Anthropology and literature

This article attempts at replying to the question of how anthropology relates to literature. Elaborating on Wolfgang Iser's suggestions, the author states that literature has a single basic function to perform, and that is, to interpret the outside world by creating structures weakening its strangeness. What anthropology strives for, in turn, is to grasp the essence of human being through analysing its products or creatures. The shared area for both types of discourse is their being submerged in existence - understood as a linguistic element of self-understanding, an intermediate sphere between the naked life and conceptual knowledge.