scholarly journals Reading World Literature: Elliptical or Hyperbolic? The Case of Second-World National Literatures

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Andrei Terian
CounterText ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Sawhney

Engaging some of the questions opened by Ranjan Ghosh's and J. Hillis Miller's book Thinking Literature Across Continents (2016), this essay begins by returning to Aijaz Ahmad's earlier invocation of World Literature as a project that, like the proletariat itself, must stand in an antithetical relation to the capitalism that produced it. It asks: is there an essential link between a certain idea of literature and a figure of the world? If we try to broach this link through Derrida's enigmatic and repeated reflections on the secret – a secret ‘shared’ by both literature and democracy – how would we grasp Derrida's insistence on the ‘Latinity’ of literature? The groundlessness of reading that we confront most vividly in our encounter with fictional texts is both intensified, and in a way, clarified, by new readings and questions posed by the emergence of new reading publics. The essay contends that rather than being taught as representatives of national literatures, literary texts in ‘World Literature’ courses should be read as sites where serious historical and political debates are staged – debates which, while being local, are the bearers of universal significance. Such readings can only take place if World Literature strengthens its connections with the disciplines Miller calls, in the book, Social Studies. Paying particular attention to the Hindi writer Premchand's last story ‘Kafan’, and a brief section from the Sanskrit text the Natyashastra, it argues that struggles over representation, over the staging of minoritised figures, are integral to fiction and precede the thinking of modern democracy.


Author(s):  
Tahia Abdel Nasser

This chapter looks at the effects of autobiographical production in other languages and translation on the globality of national literatures and world literary study. It examines current theorisations of world literature and considers Arab autobiography within new literary systems.


Author(s):  
Olha Nikolenko

The theme of the Second World War and the Holocaust is one of the topical themes of contemporary fiction and cinema. Outstanding writers and directors of our time are turning to the embodiment of this tragic topic. They set themselves the task of comprehending the past and giving the third millennium generation spiritual experience that will help young people combat the manifestations of racism and xenophobia in the modern world. The article deals with the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by Th. Keneally, “The Children of Noah” by E.-E. Schmitt, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by J. Boyne, “The Book Tief” by M. Zuzak and movies that are based on these books. In the genres of a historic novel and psychological story based on the documents, the writers revealed the complicated social processes in Europe during 1930-1940. The writers described the historic events within the life of ordinary people who lived in the terrible circumstances of the totalitarian system. The symbols playedthe main role in revealing the subject of the Holocaust in the novels and films about the Second World War and the Holocaust. Thomas Keneally continued the traditions of romantic irony and added to it some social, psychological and philosophical meanings. The irony in the novel by Thomas Keneally “Schindler’s Ark” plays an important role in the investigation of European society in the tragic period of the 20thcentury. In the novels by Thomas Keneally irony takes place on the different levels such as plot, composition, imagology, time and space, style and language. T. Keneally broadens the meaning of irony and its function in the documentary and historic novel. The irony in the novel “Schindler’s Ark” maintains some main functions: social for explaining the anti-humanistic essence of fascism, war, racial hatred, research in investigating the tragedy of the Holocaust and its consequences, psychological in revealing the psychology of people of different social class, philosophical in discussing the important issues of human life in the word, axiological dealing with the values of mercy, morality, the ability to resist violence. T. Kenealy represents different forms of irony such as the irony of the narrator, the irony of the author, the combination of controversial documentary facts, the contradiction of phenomenon and notions, the comparison of the different points of view, self-irony, irony as inner enlightenment, catharsis. In the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by T. Kenealy the author of the article analyzed the traditions of world literature such as B. Brecht within the motive of personal financial profit from the war, N. Gogol within the motive of buying and selling the dead souls. The writer represented these motives in his own way as the events took place during the real historic time, and he found the inner power in people of past century to keep their life, humanity and culture on the Earth. The irony is a unique feature of T. Keneally’s individual style and it enriched the genre of novel.


