Showing papers in "Neohelicon in 2011"
TL;DR: This article argued that world literature is best identified in terms not of the value of authors and works, nor of the situations portrayed through the characters and plots, but of the nature of the readerly experience.
Abstract: David Damrosch’s writings on world literature envision readers “making themselves at home abroad.” This essay argues against his Thoreauvian optimism, given a world that is too large to grasp or to become a home. World literature cannot be naturalized. Drawing on examples from Leibniz, Achebe, Walcott, and Petrarch, the essay proposes that world literature is best identified in terms not of the value of authors and works, nor of the situations portrayed through the characters and plots, but of the nature of the readerly experience. It examines the style of representation in world literature, which Brian Lennon’s book In Babel’s Shadow productively characterizes as a kind of kitsch reflecting a struggle to communicate. World literature is not, as Damrosch says, “writing that gains in translation,” but writing that retains its alienness even in the original.
41 citations
TL;DR: A more globalized concept of culture and the tsunami of information made available by the digital revolution call for new reading practices as mentioned in this paper, but one that would seem to have very little place in it for the highly specialized skills that define philology, the closest of all close reading strategies.
Abstract: A more globalized concept of culture and the tsunami of information made available by the digital revolution call for new reading practices. The emerging discipline of World Literature is an attempt to create such practice, but one that would seem to have very little place in it for the highly specialized skills that define philology, the closest of all close reading strategies. It is this tension that has sparked several calls for a “return to philology.” A historical overview of the Golden Age of classical philology in Germany (1777–1872) suggests that the skills that have defined the profession all over the globe from earliest times are still valuable, but in future can best be employed only in cooperation with scholars having other competencies.
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explain the reasons for Friedrich Nietzsche's rejection of Goethe's Weltliteratur, in The Birth of Tragedy, when that rejection is put into the context of the whole and of other writing by Nietzsche, a good example of the theoretical problems that the renewed discipline of World Literature may need to take into account.
Abstract: World Literature’s time has come again in the current development of a new discipline of World Literature suitable for a time of globalization. The new disciple faces some challenges: the challenge of translation, the challenge of what literary works to choose as representative, the challenge of making a universal definition of “literature.” The thought experiment of imagining what commentary you would need to put with a translation into Chinese of W. B. Yeats’s lyric, “The Cold Heaven,” exemplifies these problems. Explaining the reasons for Friedrich Nietzsche’s rejection of Goethe’s Weltliteratur, in The Birth of Tragedy, is, when that rejection is put into the context of The Birth of Tragedy as a whole and of other writing by Nietzsche, a good example of the theoretical problems that the renewed discipline of World Literature may need to take into account.
15 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the translation of Chinese literature into some of the major world languages and argue that the reason why Chinese literature is little known to the world is largely due to lack of excellent translation.
Abstract: Since world literature is represented in different languages, translation has played an important role in reconstructing such world literatures in different languages and cultural backgrounds. In the past decades, the postcolonial literary attempts have also proved that even in the same language, for instance, English, literary writing is still more and more diversifying, hence the birth of international English literature studies. Thus the concept “world literature” is no longer determinate, for it has evolved in the historical development of literature of all countries. Today’s literary historiography is thereby pluralistically oriented: not only by means of nation-state, for instance, British literature and American literature, but also by means of language, such as (international) English literature(s), and (international) Chinese literature(s). Walter Benjamin, in dealing with the task of the (literary) translator, pertinently points out that translation endows a literary work with “continued life” or “afterlife”, without which many literary works of world significance will remain dead or marginalized. Inspired by Benjamin’s thinking of translation and Damrosch’s emphasis on the role played by translation in constructing world literature, the author lays particular emphasis on the translation of literary works which may well help form such a world literature. The reason why Chinese literature is little known to the world is largely for lack of excellent translation. The author thereby calls for translating Chinese literature into some of the major world languages.
13 citations
TL;DR: A closer analysis of Beowulf, Le Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and Njal's Saga demonstrates that some of the true tragic elements contained in them are the conflicts among friends or the inability of friendship to avoid the massive killing as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: While the theme of friendship in the Middle Ages has traditionally been associated with the world of courtly literature and the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, deeply influenced by Cicero, there are also other strands of friendship that determine, contrary to our expectations, the world of heroic epics. As much as the heroic individuals often seem to be wood-cut like figures with no or little feelings, a closer analysis of Beowulf, Le Chanson de Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and Njal’s Saga demonstrates that some of the true tragic elements contained in them are the conflicts among friends or the inability of friendship to avoid the massive killing. This friendship often comes to the surface only in the ultimate situation of death and dying, but the poets of those heroic epics were apparently deeply inspired to elaborate on the profound value of friendship in a bellicose and catastrophic world where human existence was at great risk. One of the greatest strengths of these heroes proves to be their deeply moving effort to reach out to their friends even in the most deadly situations.
