Abstract

Epistemological problems abound in the customary discussion of aestheticians: the status of critical interpretation, the relation of thesis to text, and the status of fictional statements. However, philosophical solutions to such issues often sacrifice respect for the text's organic nature to desires for logical rigor. Less obvious than the difficulties literature presents to epistemology is its potential for elucidation. Because of fiction's distinctive nature, the classic epistemological problems of the external world and other minds need not exist. Thus, epistemological theory and literary text can provide symmetric sources of illumination for each other. The literary work can be a dynamic model of an epistemological position, and the text will manifest patterns and relations dictated by its inherent theory of knowledge. ;Chosen as examples of the interworkings of epistemology and literature are two contemporaneous texts of the early nineteenth century: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Heinrich von Kleist's "Die Marquise von O...." These works respectively represent epistemological optimism at its apex and epistemological pessimism at its nadir. ;Nevertheless, both works are more epistemologically complex than they at first appear. Pride and Prejudice, traditionally regarded as Platonic, is more profoundly and pervasively structuralist in nature. The critical problems of the narrative, namely the truncated and unsatisfactory nature of the final portion, are a result of Austen's effort to wed two incompatible epistemological positions. "Die Marquise von O..." is an exploration of Kantian philosophy as interpreted and understood by Kleist. Kleist demonstrates the incommensurability of human conceptual schemata and ultimate knowledge. His work is not only an exhibition of such problems but a demonstration of them as well. The critical puzzles of the work are exemplifications of his epistemological viewpoint. At the work's heart are irresolvable pardoxes because Kleist withholds knowledge from his reader as knowledge is withheld from humanity. ;The epistemological investigation of these texts yields new insight into the works and provides evidence of the promise of the method