Milivoj Solar is a Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

n literary theorist and literary historian.

Biography

Solar was born on 8 April 1936 in Koprivnica

Koprivnica

Koprivnica is a city in northern Croatia. It is the capital of the Koprivnica-Križevci county. In 2011 the city administrative area had a total population of 30,872, with 23,896 in the city itself.-Population:...

. At the University of Zagreb

University of Zagreb

The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...

 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences or the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb is one of the top faculties of the University of Zagreb.-History:...

 he earned a degree in philosophy and Yugoslav

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...

 studies in 1959. At the same faculty he received his PhD in 1964 with a thesis on Fran Galović.

Since 1963 he worked as an assistant, then as a docent

Docent

Docent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor . Docent is also used at some universities generically for a person who has the right to teach...

 and as an associate, and finally since 1976 as a full tenured professor of literature theory and methodology of the study of literature at the Department for Comparative Literature. In the period of 1987-1990 he also served as SR Croatia's minister of education and culture.

Work

Solar's scholarly work is primarily concerned with literary theory

Literary theory

Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...

, especially the issues of poetics

Poetics

Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...

 and the relationship between literary theory and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. He also published works on the methodology of literary studies, literature analysis and universal elements of cultural history

Cultural history

The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...

 such as myths.

He published the following books:

• Pitanja poetike (Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1971)
• Ideja i priča (Liber, Zagreb, 1974; 2nd enlarged ed. Znanje, Zagreb, 1980)
• Književna kritika i filozofija književnosti (Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1976)
• Teorija književnosti (Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1976; 20th ed. 2005)
• Uvod u filozofiju književnosti (Studentski centar Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, 1978)
• Smrt Sancha Panze (Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske, Zagreb, 1981)
• Suvremena svjetska književnost (Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1982; 1990, 3rd revised and enlarged ed. 1997)
• Mit o avangardi i mit o dekadenciji (Nolit, Beograd, 1985)
• Eseji o fragmentima (Prosveta, Beograd, 1985)
• Filozofija književnosti (Liber, Zagreb, 1985)
• Roman i mit (August Cesarec, Zagreb, 1988)
• Teorija proze (Liber, Zagreb, 1989)
• Laka i teška književnost (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1995; 2nd ed. 2005)
• Vježbe tumačenja (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1997; 2nd ed. 2005)
• Edipova braća i sinovi (Naprijed, Zagreb, 1998)
• Granice znanosti o književnosti (Naklada Pavičić, Zagreb, 2000)
• Povijest svjetske književnosti (Golden marketing, Zagreb, 2003)
• Predavanja o lošem ukusu, (Politička kultura, Zagreb, 2004)
• Ideja i priča (Collected works, 1st book, Golden marketing-Tehnička knjiga, Zagreb, 2004)
• Uvod u filozofiju književnosti (Collected works, 2nd book, Golden marketing-Tehnička knjiga, Zagreb, 2004)
• Retorika postmoderne (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2005)
• Rječnik književnoga nazivlja (Golden marketing-Tehnička knjiga, Zagreb, 2006)
• Književni leksikon (Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 2007)

He's a regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded in 1866 as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :...

 since 2008, member of the Croatian Writers' Association and the Croatian Philosophic Society.

He's a winner of the Zagreb City Award in 1972, Award "Božidar Adžija" in 1975, Vladimir Nazor Award

Vladimir Nazor award

The Vladimir Nazor Award is an annual award given by the Croatian Ministry of Culture to Croatian artists for highest achievements in various artistic fields. It was established in 1959 and is named after the notable writer Vladimir Nazor...

in 1977 and HAZU award in 2004 for the book Povijest svjetske književnosti ('History of world literature').