The world in Auerbach’s mouth: Weltliteratur after philhellenism

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-452
Author(s):  
Mathura Umachandran
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
The World

Abstract We live in an age of globalized and globalizing phenomena: the contemporary agenda of academic inquiry takes in ‘networks’, ‘connectivity’, and other modes of articulating complex structures of human activity. In Comparative Literature and beyond, the idea of world literature has borne the weight of idealist intercultural understanding, the hopes of translation studies, and the anxieties around the failure of communication. Erich Auerbach offers a touchstone in the conceptual genealogy of world literature (Weltliteratur). This article illuminates how Auerbach’s Weltliteratur is predicated on a polemic with German philhellenism, tracked through Auerbach’s declaration that his idea is ‘ungoethisch’. Auerbach’s revisions to Weltliteratur constituted a strategy to render it a historicist concept. Since Auerbach’s notion of historicism was itself derived from nineteenth-century German humanism, this essay argues that Auerbach was attempting to go with Goethe beyond Goethe. Finally, this essay assesses how successful Auerbach’s decoupling of Weltliteratur from universalism, under the sign of Goethe and the Greeks. I suggest that Weltliteratur is still a pertinent concept today because of Auerbach’s intervention to install historicist and dialectical resources therein.

Against Global Literary Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Edmond
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Institutional Frameworks ◽  
The World

Abstract Literary studies has taken a global turn through such institutional frameworks as global romanticism, global modernism, global anglophone, global postcolonial, global settler studies, world literature, and comparative literature. Though promising an escape from parochialism, nationalism, and Eurocentrism, this turn often looks suspiciously like another version of Anglo-European imperialism. This essay argues that, rather than continue the expansionary line of recent decades, global literary studies must allow other perspectives to draw into question its concepts, practices, and theories, including those associated with the terms literature, discipline, and comparison. As a settler colonial (Pākehā) scholar in Aotearoa New Zealand, I attend particularly to Māori literary scholars from Apirana Ngata, Te Kapunga Matemoana (Koro) Dewes, and Hirini Melbourne to Alice Te Punga Somerville, Tina Makereti, and Arini Loader. Their work highlights the limitedness of global literary studies in its current disciplinary guise. Disciplines remain important when they bring recognition to something previously marginalized, as in the battle to have Māori literature recognized within Pākehā institutions. What institutionalized modes of global literary studies need, however, is not discipline but indiscipline: a recognition of the limits of dominant disciplinary objects, frameworks, and practices, and an openness to other ways of seeing the world.

Geopolitics of Comparison: World Literature Avant la Lettre

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Waïl S. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
History Of

Abstract According to a well-known narrative, the concept of Weltliteratur and its academic correlative, the discipline of comparative literature, originated in Germany and France in the early nineteenth century, influenced by the spread of scientism and nationalism. But there is another genesis story that begins in the late eighteenth century in Spain and Italy, countries with histories entangled with the Arab presence in Europe during the medieval period. Emphasizing the role of Arabic in the formation of European literatures, Juan Andrés wrote the first comparative history of “all literature,” before the concepts of Weltliteratur and comparative literature gained currency. The divergence of the two genesis stories is the result of competing geopolitical interests, which determine which literatures enter into the sphere of comparison, on what terms, within which paradigms, and under what ideological and discursive conditions.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Lipson Freed
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Specificity

The Conclusion explores how the logic of haunting might recast the stakes, if not the substance, of the World Literature/Comparative Literature debate. Briefly tracing some of the most influential arguments in favor of sameness—in the form of translation, literary circulation and critical expansiveness—and difference—in the form of singularity, historical specificity and untranslatability—the conclusion suggests that these two opposing positions are both valid and fundamentally irreconcilable. Recognizing that encounters with works of fiction, like encounters with ghosts, are only temporary allows for this kind of instability; ultimately, it is not the text, but the reader who is responsible for acting ethically toward others in the non-fictional world.

