The Challenges of Writing a National Literary History in the Era of Transnationalism: Insights from a Peripheral Literary Space

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 14-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Snejana Ung
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
Literary System

It goes without saying that during the nineteenth and twentieth century literary historiography tries to define national identities. However, a methodological and paradigm shift occur at the beginning of the twenty-first century when, under the auspices of globalization and the emergence of world literature and transnational literary studies, literary historiography is re-thought as a collective and transnational project. Yet, the asymmetry of the world literary system affects literary historiography too. When it comes to this scholarly genre, the asymmetry is most visible in the fact that in the era of transnationalism, national histories are still written at the periphery. Given the aforementioned observation, this paper a) looks into the challenges of writing literary history in Romania in the age of world literature and transnational studies, and b) tries to explain why a national literary history is still needed and how it can change the way we think about Romanian literature. The starting point of this inquiry is represented by the publication of Mihai Iovănel’s Istoria literaturii române contemporane: 1990-2020 [History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020]. In the context of the ‘transnational turn’ in literary studies, the attempt to write relevant national histories in a peripheral literary space such as Romania is faced, in my view, with two major challenges: 1) the fact that transnationalism manifests itself differently at the periphery and 2) the tradition of Romanian literary criticism and history. The former refers to the fact that unlike central literatures, where transnationalism is shaped to a large extent by migrant writers (those who enter these literatures), in Romanian literature it comprises exiled or migrant writers (those who left Romania and not vice versa) and, to a lesser extent, the literatures written by ethnic minorities. A comparative approach can cast light on this difference. For example, while the thirteenth volume of The Oxford English Literary History is dedicated entirely to migrant and bicultural writers, transnational histories concerning the peripheries, such as History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, focus on multiple literary spaces and therefore have a different approach to dealing with transnationalism. The latter challenge is represented, as shown by Iovănel, by the long-lasting tradition of the “principle of aesthetic autonomism”, which persists even in post-communist Romania. In this regard, this paper aims to show that Iovănel’s History… overcomes the above-mentioned hindrances of literary criticism and succeeds in offering an image of Romanian literature not as confined to its national boundaries but as part of the world literary system. Along with other significant scholarly works on Romanian literature as and in world literature, this project is a significant step towards re-thinking Romanian literature as a “literature of the world” (Terian 2015).

scholarly journals The Early Stage of Buryat-Mongol Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 320-337
Author(s):  
Elizaveta E. Baldanmaksarova
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Buddhist Culture

The article examines the genesis of Buryat literature, which is key to the modern literary studies of Buryatia. Its aim is to recreate the history of Buryat literature and place it in the cultural and philosophical context of the history of Mongolian ethnos. It is well known that the genesis of Buryat literature owes to the literary work as well as to the theoretical and literary research of the first Buryat scholars and writers from among the Buddhist clergy. The search, introduction, and study of literary works written by Buryat authors in the 18 th — early 20 th centuries is one of the relevant research tasks that opens new perspectives for modern Buryat literary criticism and for humanities in general. The emergence and development of Buryat literature is closely connected with the spread of Buddhist culture, the Buddhist vision of the world, therefore it should be studied in the context of Buddhist aesthetic thought. The article pays special attention to the literary history of Mongolians that, since the 13 th century, has been developing in the context of multilateral literary ties and contacts. It examines the following typical genres: travelogue, hagiographic, hymn poetry, subhashita, and poem.

scholarly journals Transnational literary history? Dutch-speaking writers in Karel van het Reve’s ‘ventistic’ Geschiedenis van de Russische Literatuur [History of Russian Literature]

