Literary Theory as Radical Historicism?

This article highlights how the premises of the radical historicism of Galin Tihanov’s book The Birth and Death of Literary Theory (2019) are conditioned by developments within literary theory itself. For Tihanov, changes in literature’s perceived usefulness undermine the dominance of its perceived uniqueness, bringing about the demise of theoretical discourses aimed at determining that uniqueness. Exploring the tensions within Russian formalism and Prague structuralism that made possible the abandonment of the adherence to the doctrine of literary autonomy through specific uses of language, the author connects Tihanov’s notion of “regimes of relevance” with the concept of “regime” developed by Jacques Rancière. The intersection of these two theorizations of “regime” pinpoint the paradox at the heart of literary theory: the attempt to pose the question of artistic autonomy and specificity produces the dissipation of what was holding this autonomy together.

Branding the Open-minded Nation

In 2011, the Netherlands was invited to be the guest of honour at the Beijing Book Fair. This fair attracted controversy that revealed the tensions that exist between nation branding, public diplomacy, and literary autonomy: while its sponsor, the Ministry of Culture, regarded the fair as a perfect marketing opportunity, Amnesty International used the occasion to protest repression in China. Dutch authors invited to participate in the fair forged an alternative position by emphasizing their status as autonomous artists. However, an analysis of the debate in the Dutch media shows that both the Ministry, Amnesty International, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, and many authors interpreted the contact between Chinese and Dutch authors as a clash between an open(-minded) culture and a closed one.

Reading Pascale Casanova’s World Republic of Letters in Eastern Europe

The main focus of my article is to investigate the fate of Pascale Casanova’s translated work in the former communist literary spaces, where her theoretical argument about linguistic and historical dominance is a historical reality. I begin by examining the editorial decisions behind the translation of The World Republic of Letters into Romanian (2007, second ed. 2016) and the most representative echoes of this seminal book in several formerly communist countries (Romania, Serbia, Slovenia). I then test an essential concept in Pascale Casanova’s work: literary autonomy. Seen as a powerful tool to address the almost insurmountable break between textual singularity and its necessary historicity (Casanova 2005), literary autonomy can play an equally important role in investigating ideologically controlled literary spaces.

How Words Make Things Happen

Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker’s control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that “poetry makes nothing happen”) together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend. The argument is enriched by examples from speakers and writers of various sorts, with close readings of the quoted passages. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech acts propounded by J. L. Austin. “Speakers Who Convince Themselves” is the subject of Chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare’s characters, two by Milton’s Satan, and a character’s inward meditation in a novel by Henry James. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln comes in for extended treatment in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another.

The Countercanon

This chapter focuses on Adonis's Diwan al-shi'r al-'arabi [Anthology of Arabic Poetry], a three-volume florilegium published between 1964 and 1968 whose origins are in the dossiers of pre-Islamic poetry first published in Shi'r. The Diwan was the most consequential revision of the classical heritage undertaken by Adonis. It is a massive critical project that hews strictly to the original impetus of Shi'r, a movement based on the paired goals of literary autonomy and deprovincialization. How do these goals affect Adonis's decisions as an editor of the corpus of classical poetry? As a collection of citations from the turath, the Anthology is a work of internal translation in which source and target texts are exactly the same, though provided with a new context. The chapter suggests that while Adonis's countercanon seeks to restore those voices silenced by orthodoxy, his own choices, tailored to the needs of the present, impose their own exclusions and repressions.

The Failure of Consuelo’s Designs: Carlos Fuentes and Trompe l’Oeil Modernity

Este artículo estudia las tensiones entre los elementos barrocos y los elementos góticos en Aura (1962) de Carlos Fuentes. Estableciendo conexiones entre esta novela y La región más transparente (1958), el ensayo argumenta que en Aura Fuentes radicaliza la teatralidad de las formas barrocas y las góticas para señalar sus límites. Con el uso de la segunda persona singular, la novela desarrolla un concepto de modernidad que no se subordina a los modelos políticos existentes, un modelo parecido al arte anti-teatral en su variante pastoral estudiado por Michael Fried. Palabras clave: Carlos Fuentes, lo barroco, lo gótico, la antiteatralidad, la autonomía literaria The present study examines the tensions between Baroque and Gothic elements in Carlos Fuentes’ Aura (1962). Analyzing unstudied connections between La región más transparente (1958) and Aura, the essay argues that Fuentes radicalizes the theatricality of Baroque and Gothic forms in his novel in order to signal their limits. With his use of the second person singular to narrate the novel, he seeks to develop a new concept of modernity, one that would not be subordinated to already existing political models. This concept of literary form parallels the pastoral conception of antitheatrical art studied by Michael Fried. Keywords: Carlos Fuentes, Baroque, Gothic, antitheatricality, literary autonomy