scholarly journals Maamesilasena maailmas ehk lihtsalt Jüri Talveti meetodist / On Jüri Talvet’s Comparative Method

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (17/18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Merilai
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Bumble Bee ◽  
Leaves Of Grass ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
English Speaking World

Teesid: Artikkel defineerib maailmakirjanduse professor Jüri Talveti komparativistlikku meetodit nii maamesilase metafoori kui ka tema poolt tutvustatud mõistete edaphos (’pind’) ja episteme (’teadmine’) kaudu. Võrdleva kirjandusteadlase ülesanne on kahesuunaline: tutvustada eesti kirjandust maailmas ja vahendada mujal loodut meie kultuurile. Kuigi õpetlaste teoreetiline metasüsteem ja mõistevõrk – episteme – võib areneda väga keeruliseks, peab see alati juurduma edaphos’es kui toitvas pinnases, mille loovad sõnakunstiteosed ja rahvuslikud kirjanduslood. Avardades võrdlevat edaphos’t, aktiveerime ja rikastame ka maailma episteme’t. The article aims at defining the comparative method of Jüri Talvet, professor of comparative literature. This can be carried out by an application of Talvet’s own metaphor for himself – a bumble bee, or via two concepts elaborated by him – edaphos (base) and episteme (knowledge). The bumble bee, by nature more reclusive and peaceful but somehow more attractive looks than a regular bee flies out from its modest sod nest across blooming meadows, disseminating homely pollen among the leaves of grass of the wide world. Then it faithfully returns with nourishing nectar that feeds its family. As chairman of the Estonian Comparative Literature Association, and founder and editor-in-chief of the comparative literature journal Interlitteraria, Talvet has written: “Its purpose is to channel new literary-philosophical ideas from the international area to Estonia and, at the same time, to spread knowledge about Estonian literary and philosophical studies outside Estonia, as well as to let the wider world have some idea of Estonian literature itself which, because of the language barrier, has belonged traditionally to the majority of “silent” literatures of the world, unjustly ignored by the area of the dominant Western languages.” Yet, no matter how complex our theoretical meta-systems and conceptual framework – episteme – might develop, it always needs to be firmly based on edaphos as its foundation, that is, on works of literature and national literary histories. By extending the comparative edaphos, we also enrich the world’s episteme. It is therefore not surprising that, as a scholar with extensive knowledge of world literature, Talvet has great affinity for tellurism, an aesthetic concept used in Hispanic cultures that is largely unknown to the English-speaking world. 

scholarly journals A Comparative Study in the (myth of Pygmalion) between Bernard Shaw and Sadeq Hedayat

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Many ◽  
Bernard Shaw ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
European Renaissance

In our time, not too long ago, the universities of the world have been fast to take care of the study of an innovative type of technical and human studies, called the science of "comparative literature". Comparative research studies have grown and flourished rapidly in response to the demands of both mental and artistic life. This shows the increasing awareness at both the modern national and the international levels in order to develop through connecting with the international intellectual, nental and artistic currents to nurture ethics and originality. Comparative studies show that the beginning of the comparative literature goes back to the time when the Latin literature was connected to the Greek literature and the comparative literature was shaped in the era of European Renaissance. Today, it is one of the most authentic sciences in universities, with complex branches, due to its being an inevitable result of increasing human awareness and the result of the great demand by the conscious public to benefit from the many human and cognitive aspects provided by the comparative literature through its connection with the heritage of the world literature and unity of the human spirit in its past and present. One of the most important factors of the prosperity of any civilization is the degree of contact with and benefit from other civilizations. Long time ago, different cultures were used to enrich each other, and the relationship between cultures took many forms such as imitation, translation, influencing others, as well as the exchange of information between cultures, in addition to intellectual and cultural invasion and domination. It is impossible to imagine that a particular culture evolved without any contact with other cultures. Instead, any isolated culture certainly suffered from deterioration.