7 citations
TL;DR: The circulation of world drama beyond its origin is to a large extent dependent on its intercultural performances, which are often done in unexpected forms for an indefinite body of audiences.
Abstract: The circulation of world drama beyond its origin is to a large extent dependent on its intercultural performances, which are often done in unexpected forms for an indefinite body of audiences. In contemporary China, the adaptations and performances of Western plays have played an important role within and without theatre. In those intercultural adaptations, Western plays are translated, appropriated and staged by interweaving Chinese and Western performing cultures. So far, the adaptations of Western plays have brought about transformative effects on both the Western playwrights and Chinese theatre. Compared with the early ones, contemporary adaptations of Western plays have acquired some new characteristics. Firstly, there have appeared some international casts using different languages, as the audiences in the theatre are becoming bilingual or multilingual. Secondly, more and more Western plays are adapted into traditional Chinese theatrical forms, such as jingju, kunju, yueju, chuanju, quju, etc. One of the most obvious differences between traditional Chinese opera and spoken drama is that singing plays the leading role in the former. In some local opera performances, dialects are naturally used. Thirdly, certain individual plays have been frequently adapted and staged in different localities. The adaptations are often closely related to the political and cultural specificities in the local contexts. Despite the complexities in its global circulation and production, world drama gains in the intercultural process of adaptation, staging and viewing.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an approach to world literature centered on world creation is developed, where the creation of literary worlds can be understood within the framework of possible worlds theory as developed by Thomas Pavel, Lubomir Dolezel and others.
Abstract: Based on the author’s work as general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, the essay develops an approach to world literature centered on world creation. The creation of literary worlds can be understood within the framework of possible worlds theory as developed by Thomas Pavel, Lubomir Dolezel and others. Taking its point of departure from possible worlds theory, the essay then focuses on specific genres that foreground the capacity of literature to create whole worlds, including world creation myths and science fiction. Three terms are used to analyze this body of literature: reference; scale; and model. While the category of reference accounts for the status of the worlds to be found within literary works, scale and model capture the particular challenges world creation literature faces.
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors take the example of the biblical Book of Job, based on a Babylonian model which it neither imitates nor parodies (the more usual modes of relation of biblical writers to the literary productions of the larger imperial cultures around them) instead, the poet of the Book ofJob selectively draws on Babylonian tradition in order to open up a new mode of understanding of the divine amid the crisis of the Babylonian exile, neither rejecting the surrounding culture nor assimilating to it, portraying a just but unknowable God who has characteristics of a benevolent Mesopotamian tyrant.
Abstract: World literature is often defined in terms of the circulation of works out into languages and cultures beyond their original homeland. But it is also possible to consider an opposite mode of literary worldliness, which occurs when writers draw on foreign literatures in order to intervene within their own culture. This article takes the example of the biblical Book of Job, based on a Babylonian model which it neither imitates nor parodies (the more usual modes of relation of biblical writers to the literary productions of the larger imperial cultures around them). Instead, the poet of the Book of Job selectively draws on Babylonian tradition in order to open up a new mode of understanding of the divine amid the crisis of the Babylonian exile, neither rejecting the surrounding culture nor assimilating to it, portraying a just but unknowable God who has characteristics of a benevolent Mesopotamian tyrant.
5 citations
TL;DR: The concept of world literature subordinates literature to space as discussed by the authors and this subordination should be controversial, as argued by the authors of this paper. But the concept of "world literature" is also problematic.
Abstract: The concept of “world literature” subordinates literature to space. Both a critique of the spatial presuppositions involved in accounts of the “world” offered by world-literature studies and an endorsement of the resistance to spatial determination common to much imaginative literature suggest that this subordination should be controversial.
