Among the arts, literature occupies a unique position in relation to human civilization, as it is inextricably bound to that which, in many respects—including the ontological—defines what it means to be human: that is ethics. The ethical dimension, deeply interwoven with literature’s epistemological and aesthetic functions, was already recognized by the Ancient Greeks, and in contemporary literary studies, the discourse on ethical implications of literature has developed into a distinct and influential field, which saw a significant rise in the latter half of the twentieth century. However, this field remains far from unified, particularly when it comes to the question of how literature operates ethically. This paper focuses on two key theoretical approaches: the Aristotelian tradition, which locates literature’s ethical potential in its capacity to cultivate higher moral awareness and stronger empathy in the reader through fiction and narrative technique—an approach explored here through the works of Zofka Kveder; and the newer, deconstructivist perspective, which understands literature’s ethical function as inherent in its method of interrogating structures of power and destabilizing established authorities that sustain social imbalance—examined in the context of Virginia Woolf’s writing. Through an interpretive analysis of their works, I will demonstrate how so-called women’s writing has meaningfully contributed to both ethical paradigms in literary theory. Furthermore, I consider whether the world might have been a more just place—particularly, though not exclusively, for women (who have been historically marginalized and systematically oppressed within Western culture)—had their voices been heard sooner.
|
