Cultural Memory and Literature

Abstract

Individual and collective memories are semiotic and they constitute indentity. Literature is the medium of the collective memory, i.e., literary texts are traces of past experiences and mentalities, and also temporal palimpsests. The literary canon through social mechanisms ensures the permanence of represntative ideas and images, topics and mnenonic techniques ensure the continuity of argumentation and imagination. Motifs and themes tie new creations and reading to memory schemes. Genres restore old image of the world and with citations literature recalls its tradition, redshapes it, and enters socio-historical context.