4 citations
TL;DR: A half century ago Atherton started cataloguing the plethora of books in the Wake, and fifteen years ago Hogan concentrated on Milton's work among those furnishing more potent, complex, and extended allusions as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A half century ago Atherton started cataloguing the plethora of books in the Wake, and fifteen years ago Hogan concentrated on Milton’s work among those furnishing more potent, complex, and extended allusions. Not since Rabelais’s, Cervantes’s, Sterne’s, and Goethe’s fictions, which demonstrated how to journey through vast realms of culture and paradigmatic literature, has any author acted with such sovereign freedom as Joyce to align a convergence of all books and language over the ages with his own search for wisdom. The fact that Joyce achieved a very personal synthesis out of the referential immensity adduced in the Wake should not deter us from recognizing certain deep patterns which qualify Joyce as a renewer of important tradition. The patterns of concern here as encountered in Joyce finally carry us over into experiencing a kind of “modern mysticism” that is not exclusively apophatic but also simultaneously directly affirmative, although not explainable in any routine discursive fashion. Joyce’s idea of a divine creative principle that appears to “fall” in the course of bringing forth its own purpose in a “creation” has an honorable place in theological, cosmogonic, and mystical thought in the European tradition. A number of Renaissance savants and poets believed that various paradigms embodied in ancient myth, including the biblical story of Adam and Eve, reflected this proposition. Several streams feeding from the Renaissance over Romanticism into Modernism and interesting to Joyce (e.g., early anthropological myth analysis, cabala, theosophy, etc.) kept alive the poetic vocabulary by which to express an encounter with the baffling puzzle of Being as a drama played out by the human race, an evolutionary drama with both historical and psychological dimensions. Joyce’s contemporary, Thomas Mann, while quite different in many respects, shares Joyce’s perception that a parallelism exists between the “fall” of Being or Spirit, the “agon” of human development, and the problem of a seemingly absurd mind/body division. Although keen interest in poets like Blake, the heroic power of the imagination, and the Luciferic theme is prominent in Ulysses, a movement occurs in the Wake away from the Bildungsroman structure toward a more encompassing visionary sense of rebirth. In the Wake Joyce “revises” the Miltonic version of the fall (as well as the Dantesque and others) in a way consonant with Goethe’s revision of the meaning of the recorded three millennia of human striving in Faust II; the Goethean coda anticipates Joyce in “fulfilling” the inner tendency which surfaces from the biblical account of the family romance onward and appears instantiated repeatedly in the world theater/history. Joyce’s version abandons the apocalyptic model of a once-only creation and privileges the alternate model of an eternal or permanent universe, but according to Joyce the repeatable story of the “fortunate fall” eventuates in a requisite salvational insight suited to the Viconian “eternal return”: in the words of the mother, “first we feel, then we fall”. Joyce reinvents the basic sacraments poetically to reflect the ultimate union of creator and creation, and the Wake’s famous coda confirms the sacred mission and destiny of love’s “body” (which is also by analogy the text’s body or embodiment).
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the images of the night in Shakespeare's sonnets and in the poetry of Antara Ibn Shaddad and suggests that the two poets, despite of their cultural backgrounds, and of the boundaries of place, language and time, use almost, with some differences, the same nocturnal motifs.
Abstract: This essay examines the images of the night in Shakespeare’s sonnets and in the poetry of Antara Ibn Shaddad. It explores how these two poets identify the night with sleeplessness, aloofness, loneliness, night birds, dreams, old age and death. Doing so, it suggests that the two poets, despite of their cultural backgrounds, and of the boundaries of place, language and time, use almost, with some differences, the same nocturnal motifs. This essay is important because it shows how different cultures follow strikingly similar, if not exactly perfect, ways of describing the darkness of nature as an echo of the darkness of the strayed soul. In the light of these strong affinities, this essay suggests two possibilities, one being the universality of these poets (Hereafter, I have, where possible, made references to some Western and Oriental poets who similarly use some image-clusters of the night.), and the other being that Shakespeare, in one way or another, may have been exposed to the poetry of Antara providing that it was translated into Latin or any other European language. No matter which one of these possibilities seems to be credible, this study tries to imply that cultures, regardless of language barriers, share some quintessential ways of expressing cultural innerness, to which researchers should pay more attention instead of being preoccupied with cultural differences as signs of clash of civilizations.
TL;DR: In this paper, the reception of Benjamin's idea of the art of mechanical reproduction in China through an investigation of how the inertia of cultural traditions and political moods cooperate to form the receptive conditions.
Abstract: This essay argues that Edward Said’s idea of “traveling theory” cannot form the argumentative basis for all theories due to its consideration of the exclusive phenomenon of creative variation in the traveling of theories. The author suggests studying the reception of Benjamin’s idea of the art of mechanical reproduction in China through an investigation of how the inertia of cultural traditions and political moods cooperate to form the receptive conditions. This essay contends that this process of reception can be roughly divided into two phases: the characteristic of the first phase is depoliticization, and that of the second phase is academicization. Based on different social and historical circumstances, the author points out that when Benjamin’s theoretical construction is read in a depoliticized way, it simply means a political strategy of passive resistance; when his political content attracts people’s attention, the way of talking about politics is already a depoliticized discursive practice, because as a balancing point of governmental interests and intellectuals’ interests, academic autonomy has already finished the transformation of academics’ political libido into academic libido, thus incorporating it into its own forces. To the author, if one correctly understands the reproduction of Benjamin’s theory in China in terms of an alternative political meaning, it would have a positive significance.
