S. Lem as a literary theorist: an existentialist underneath the mask of a structuralist

The article examines the concept of the literary work essence, theoretically developed by S. Lem in his book “The Philosophy of Chance”. It shows the principles of his criticism of the structuralism approach, and also it compares S. Lem’s theory of the work with the concepts of R. Barthes and U. Eco. The fundamental characteristic of S. Lem’s approach here is that his understanding of the work polysemy and its multiple interpretations does not contradict the existence of “best” interpretation. According to S. Lem, the basic principle of the work understanding is the investigation of its deep ontological model, that is bringing chaos to the order structure. At the same time, the order is of procedural and intersubjective nature. S. Lem adopts the “classical” principle of searching the work “best interpretation” so that it should be the result of the selection and synthesis of several variants. Furthermore, S. Lem employs the archetype of the Word creating the world, that builds up the reality. Thereby, S. Lem’s thinking continues to be determined by biblical archetypes, despite all his external scientism. Such way of thinking is still a valuable pattern for us, since it allows us to combine the analysis of the latest phenomena and situations in culture with understanding of its deep archetypical foundations.