Identifying social phenomena with natural phenomena, however (that is, their comparison on the basis of closeness), carries the danger of being too arbitrary and naïve since it is often proven wrong. In this case, if literary history follows a certain regular development, then how can we explain the fact that Charles Dickens’s realistic novels appeared after the publication of the experimental Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern, or that there are realistic novels written and published in Macedonia after the appearance of some postmodernist literary works? The logic of the familiar, the life cycle (from birth to death), the chronological development of scientific discoveries (for example, steam engine was discovered first, then the internal combustion engine, then supersonic aircraft) is so powerful that it is automatically transferred to areas where such cause-and-consequence relationship does not necessarily exist.
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Just a few brief examples were taken here from works by Baudrillard, Barthes and few Macedonian literary thinkers in order to illustrate the need for questioning the “will to truth”. While these authors have a great significance for advancing the understanding of literature, it is also important not to stop at their positions and take them as unalterable truths, but to continue on the basis of their theories, which themselves provoke further analyses. Since the objective was to show that the will to truth is present in various cultures and among authors with different literary approaches, there was no in-depth analysis of one theoretical or critical work; rather, several views by various authors were briefly discussed, in the hope that this will be a small contribution to cherishing the will to questioning which could oppose the will to truth.
Bibliography:
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Literature in the Modern World. Ed. Dennis Walder. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990. 228-232.
Baudrillard, Jean. The Ecstasy of Communication. Trans. Bernard and Caroline Schute. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. New York: Autonomendia, 1988.
Друговац, Миодраг. Повоени македонски писатели I. Скопје: Наша книга, 1986.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
Foucault, Michel. “The Order of Discourse.” Trans. Ian McLeod. Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. Eds. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. 2nd ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1992. 221-233.
Саид, Едвард В. Ориентализам. Прев. Зоран Анчевски. Скопје: Магор, 2003.
Старделов, Георги, прир. Повоени македонски прозаисти. Скопје: Кочо Рацин, 1960.