TL;DR: The authors examines how the representation of the recent past intertwines with the construction of collective memory in contemporary Bosnian prose and argues that a significant function of recent Bosnian literature consisted of not only witnessing the horror of the Bosnian war but also turning historical events into sites of memory.
Abstract: Focusing on the work of Miljenko Jergovic, Nenad Velickovic, Alma Lazarevska, and Sasa Stanisic, this paper examines how the representation of the recent past intertwines with the construction of collective memory in contemporary Bosnian prose. The author argues that a first, significant function of recent Bosnian literature consisted of not only witnessing the horror of the Bosnian war but also turning historical events into sites of memory. This is especially true for the literature about the wars of the nineties—the siege of Sarajevo, Srebrenica, etc. However, the involvement of Bosnian authors with the recent past—in prose written during the war as well as in more recent works—proves to be more complex and seems to be indicative of a growing interest in and reflexivity upon the ways in which collective and individual memory are constructed. This paper suggests that the interest in memory/remembering the recent past has been accelerated by the war and the social and political turmoil of the nineties. This liminal situation urged writers firstly to represent the horrors of the recent past in order to prevent them from falling into oblivion. Secondly, because war emerged as a kind of turning point, a radical break between past and present, writers were compelled to reflect on the processes of remembering and oblivion and on the ways identity is constituted by a strange and often unpredictable interplay of both.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors tried to look at the 1967-1970 Nigeria's civil war as fictionalized by Ken Saro-Wiwa, the nature of the language and implications on the English language in Nigeria, and attempted to understand the moral and political consequences of war on humanity in general and the special effect of the Nigerian civil war on the minority areas within the Biafran enclave in particular as epitomized by Dukana, the setting of Sozaboy.
Abstract: This essay is based on Ken Saro-Wiwa’s novel, titled Sozaboy. Apart from using this novel to interpret and locate the history and politics of Nigeria within a particular period, the essay tried to look at the 1967–1970 Nigeria’s civil war as fictionalized by Ken Saro-Wiwa, the nature of the language and implications on the English language in Nigeria. It also attempted an understanding of the moral and political consequences of war on humanity in general and the special effect of the Nigerian civil war on the minority areas within the Biafran enclave in particular as epitomized by Dukana, the setting of Sozaboy. The essay concluded that the novel itself was a bold attempt at experimentation with language, considering the fact that it was written in what the author himself described as “rotten” English.
TL;DR: Hofmannsthal gehort zu den Vordenkern eines zukunftigen Europa as discussed by the authors, was daran liegen mag, dass ihm Hofmannsthals geistiger Ort and sein Denken, das vom Umfeld der osterreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie bestimmt ist, weniger typisch erscheinen als die von ihm beschriebene napoleonische Tradition der Europa-Idee and ihre Gegner.
Abstract: Hofmannsthal gehort zu den Vordenkern eines zukunftigen Europa. Das gilt auch dann, wenn Paul Michael Lutzeler in seiner Monographie „Die Schriftsteller und Europa. Von der Romantik bis zur Gegenwart“ (Munchen: Beck 1992) ihm diesen Platz nicht gibt, , was daran liegen mag, dass ihm Hofmannsthals geistiger Ort und sein Denken, das vom Umfeld der osterreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie bestimmt ist, weniger typisch erscheinen als die von ihm beschriebene napoleonische Tradition der Europa-Idee und ihre Gegner. Sein Leben und Schreiben bestimmt sich um 1900 von einer europaisch orientierten Internationalitat, die aus dem asthetischen Genus der Fulle der europaischen Vorweltkriegswelt hervorgeht. Das andert sich im Klima der Jahre vor dem Weltkrieg unter dem Einfluss Nietzsches, der in weiten Bereichen Europas zunehmend fuhlbarer wird. Wahrend des Krieges verteidigt der Osterreicher die Position seines Landes, beschreibt aber immer wieder ein Europa, das durch seine als Einheit zu verstehende Vielfalt uberzeugen musse. Er betont in der Kriegssituation die Idee der Vereinigten Staaten von Europa wie Victor Hugo, den er grundlich studiert und kommentiert hat, schon 1849. Hofmannsthal geht in subtilen Untersuchungen den ideologischen Zusammenhangen nach und kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass mangelnde liberale Gestaltung eines Gegengewichts durch die Idee einer allgemein-europaischen Kultur des in den Gegensatzen angelegten kriegerischen Chaos Herr werden konne. -In der Nachkriegszeit beruft er sich dafur auf den Optimismus Goethes gegen den unter Intellektuellen stark in den Vordergrund ruckenden harten Realismus und christlichen Pessimismus Fedor Dostojewskijs. Hugo von Hofmannsthals Antwort sind dann die Festspiele europaischer Kunst in Salzburg, in denen der Klassizismus Mozarts wie der von Hofmannsthal gestaltete Ruckblick auf die Fruhformen des europaischen Theaters die finsteren Zeiten des hitlerschen Herrschaft und ihres Krieges uberlebt. Das Europa Hofmannsthals gewinnt in der zweiten Nachkriegszeit auch eine okonomische Starke, aus der Festspiele getragen werden konnen. Uberwunden wird in ihnen jedenfalls eine blos materielle Welt, was den Autor Hofmannsthal zu einem wichtigen geistigen Anziehungs- und Orientierungspunkt fur Leser und Horer wie fur seine Interpreten nach 1945 machte. In der deutschen Bundesrepublik wird seine Lyrik und sein Theater wie seine Essayistik in der politischen wie der poetischen Diskussion wichtig. Der Essayist muss in seinen poetischen Werken als einer der besonders wichtigen Klassiker des sich bildenden modernen Europa erfasst werden.