ABSTRACT
The introduction highlights the extent to which literary studies can contribute to an understanding of how chance is represented. Literature and the arts not only testify to debates and collective mindsets, their forms and plots also play with representations of chance, luck and (mis)fortune and with various aspects of unpredictability. Fortuna as the personified power that determines fate and the course of events persists even when belief in such a power has all but disappeared. The enduring theological question of fate and free will at the heart of so many literary forms finds a new significance at times when chaotic catastrophes loom large. The introduction adjusts the findings of Hacking, Meiner and Molesworth to a broader and more contemporary cultural perspective and outlines the method, timeframe and linguistic boundaries that have been used in this volume.
