« Histoire ou littérature » by Roland Barthes « Poétique et histoire » by Gérard Genette : what kind of literary history for literary studies?

Abstract

This article presents the concepts of literary history according to two famous professors in literary studies in France - Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette. The complexity of contents behind the simple names of literary history became the origine of academic quarrel between the Ancient and the Moderns. In reality, this paradox might result from nature and essence of that thing named "literature". As long as the world of literature and literary study could not find the answer unanimously accepted for this question - What is literature? - writers and academics might be locked in the vicious circle of that intellectual quarrel.