Literary theories do not offer a unitary definition of literature. This led to the conclusion that such a definition is unnecessary. This lack of a unitary definition is here reconsidered according to the basis of these theories: the ontologies of literature they develop, which they imply and which constitute as many unitary definitions of literature. Three strong ontologies are identified: literature viewed as a discourse of Being, of the world; literature approached according to a linguistic ontology; and median ontology of literature, that of deconstruction and related theories. Here is proposed a “lesser ontology,” inseparable from the quaestio that accompanies any literary text, or so said, and an invitation to use the term “medium” of Niklas Luhmann to obtain a unitary definition of literature, of literatures.

文学理论没有对文学提供统一的定义。由此得出的结论是这样的定义是不必要的。这里根据这些理论的基础重新考虑这种缺乏统一定义的情况：它们所发展的文学本体论，它们所暗示的以及构成了许多统一的文学定义。确定了三个强大的本体论：文学被视为存在和世界的话语；根据语言本体论来研究文学；以及文学中间本体论、解构主义本体论及相关理论。这里提出了一种“较小的本体论”，它与任何文学文本所伴随的问题密不可分，或者说是这样说的，并邀请使用尼克拉斯·卢曼的“媒介”一词来获得文学的统一定义。