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the theoretical issues to arrive at a better understanding of poetics not only in the Western tradition, but truly of the world, with the richness of content and critical functions considered with relation to a global concept of world literature.
Abstract: What happens when we consider “poetics,” a term and concept well-known from Aristotle’s philosophical treatment of Greek epic and tragic drama, in the larger context of world literature as we understand it today? What would be the essential elements in the definition of poetics? What sort of critical issues it can address, and what resources it may draw on in the world’s various literary traditions? In the ancient world, East Asia and South Asia all have distinct traditions of literary expression with emphasis and critical conceptualizations rather different from those of the Greek-Roman tradition. What would the consideration of poetics in a broad cross-cultural perspective lead us to? In this presentation, these are the theoretical issues to be explored to arrive at a better understanding of poetics not only in the Western tradition, but truly of the world, with the richness of content and critical functions considered with relation to a global concept of world literature.
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper focused on the issues of exclusion and inclusion of women writers in the canon formation and reformation of West-centric sense, showing that the changing process is a symptom of changes in the social relations between men and women.
Abstract: In the era of globalization, world literature today does not refer to a fixed canon that is usually male-authored and West-centered. More and more excellent literary works written by extraordinary female writers and non-Western writers have been included in the anthologies of world literature, thus reforming the framework of world literature in a new sense. This essay attempts to reflect upon the developing situation of world literature in relation to women's writing. It first focuses on the issues of exclusion and inclusion of women writers in the canon formation and reformation of West-centric sense, showing that the changing process is a symptom of changes in the social relations between men and women. By enumerating how an authoritative Chinese journal World Literature absorbs more and more women writers' works in different cultural spaces, the author then talks about the national version of world literature to dismiss the past prevalent understanding that world literature is a fixed canon that circulates beyond national boundaries. Finally, by commenting on the international circulation of J. K. Rowling's works, the essay tries to prove how powerful nations may have better chance to distribute their cultural products.
TL;DR: The authors reveal the different maps in the eye of Chinese readers in different historical periods and their constructions through their endeavor to sort out and describe relevant facts gleaned from a hundredodd period since the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the People's Republic of China.
Abstract: Each country, each nation has its own map of world literature in any given historical period. The construction of the map largely depends on translators and their literary translations. No doubt, academic works on the history of world literature written or translated by scholars from target countries have made equally remarkable contributions. But in most cases the weight of those contributions is particularly felt by readers who take up foreign literary studies as profession, especially in China. To general readers, it is through the strenuous efforts the translators have made that they have acquired that very map they desired for. This essay aims to reveal the different maps in the eye of the Chinese readers in different historical periods and their constructions through our endeavor to sort out and describe relevant facts gleaned from a hundred-odd period since the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile, the essay also attempts to show the functions and influence the translators and their activities perform and exert through relatively meticulous analyses of the relevant facts.
TL;DR: The concept of New Literature in Chinese Language as mentioned in this paper is a best choice to define it, especially in the visual field of world literature, which can get rid of the politicized academic prediction and construct new paths in exploring the laws of Chinese aesthetic expressions.
