The reality of fiction in a literary world: on an excerpt from Stanisław Lem’s Solaris
- DOI
- 10.5922/2225-5346-2020-1-6
- Pages
- 101-107
Abstract
Using an excerpt from Stanisław Lem’s Solaris, this article explores the idea that, in a literary text, a fictional world and the world of physical reality may interact to form such a reality that can paradoxically turn out to be more real than what we believe to be the actual reality. It is also shown that the fictional world realized in a literary text may bring the reader to certain conclusions about the world in which he or she lives. Thus, even if literature is incapable of affecting reality, it can change the way the latter is perceived. A fictional world is not just a reality — it is a reality of a higher order.
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