Jewish American Literature Against the World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Schreier
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
American Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Jewish American Literature ◽  
The World

Abstract By way of a brief genealogy of the Jewish American literary field and through the lens of recent attempts to imagine how comparative literature-based thinking about a concept of “world literature” can be critically productive for Jewish literary study, this article analyzes Jewish American literary studies’ prestige problem. Because it has persistently failed to theorize the intellectual and methodological assumptions underlying its practice, Jewish American literary study remains burdened by the essentialist implications of an ethnological historicism. This article ultimately argues that Jewish American literary study needs to take more seriously the possibilities offered by a materialist epistemology rather than the Jewish studies-based historicist ontology it has mostly taken for granted. “My hope is that a Jewish American epistemology can operate outside the penumbra of a tired and played-out concept of ethnicity—a term that unavoidably, if spectrally, posits a biologistic object at the heart of its historicist project—even as it might still claim the mantle of Jewish-y-ness.”

scholarly journals Ideologically-adapted Translations: Challenge for Adequacy, Need for Retranslation

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Aida Salamat Suleymanova
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Main Channel ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Central Authority ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
The World

Translation has always been regarded as the main channel for disseminating works of art, literature and culture. Throughout the history, Azerbaijani writers and poets have contributed to the world literature, as well as benefitted from the best literary masterpieces of the world by means of translation. The art of translation is the credit to the interaction between nations, cultures, and literatures in particular. However, the path of historical development of the national translation studies and translation practice in Azerbaijan has not always been smooth. Azerbaijan has for 70 years been a part of the USSR, and consequently all fields of human life, as well as translation activity were under strict control of the central authority. Ideological censorship imposed on culture, art and literature, particularly, on the literary translation can still be sensed today. The aim of this paper is to study the ideological deviations, adaptations and modifications in fiction translation during the Soviet period in Azerbaijan and to show why retranslation of such works is necessary in our country.

William Webb Ellis and the Origins of Rugby Football: The Life and Death of a Victorian Myth

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Four Corners ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Foreign Competitors

In the sense that myth is a reordering of various random elements into an intelligible, useful pattern, a structuring of the past in terms of present priorities, nineteenth-century Englishmen were inveterate myth-makers. As liberal and scientific thought shook the foundations of belief, the Victorians erected gothic spires as monuments to a medieval order of supposedly simple, strong faith. While their industrial masses languished, they extolled the virtues of self-made men. Confronted with foreign competitors and rebellious colonials, they instinctively asserted the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. In classic myth-making style, the Victorians set about “reorganizing traditional components in the face of new circumstances or, correlatively, in reorganizing new, imported components in the light of tradition.”Myth not only serves self-validating ends; it also provides a cohesive rationale, a fulcrum propelling people towards great achievements. If the Victorians were confident and self-congratulatory, they had cause to be: their material, intellectual, and political accomplishments were many. Not the least of their successes was in the sphere of sports and games, a subject often ignored by historians. Especially in the development of ball games—Association and Rugby football, cricket, lawn tennis, and golf—the Victorians modernized old games, created new ones, and exported them all to the four corners of the earth. Stereotyped as overly-serious folk, they in fact “taught the world to play.”Since sport, more than most forms of human activity, lends itself to myth-making, it is not surprising to find a myth emerging among the late-Victorians having to do with the origins of Rugby football. Like baseball's Doubleday myth, the tale of William Webb Ellis inspiring the distinctive game of rugby is a period piece, reflecting more of the era which gave it birth than of the event to which it referred.

scholarly journals CZECH-SLOVAK COMPARATIVE STUDIES “REBORN”. A NEW ASSOCIATION ON THE WAY

Porównania ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 339-348
Author(s):  
Miloš Zelenka
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
The World ◽  
New Association ◽  
The One ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Globalized World

