Roman Ingarden The Literary Work Of Art Pdf
Ingarden’s central argument in The Literary Work of Art is that a literary work is not a simple object. It is a purely intentional object—it exists neither fully in the physical world (ink on paper) nor fully in the mental world (a reader’s imagination). Instead, it is a stratified formation held together by four distinct but interdependent layers.
If you are searching for the PDF to quote these layers correctly, here is the definitive breakdown:
Ingarden’s central thesis: a literary work is a multi‑stratum, heteronomous object. It consists of four distinct but interwoven strata (layers):
| Stratum | What it contains | Example |
|---------|----------------|---------|
| 1. Word sounds and phonetic formations | Phonemes, rhythm, tone, melody of language | The alliteration in “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew” |
| 2. Meaning units (sentences and larger units) | Word meanings, sentence meanings, plot‑level sense | “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” – second clause modifies the first |
| 3. Represented objects (states of affairs, characters, events) | The fictional world: people, actions, settings | Hamlet, Elsinore, the ghost |
| 4. Schematized aspects (the perspectival showing of objects) | The way objects are presented from a particular point of view (not fully given) | The castle described only as seen through fog, or heard from inside | roman ingarden the literary work of art pdf
Each stratum has its own aesthetic qualities, but they work together. The first two strata are language‑based; the last two are object‑based. Crucially, no stratum is complete by itself.
This is what most readers call “the story”: characters, events, landscapes, and actions. Ingarden emphasizes that these objects are purely intentional—Hamlet exists, but not as a physical person. He exists as a schematized object, meaning he is given only through certain textual aspects (his black clothes, his soliloquies), leaving many aspects unspecified.
This is Ingarden’s most original contribution. Real objects present themselves through ever-changing aspects (the front of a house vs. the back; the house in sunlight vs. at dusk). A literary work, however, provides only schematized aspects – a fixed, limited set of perspectives. For example, a novel might describe a room only through the eyes of a detective entering it at midnight. Other aspects (the room at noon; from the corner) remain ungiven. Ingarden’s central argument in The Literary Work of
This leads directly to his most famous concept…
This is the layer of words as sense-bearing units. Individual word meanings combine into sentence meanings. However, Ingarden makes a crucial distinction:
Roman Ingarden (1893–1970) was a Polish philosopher, student of Edmund Husserl, and a key figure of the phenomenological movement. His works are still under copyright in many jurisdictions. However, legal access is possible through: This is the layer of words as sense-bearing units
Recommended citation:
Ingarden, Roman. The Literary Work of Art: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Ontology, Logic, and Theory of Literature. Translated by George G. Grabowicz. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
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