Rene Wellek

Czech-American literary theorist and critic (Vienna, August 22, 1903 – Hamden, USA, November 10, 1995). Studied in Prague and the USA (Princeton, Harvard). He was a member of the Prague Linguistic Circle (→ Prague School). From 1935 he was a lecturer of Czech language and literature in London, and from 1939 he permanently resided in the USA, where he gained a worldwide reputation as a theorist and professor of Slavic studies and comparative studies (University of Iowa, Yale). He became famous with the book Theory of Literature (1949, in collaboration with Austin Warren), in which, on the roots of Russian formalism and Prague structuralism, he replaced the biographicalism and analytical ideas of American academic literary criticism with an insight into the structure of literary art and its aesthetic effect. . He initiated the fundamental project A History of Modern Criticism 1750–1950 (A History of Modern Criticism 1750–1950, I–VIII, 1955–92), which he considered his most important work. Aware of the crisis in the history of literature in the 20th century, he sought to redefine the fundamental developmental categories of the history of literature and art. Other significant works: The Rise of English Literary History (1941), Essays on Czech Literature (1963), The Literary Theory and Aesthetics of the Prague School (1969) ), The Attack on Literature and Other Essays (The Attack on Literature and Other Essays, 1982).