Abstract: “Modern Chinese Literature” has many similar descriptions such as “Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature”, “Chinese Literature in the 20th Century”, and “New Chinese Literature”. The concept of “New Literature in Chinese Language” is a best choice to define it, especially in the visual field of world literature. “New Literature in Chinese” contains modern and contemporary literature, together with “literatures in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese literature”, or “international Chinese literature”. “New Literature in Chinese” enjoys the advantage of furthest surpassing and even overcoming the regulations and restrictions of national plates and political regions, hence the New Literature studies can get rid of the politicized academic prediction and construct new paths in exploring the laws of Chinese aesthetic expressions. Just as the concept “English literature” should be understood as “literature in English” rather than “British literature”, the concept of “New Literature in Chinese Language” is acceptable.
TL;DR: In the textualized universe of Denis Roche, the poetic impulse is inextricably linked to the unstable framework in which such matter is cast as mentioned in this paper, and the text is birthed as an object of inquiry, ultimately to be dismantled: the poem is both "inadmissible" and " inexistant".
Abstract: In the textualized universe of Denis Roche, the poetic impulse is inextricably linked to the unstable framework in which such matter is cast. Utterances of language translate the power of transgression. The text is birthed as an object of inquiry, ultimately to be dismantled: the poem is both « inadmissible » and « inexistant » . As a self-fixed interrogator focused upon the residual matter that it is and which it only can be, it is no longer subservient to the references it struggles to invoke, much less to signify. Writing, then, as an unending auto-reflexive process of annihilation and reification, and subsists, as such, to the sole extent that it disassociates from all conventional voices of articulation. More obtusely, to poeticize is to re-transcribe—otherly and with abruptness—the withered sputtering(s) of the artistic imperative. Poetry, like photography, aims and frames, slices the world into sequences and images—partial, scattered, at once undone so as to be resuscitated, briefly, again. The extant is eschewed. At stake and at center-stage: a propelled form of motivity, speed, accelerations and dead-stops, an aleatory array of unremitting shifts, « instantanees »—obstinately un-emblematic. Raging or controlled, the poem or the photo can only be a non-representational sliver, the transitory residue of an infinite combinatorics of possibles. Hence, arbitrary breaches, clamoring interruptions, ludic contortions of incompleteness. A curious dynamic.
TL;DR: The authors discuss the Chinese re-appropriation of William Wordsworth for its new social cause of environmental protection, and present an interesting example of such adaptation comes from, to put it in the words of Roshni Mooneeram, "refiguring ways of teaching the discipline in a Chinese cultural context".
Abstract: In the past decade or so, we have seen numerous academic conferences on English studies whose objective is to reflect upon how English as a self-renewing and ever-changing subject adapts to very different environments in which it finds itself. One interesting example of such adaptation comes from, to put it in the words of Roshni Mooneeram, “refiguring ways of teaching the discipline in a Chinese cultural context.” (
http://www.english.heacademy.ac.uk
). The present essay, of course, does not attempt to cover the entire gamut of English studies in China; rather, its discussion will be confined to the Chinese re-appropriation of William Wordsworth for its new social cause of environmental protection.
TL;DR: The authors made a survey of the introduction, reception and influence of East-European literature in China, taking Petőfi Sandor, Bertolt Brecht and Milan Kundera as examples to show the significance of East European literature to modern Chinese literature.
Abstract: “Eastern Europe,” as a geopolitical term coined in the Cold War, not only refers to a regional demarcation, but also carries specific political, historical and cultural connotations, especially in a Chinese context. The political situation, historical experience and cultural character of East-European countries were shared and could easily be understood by the Chinese, who have gained their national consciousness and independence as well as aspired for modernity by fighting the oppression and invasion of the foreign powers, and through learning from and resisting the Western empires at the same time. East-European literature has, therefore, exerted particular influence on modern Chinese literature at the time of its transition from the traditional. This article attempts to reveal the political, geographical, historical and cultural similarities shared by East-European countries and their significance to modern China. Then it makes a survey of the introduction, reception and influence of East-European literature in China, taking Petőfi Sandor, Bertolt Brecht and Milan Kundera as examples to show the significance of East-European literature to modern Chinese literature.
TL;DR: The authors proposed a new definition for the minimal narrative by removing the recounting part, and, based on the new definition, an all-narrative typology as distinguished by three criteria: factuality/fictionality, media, and moods (intentional temporality).