Author(s):  
Vjollca Dibra Ibrahimi ◽  
Sejdi Sejdiu

Albanian literature written from the 1940s to the present day can be called contempo-rary Albanian literature, or in other words, World Literature after the Second World War. The allowed literature was the only method of socialist realism, which was ideol-ogized and politicized, i.e. subject to communist ideology and politics. It was not free literature, but entirely engaged in the service of socialism and communism. The meth-od of socialist realism had some very narrow and binding criteria for all those who thought of publishing their works. Such were the communist members, the positive hero and the struggle against foreign middle-class influences. In such a situation, we can say that it was purely subject to ideology and communist politics. Due to its very narrow scheme, most of the literary work written during this period had its own value and function during the period of the communist system. This type of literature form some writers was accepted with conviction, while others were used to compromise to publish their works. Although under very strict censure, many important works were published which could have been contrary to socialist realism. Such works were with an indirect expression or with a subtext, often in symbolic and allegorical forms. These works consist of some of the greatest values of contemporary Albanian literature, the first and the foremost authors of this kind of literature, their best works, publishers, and their echoes in the language of translation.


Letonica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viesturs Zanders

Keywords: books by Latvian exiles, publishing houses, translations, translators The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which Latvians in exile after the Second World War continued the existing tradition of translating and publishing world literature, which publishing houses and translators were the most productive, which authors were published most often, and how they were received in the émigré society. The range of translations was particularly wide and diverse in the 1940s and 1950s when a total of 265 books were published, of which eight were poetry and four were plays, with fiction accounting for the rest. During this period, a total of 27 translations of different authors were published. German authors were most widely represented (30), followed by French (27), Estonian and American (26 each), Norwegian and Swedish (23 each) authors. The publishers accounting for most of these were Grāmatu draugs and Tilts in the United States, Daugava in Stockholm, and Imanta in Copenhagen. In the 1940s and 1950s, authors whose books could never be published in Soviet-occupied Latvia (James Joyce, George Orwell, Albert Camus et al.) were published outside its borders. Yet the publishers in exile had to pay attention to the rather conservative tastes of the majority of their readership and its reservations about works created in the Soviet Union (e.g., Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak).


2021 ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
L. S. Mitina

The aim of this study is to define the concept of the title museality, the selection and analysis of relevant works of the world literature both separately and as a unified group of narratives, and determining the existence of a separate literary trend. Research methodology. The author uses analysis, synthesis, abstraction, concretization and generalization of scientific sources and literary texts with features of title museality. Results. The main characteristic evidence of the concept of “title museality” is determined and a group of literary narratives is identified. These features correspond to: “The Heritage” by Siegfried Lenz (Germany), “Outside the Dog Museum” by Jonathan Carroll (USA), “The Night at the Museum” by Milan Trenc (Croatia), “Behind the Scenes at the Museum” by Kate Atkinson (Great Britain), “The Museum of Innocence” by Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” by Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine) and “Museum of Thieves” by Lian Tanner (Australia). We considered and analyzed the museological features of each of these texts of the novel form, belonging to the seven national literatures of the world. The general and distinctive features of the considered works are revealed and their museological properties are established as a unified group of narratives. It is argued that the title museality is a trend in world literature of the last fifty years and this trend is steadily growing. Novelty. An attempt is made to formulate a new museal­literary concept, to highlight and analyze the relevant literary works as a unified group of narratives and identify a certain trend in world literature. The practical significance. The key results of this study can be used for further research of other literary works with signs of the title museum that is reviewed, and also other national literatures of the world. They also can be used in studying of museological aspects of the literary studies or literary aspects of the museology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Birus

Abstract Since the turn of the millennium the idea of “World Literature” has experienced a boom. This development is closely connected with the increasingly rapid globalization process, which began during the first few decades of the nineteenth century and led to the co-emergence of Weltliteratur and Littérature comparée in 1827. Goethe’s proclamation of the “Epoch of World Literature” created the impression that existing national literatures were to be supplanted; instead, however, the same period simultaneously witnessed the latter’s triumphant proliferation. Beecroft’s typology of the evolution of literary systems may assist in overcoming the rather pointless antithesis between world literature and national literatures. Since literary translation now plays an increasingly important role, it has become an indispensable factor contributing to the flourishing of world literature.


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