Werkwinkel ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Michel De Dobbeleer
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Abstract In his Geschiedenis van de Russische literatuur [History of Russian Literature, 1985] the famous Dutch Slavist and essayist Karel van het Reve, links Russian writers, such as Gavriil Derzhavin and Aleksei Pisemskii to Dutch and Flemish ones, such as Vondel and Willem Elsschot. Further on, in the chapter on Lev Tolstoi, Multatuli’s Max Havelaar is cited, although it is clear from the start that none of these Dutch-speaking authors could have had any influence on the Russian writers to whom Van het Reve devotes his colourful chapters. In this article I explore the ‘transnational’ potential of Van het Reve’s self-willed literary-historiographical approach. It turns out that Van het Reve mentions most of these Dutch-speaking authors rather to indicate - directly or indirectly - that he (dis)likes them, than to contribute to the achievements of comparative literature. Both in his choice of authors and his way of practicing literary historiography Van het Reve manifests himself as a proponent of the vent (cf. the well-known vorm of vent or manner or man discussion). Nevertheless, some of his observations could be considered as transnational constellations (in the world-literature sense of the term).

Introduction: In Defence of Paraphrase

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Patrick Fessenbecker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
Aesthetic Structure

How did “reading for the message,” a mark of shame among literary critics, yet in many ways an ordinary reading practice, become so marginalized? The origins of this methodological commitment ultimately are intertwined with the birth of literary studies itself . The influential aestheticist notion of “art for art’s sake” has several implications crucial for understanding the intellectual history of literary criticism in the twentieth century: most important was the belief that to “extract” an idea from a text was to dismiss its aesthetic structure. This impulse culminated in the New Critical contention that to paraphrase a text was a “heresy.” Yet this dominant tradition has always co-existed with practical interpretation that was much less formalist in emphasis. A return to the world of American literary criticism in 1947, when Cleanth Brooks’s The Well-Wrought Urn was published, shows this clearly: many now-forgotten critics were already practicing a form of criticism that emphasized literary content, and often overly rejecting Brooks’s insistence that reading for the content or meaning of a poem betrayed its aesthetic nature.

scholarly journals Perkembangan Teori Sastra (Suatu Pengantar)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felta Lafamane
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Reading ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Nature

AbstractNormatively, literary studies are divided into several fields, namely literary theory, literary history, literary criticism, comparative literature and literary studies. Literary theory studies people's views of literature. Literary history seeks to compile and study literary works as part of the process of intellectual history in one society. The history of literary theory can be seen as part of philosophical thinking because the history of literary theory itself is the same as the history of human thought towards art or literary objects which emphasize the more practical nature of the translation of concepts. Literary theory itself can essentially be equated with the science of beauty or aesthetics. Science and theory are certainly one different thing. With such an assumption, writing the history of literary theory is the same as writing aesthetic history in the field of literary arts. However, the history of the theory needs to be known and understood so that there are no mistakes in thinking about these two things. Literary theory itself has various meanings along with the paradigm it carries. Literary theory is defined as a set of ideas and methods used to practice literary reading. Literary theory is also interpreted as a way or step to understand literature. The views in literary theory also experience changes along with the development of human thinking.Keyword: development, literary theory, history, literature

scholarly journals “The point is to change it”: The Imperative for Activist Literary Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Christian Smith
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The task undertaken in this paper is to discover a means by which the practice of literary criticism can derive an imperative for activism that confronts and changes the social conditions it critiques. The case of Karl Marx’s use of world literature in his critique of capitalism and the state, set within the history of the development of continental philosophy, is explored through a close-reading of its interterxtuality. Particular attention is paid to Marx’s use of quotations from and allusions to world literature, including Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe and Heine, to register the harmful inversions caused by an economy based on money and commodities. If literature registers the contradictions of its time in its form and content, then the urge to resolve those contradictions sits restless in literature. When Marx inserts literature into his theoretical texts, he transfers into his text the impulse of the contradiction to resolve itself. Similarly, literary criticism is well-placed to unfold clear, obvious and necessary logic which leads to activism.

