Critical Constellations

Abstract

This article’s objective is to apply the astronomical metaphor of the constellation to the study of literary critique. Departing from Walter Benjamin’s concepts that have been instrumental to the status of the “constellation” as a concept, and using this metaphor to reflect upon the study of history through Adorno’s revisions that usher the constellation into aesthetic studies, as well as the constellational model of reading proposed by Renée R. Trilling, and historical methods for applying this metaphor to Polish critical studies, this essay attempts to introduce the constellation as a means for grasping literary critique without deferring to totalizing and monolithic classification systems. The article demonstrates that the “critical constellation” allows us to yield a certain autonomy for critical discourses by simultaneously revealing their relativity and their multidimensional entanglements with the conditions of the literary field (including the present moment of the scholar). The article proposes the constellation model for studying literary critique.