The Literary Question

This article explores how problematology, a philosophy that begins and ends with the question, can deepen our understanding of the role of questioning in the act of reading. It explores what is distinctive in Michel Meyer’s approach by contrasting it with poststructuralist accounts of literary meaning (Barthes, Derrida) and reception aesthetics (Iser). While Meyer’s work is not unique in drawing attention to the function of reflexivity in literature’s question-posing, problematology’s originality lies in its focus on the broader social role of literature as a discourse among discourses, from everyday conversation to political speeches. The value of problematology can also be found in the attention it pays to context in literary reading, and to ideology’s role in circumscribing the questions and answers posed by and to the literary text. Problematology furnishes a fresh way of thinking about literary history by offering a long-range and integrative view of literature’s development, what this article calls Meyer’s “distant reading.” This perspective is complemented in problematological reading by a careful focus on the role of figurative language in literary interpretation.