Eurafrasiachronologies

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Alexander Beecroft
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Temporal Dimension ◽  
Old World ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Literature Theory

Critical accounts of World Literature theory often speak of the dangers of “Eurochronology,” of the tendency to impose the narrative (and teleology) of the history of European cultures upon other regions of the world. This temporal dimension of Eurocentrism is of course to be avoided assiduously. At the same time, a synthetic reading of the literary histories of many of the larger cultures of premodern Eurasia suggests that there may in fact be room for a “Eurasiachronology,” or indeed a “Eurafrasiachronology,” which would identify parallels and connections across the entire so-called “Old World,” and offer a chronological basis for thinking about world literary history in a comparative way.

scholarly journals O krok do Nobla i krok po nim – recepcja twórczości Olgi Tokarczuk na Ukrainie

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-162
Author(s):  
Olesia Nachlik
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The World

The paper distinguishes and analyses the interpretative dominants in the Ukrainian reception of Olga Tokarczuk’s work over the last twenty years or so. This reception comprises numerous interviews, public conversations, translations and their presentations, literary criticism and literary studies dissertations, revealing the specificity of the point of view Poland’s neighbouring culture has on works which are now part of the world literature canon.

Genre Practice in Literary Historiography: A Romanian Case

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Ana Țăranu
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Genre Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

Premised on the pervasiveness of generic categories within literary historiography, the present analysis attempts to delineate the generic idioms present within three histories of Romanian literature (authored by G. Călinescu, Nicolae Manolescu and Mihai Iovănel, respectively). Engaging a descriptively historical, rather than theoretical, approach to genre and its metadiscourses, the paper begins with an abridged version of the cardinal disputes of genre criticism. Subsequently, it comparatively addresses the presence of genre within the three volumes, aiming to locate them within recognizable frameworks of genericity and to establish the overlapping territories of their generic landscapes. Thus, it distinguishes G. Călinescu as a practitioner of post-Romantic genre theory, further showcasing how some of his central aestheticist positions survive in Nicolae Manolescu’s moderately formalist account of the issue. Against the backdrop of their more conservative, teleological historiographical projects, Mihai Iovănel’s 2021 Istoria Literaturii Române Contemporane 1990-2020 [The History of Contemporary Romanian Literature 1990-2020] displays a distinct methodological apparatus, predicated on the author’s rejection of the paradigmatic autonomy of the aesthetic. His employment of materialist theories of art is corelative to a conception of genre as a contingent, empirically determined instrument of analysis, which, far from being a rhetorically stable, abstract category, actively mediates the relationship between social and aesthetic history. This shift engenders substantial amendments to the physiognomy of literary history as genre, enabling it to encompass extra-literary (and noncanonical) phenomena. Keywords: literary genres, literary history, Romanian literature, Mihai Iovănel.

Who’s afraid of Mihai Iovănel? Regimes of Relevance and New Literary Historiography

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 32-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ovio Olaru
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Production Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Autonomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
The One

The present article addresses Mihai Iovănel’s recently published History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 while pursuing a series of similarities with other contributions to postcommunist national literatures in the Central and Eastern European cultural space, on the one hand, and with previous ways of understanding the concept of literary history, on the other. The article argues that Iovănel’s History is one of the first to assess the importance of the social in the production, study, and national, as well as transnational dissemination of Romanian literature, an emphasis without which the study of literary phenomena risks falling into the blindness of aesthetic autonomy, whose shortcomings are well documented in the book. Lastly, I will argue that Iovănel unwillingly describes several of the most notable shifts in the “regimes of relevance” (Galin Tihanov) that literature has undergone from the communist period to contemporary times.

scholarly journals KOMPARATIV LITTERATURHISTORIE I DET UDVIDEDE FELT - STILLEHAVET SOM CASE

1970 ◽  
Vol 42 (117) ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
Frits Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
World Literature ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Global Challenges ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Point Of Departure

KOMPARATIV LITTERATURHISTORIE I DET UDVIDEDE FELT. STILLEHAVET SOM CASE | The article discusses status and perspectives for writing literary history based on an updated model for comparative literature. While the American re-launching of World Literature is not regarded to be a useful response to the global challenges facing literary historiography, it is proposed to re-evaluate the long history of comparatism in order to find models that match the current situation of literature in the expanded field. The article investigates narratives on expeditions in the Pacific Ocean from the 18th century. Here are outlined two models for comparison: One that leads toward cultural relativism and its problematic tendency to describe the compared societies as autonomous and closed, and another model, which can serve as a point of departure for grasping literature in both its historical and global conditions.

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