The study is an attempt to establish a productive connection between two methodologically incompatible approaches, discourse analysis and hermeneutics. It examines the reciprocal impact of processes operative in the formation of literary meaning on the one hand, and scientific and scholarly discourse(s) on visual perception on the other. Developments in the discourse on visuality are placed over and against literary texts drawing upon and forming a part of that discourse: Schiller's »Geisterseher«, Büchner's »Leonce und Lena«, Raabe's »Chronik der Sperlingsgasse«, Przybyszewski's »Requiem«, Musil's »Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß«, and Kafka's »Trial«.