃO CÂNDIDO CARTOCCI MAIA

We intend to study the critical method of Leo Spitzer (1887-1960). More specifically, referring to his sources and describing his positions in intellectual disputes, we seek to observe the dilemmas that modern literary criticism has gone through. In other words, we plan to specify the method of the critic who bypassed certain dilemmas that concerned the literary theory of the 20th century when dealing with the work of art. Leo Spitzer avoided, for example, granting the privilege of analysis only to the creative genesis of the text (be it of a psychological or historical nature) or to the study of its formal structure, embracing, in a complex way which is still to be specified, both aspects.