Maria Fernanda Kroll, Reinaldo Furlan
A good literary text, as noted by those who read it, appears to be part of lived reality, a virtual gateway to a new world of existence. Literary language is responsible for creating the meaning of a text and embedding both the reader and the writer in its significance. Given this, this article aims to analyze literary experience and its role in shaping and transforming the subjectivity of authors and readers, through the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). To this end, an analysis is conducted of the French philosopher’s texts and commentators on the subject, with special attention to the posthumous work The Prose of the World (1973) and the seminal Phenomenology of Perception (1945). The article seeks to deepen the theme of literature by connecting it to literary works addressed by the philosopher, such as Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927). It will also examine the expression of linguistic signs and the role of the body as a promoter of communicative gestures and a constituent element of the field of meaning in speech and language, considering that language transforms with the body as it is lived by it, just as the body is transformed by language. In summary, this paper seeks a broader understanding of the artistic phenomenon of literature and its repercussions on human subjectivity, according to Merleau-Ponty.