Abstract: The profound narrativization of contemporary culture in the large-scale “Narrative Turn” forces narratology to leave the paradigm established on the study of the novel, and a general narratology that embraces all kinds of narratives is urgently called for. The “fundamental retrospectiveness” for the definition of the narrative becomes an obstacle for such a narratology. This essay proposes a new definition for the minimal narrative by removing the “recounting” part, and, based on the new definition, an all-narrative typology as distinguished by three criteria: factuality/fictionality, media, and moods (intentional temporality). Finally the essay attempts a detailed analysis of the live television news since they occupy an important position in today’s culture and emphasizes that the uncertainty of the plot could lead to recycling of intention.
TL;DR: Among the many references to Byron in the Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an old manse, the most elaborate and entertaining are found in “P.’s Correspondence,” first published in the Democratic Review, April 1845 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Among the many references to Byron in the Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse, the most elaborate and entertaining are found in “P.’s Correspondence,” first published in the Democratic Review, April 1845. References to Byron in “The Seven Vagabonds” (1833), “Passages from a Relinquished Work” (1834), “Sketches from Memory” (1835), “A Virtuoso Collection” (1842), “The Procession of Life” (1843), “Earth’s Holocaust” (1844), contribute further to the critique of Byron and provide a matrix for analyzing the Byronic elements in The Scarlet Letter (1850) and more especially in The Marble Faun (1860). This essay draws from the novels and tales, as well as the letters, in constructing a coherent account of Hawthorne’s reception of Byron. Key elements in his reception were Byron’s struggle against his Calvinist background; his violation of moral standards; his representations of forbidden love and the noble outlaw with a guilty past; his exile in Italy and his conjuring of Italian intrigue. These are also key elements in Hawthorne’s own tales and novels, especially those written during Hawthorne’s stay in Rome and Florence from 1857 to 1859.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the reaction of the roman europeen to the censure of freedom of expression, which is a limitation of la vie de tous les jours.
Abstract: Les annees 20 et 30 du XXe siecle ont ete les temoins de la montee des dictatures europeennes – Mussolini en Italie, Hitler en Allemagne, Staline en Union Sovietique, Franco en Espagne, Salazar au Portugal, Metaxas en Grece. L’instauration d’un regime autoritaire correspond toujours a une limitation de la liberte d’expression, qui touche la vie de tous les jours, mais aussi l’art et la litterature : la censure intervient pour freiner d’eventuelles positions « degenerees », susceptibles de destabiliser l’image d’integrite utopique que tout autocrate a tendance a construire. Etant donne ce contexte fortement anti-libertaire, quelles sont les reactions du roman europeen ? Met-il en pratique des strategies particulieres pour faire passer des idees qui ne sauraient autrement pas trouver le consensus du regime ?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors follow Benjamin in rethinking the boundary between world literature and national literature and argue that Flanagan's diagnosis of progress in the modernity project offers us a window onto the past through which we might redirect the future.
Abstract: In world literature, the penal colony theme obviously has powerful ethical and political implications. Among the texts dealing with this theme are Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony,” A. Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago and Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish. This essay first looks at the history of the sublime object—Gould’s fish—in relation to Foucault’s critique of “technologies of the self” and “regime of truth.” Then, in the light of Benjamin’s concept of history and Agamben’s notion of “bare life,” the author argues that Flanagan’s diagnosis of progress in the modernity project—his use of panopticonism, the construction of a railroad and the Great Mahjong Hall in colonial Tasmania as symbols of modernization—offers us a window onto the past through which we might redirect the future. Based on a materialist view of the change that Flanagan anticipates in colonial Tasmanian social life, in its discussion of the questions of history and modernity—a colonial-imperial British modernity and a “glocal” modernity in Tasmania—this essay follows Benjamin in rethinking the boundary(-crossing) between world literature and national literature.
TL;DR: The authors argued that the notion of artistic production as a communal affair has continued to be widely thought to be inapplicable to Africa, and that proper identification and recognition of the conventions of this indigenous literary source would unquestionably provide the best approach to understanding contemporary African literature and stimulating admiration for the creative temper involved in its writing.
