The reception of literature: from epic synthesis to world literature

Starting from the critical conception of Călinescu that defines literary history as a synthesis intended to affirm the primacy of the epic system over the individuality of writers, the present work proposes an interrogation of possible contemporary reading grids. Referring to the concept of geohistory proposed by Braudel and interrogating the cultural discourse of geocriticism theorists, the research proposes an approach to the principles that govern critical reading of the literary text today, opening, naturally, towards the concept of World Literature. The purpose of such an approach is to identify some contemporary directions in the reception of the literary text, invoking, in this context, the Moretti`s concept of «distant reading» to justify a necessary (re)establishment of literature in the world, through a quantifying interconnection of hermeneutic concepts to the literary text.