Abstract

The paper discusses the complex relations obtained between the work of Svetozar Petrović (1931–2005) and the Yugoslav, more precisely Zagreb, variant of the immanent approach to the study of literature. While in the Yugoslav context, Petrović was usually perceived as one of the members of the so-called Zagreb Stylistic School (rallied around the magazine The Art of the Word), after the breakup of Yugoslavia his distance from that orientation was mostly interpreted in terms of politics, or even identity. The analysis shows that—despite personal connections and tactical alliances—the author of The Nature of Criticism (1972) was unequivocally critical of all the postulates of the “intrinsic approach” from the very beginning, and that in his advocacy of “overcoming the anti-positivist rebellion” and the conception of the literary work as a “dialectical unity of three dimensions” (author/language/reader), Petrović largely anticipated the changes that would take place in the 1980s, not only at the local level but also at the globally.