Abstract: Influence is a widespread and well-documented and widely acknowledged practice in the Western literary tradition, but there has been a flat denial that it exists among African writers. The very fact that a controversy should arise at all as to whether the readership of African writing lies within Africa itself says something about how a different standard is always applied when it comes to things African. Along with fame and fortune, the perception that one’s work could ignite the creative spark for others both in one’s immediate surroundings and afar continues to provide writers worldwide the incentive to keep honoring their calling, in part, because leaving a legacy of hope and inspiration is every writer’s dream. While common sense ought to suggest that the situation of Africa cannot be any different—after all, as a familiar African proverb has it, “it takes a village to raise a child”—the notion of artistic production as a communal affair has continued to be widely thought to be inapplicable to Africa. Why has it become convenient to argue that dialogue of an indigenous nature, as a mode of creative interaction and invention, is absent in contemporary African literature? To take up that question, our argument in this essay proceeds in three interlocking steps. First is an overview of the role professional readers, literary analysts, and scholars have ascribed to literary inheritance in the development of expressive power universally. Next is an attempt to adduce reasons for the persistent regime of denial that over time has established itself firmly in discussions of African writing concerning suggestions of a preoccupation, conceived expansively as disposition, style, thematic engagement, stance, and sensibility, which an informed observer might take as emanating from inspiration of a local origin. The final section makes the case that proper identification and recognition of the conventions of this indigenous literary source would unquestionably provide the best approach to understanding contemporary African literature and stimulating admiration for the creative temper involved in its writing as the case of contemporary African literature cannot be an exception.
TL;DR: The Biermosl Blosn is eine in Deutschland sehr bekannte bayerische Musikkapelle, die sich parodistisch with traditionellen ‘Volksliedern’ auseinandersetzt as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Die Biermosl Blosn ist eine in Deutschland sehr bekannte bayerische Musikkapelle, die sich parodistisch mit traditionellen ‘Volksliedern’ auseinandersetzt. Der Aufsatz untersucht die sich hierbei entfaltende evolutionare Aktivitat. Zunachst wird die kategorielle Differenz zwischen ‘echtem Volkslied’ und industriell gefertigtem ‘volkstumlichen Lied’ problematisiert und Ernst Klusens Auffassung bekraftigt, das es so etwas wie das Herdersche Volkslied nie gegeben hat. Statt dessen gab und gibt es nur die Lieder sozialer Gruppen, die fur sie lebenspraktische, nicht aber asthetische Funktionen erfullen. Die Biermosl Blosn zerbricht die petrifizierten Verfahren tradierter Gruppenlieder, wodurch diese prasentativ gewendet zu kunstlerischen Gegenstanden werden, die keine lebenspraktische Funktion mehr besitzen und ihren Gruppenliedcharakter verlieren. Die verschwundene Gruppe wird dabei durch bestimmte Verfahren simuliert.
TL;DR: Senghor as mentioned in this paper presented a relecture comparative of a poesie de la nature tout en demontrant les positions politiques des deux auteurs.
Abstract: Le poete-president Leopold Sedar Senghor a a l′instar des auteurs romantiques allemands puise dans la faune et la flore africaine une poesie de la nature qu′il utilisera dans un programme politique. Ainsi son « Royaume d′enfance » rappellera fortement « Le paradis de jeunesse » d’Eichendorff, lieux d′inspiration politique et patriotique. Senghor dira, parlant de sa lecture de la litterature allemande : « Vous comprendrez quelle etait notre emotion et, a la reflexion, notre fierte quand nous lisions Novalis et les poetes romantiques allemands. Ils etaient retournes aux sources germaniques du Lied et du Marchen, et ils chantaient la lune apres le soleil, la nuit apres le jour, les images archetypes surgies de la foret de l′Einfuhlung. Rien ne pouvait plus fortement nous encourager a poursuivre le retour a l′ Ur-africa. » (Senghor 1968, p. 11) Cette litterature politisee sera utilisee pour repondre aux influences etrangeres aussi bien en Allemagne qu′en Afrique occidentale encore sous domination francaise. Cet article va proceder a une relecture comparative de cette poesie de la nature tout en demontrant les positions politiques des deux auteurs.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine culture and cultural adjustment in two novels, Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe and Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, and see the two protagonists as analogous of core elements in their cultures and hence as equivalent to the nuclei at the centre of their respective cells.
Abstract: The essay examines culture and cultural adjustment in two novels—Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe and Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Using Edward Said’s theory on culture as a foundation, it compares the relative elasticity of a fictional, precolonial West African society, Umuaro, with the relative stiffness of a fictional Victorian society, Wessex. The essay pictures culture as a large cell with core elements located at the centre, like a nucleus. The study then proceeds to apply this mental picture to the texts, seeing the two protagonists as analogous of core elements in their cultures and hence as equivalent to the nuclei at the centre of their respective cells. Both protagonists are pivotal figures initially. This is expressed symbolically in terms of the centralized position of the core elements in the cultural cell. At the end of the day, however, both protagonists have become social outcasts, which again is expressed symbolically in terms of the movement of the core elements away from the centre to the periphery. The essay concludes that the symbolic reproduction of culture re-inforces the literal one, and that Achebe and Hardy equally recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the communities they are describing.