The paper conveys information on the current state of Czech and Slovak comparatist thought as regards its methods, thematical orientation and institutional base. Czech and Slovak comparative research has always been a complementary whole embracing, on the one hand, the tradition of Slavonic studies grounded in structural aesthetics (S. Wollman) and, on the other, the endeavour to develop the theory of interliterarines and interdisciplinary study of the world literature (D. Ďurišin). Much to our regret, the disruption of this “symbiosis” at the turn of 1990s resulted in losing contacts with the rest of the world. Therefore the prime objective of the newly established Czech-Slovak Association of Comparative Literature, based in the Institute for World Literature SAV, Bratislava, is to encourage Czech and Slovak literary research. The constitutive members of this association already in 2013 participated in the 20th World Congress of Comparative Literature in Paris (AILC/ICLA) so as to present the English version of their World Literature Studies journal under the title Comparative Literary Studies as Cultural Criticism. The first joint conference of Czech and Slovak comparatists (Slavica Litteraria 18, 2015, No. 1) was held in Bratislava in February 2015. For our next event, the 21st AILC Congress in Paris 2016, Czech and Slovak scholars, together with their foreign colleagues, have prepared a joint panel presentation Old and New Concepts of Comparative Literature in the Globalized World. Convinced that theoretical and methodological discourse is carried on in various languages and power stands, present-day Czech and Slovak comparative research, while following the pillar traditions of the past, espouses modern inspirations that obviously relinquish historical poetics and the theory of interliterariness, bound for exploring new cultural identities, post-colonial and area studies.

World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jen Hui Bon Hoa
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Private Property ◽  
World Market ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Communist Manifesto ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American

In recent decades, world has emerged as one of the most fiercely contested concepts in literary studies. The more narrowly defined stakes of the debates over world literature concern the disciplinary mandate of comparative literature. One way of grasping the world as a problematic is in terms of a dispute over the correct unit of literary analysis. Should comparative literature scholars seek to illuminate broad historical patterns in the global circulation of influence as reflected, for example, in the morphology of literary genres or the adoption of tropes across different literary cultures? Or should they seek instead to come to grips with the singularity of the world—the unique systems of thought and meaning—presented in individual texts, using the methodology of close reading that offers a model for the ethical relation to otherness? The issue of scale is equally at play in the multiculturalist imperative to expand the literary canon beyond its traditional emphasis on European and Anglo-American traditions. While the general consensus is that undoing comparative literature’s Eurocentrism is crucial to the discipline’s continued relevance, the practical question of how to go about it has been contentious. If scholars are required to draw from a diversified literary canon, how can they attain the linguistic competence required to treat the enlarged field of inquiry with adequate hermeneutic care? The danger, according to some critics, is that world literature will normalize the study of literary texts in English translation. Another critique of such globalizing initiatives regards the value of diversity itself. Some have argued that conceiving of literary works as representatives of specific cultures or regions is itself a legacy of Orientalist Eurocentrism and that, therefore, a multiculturalist approach inadvertently entrenches the very problem it seeks to rectify. A range of political and ethical concerns are thus at stake in the endeavor to globalize comparative literature. Indeed, the concept of world literature has historically been bound up with an assessment of globalization’s liberatory potential and, increasingly, its oppressive effects. The emergence of world literature as a project or goal is often, though not always, traced back to Goethe at the beginning of the 19th century. Reflecting the Enlightenment value of universalism, Goethe’s evocation of Weltliteratur projects a world united through free literary exchange across borders and intercultural understanding. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels situate Goethe’s cosmopolitan vision in a materialist framework, presenting it as derivative of the economic transformations entailed in the world market. They also radicalize Goethe’s model of cosmopolitanism. Instead of an autonomous sphere of communication among the national literary traditions of the world, for them Weltliteratur stands metonymically for a future in which both the nation and private property—as manifested in the idea of national patrimony—are superseded by an internationalist commonwealth. Fleshing out the tension between Goethe’s and Marx’s visions of the globalized world, recent debates on world literature have generated productive confrontations between liberal humanistic, Marxist, deconstructive, and postcolonial perspectives on the gap between the world one inhabits and the world one wants.

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