Abstract

This study is a comparative analysis of the notion of literary representation from three different perspectives of the so-called “sacred monsters” of literary theory – W. Iser, A. Compagnon and P. Ricoeur. The focus of these pages is not a descriptive vision of the historical evolution of the term “representation”, but a comparative exercise of receptive synthesis. One of the defining traits of the study is pointing out the origins of term usage, fact that is considered useful in discovering the way the modern paradigm maintains the antic “model”. It is obvious that in time the notion became popular in the literary theory field and it developed a real polemic, which is why the historical perspective is proper while highlighting the development of such a notion of literary theory.