I should like to begin with a declaration not of principles but of contents, a declaration that is not a manifesto but a manifest of conceptual cargo. The theme of this paper is the relationship between philosophy and literature; its thesis is that the microcosm given to us in a literary work is founded on and in turn illuminates the transcendental structure of common-sense experience. I wish to explore this foundation of daily life by way of phenomenological philosophy. The outcome is a recommendation for a philosophically grounded theory of literature. I shall do my best, however, to get through customs an undeclared commitment to reality, an insistence on the primordial, "originary" givenness of our world. In this sense, the task of both literature and philosophy is the reconstruction of mundane existence.