The 1960s and Paradise Lost in Korean

This chapter chronicles one of the most recent language traditions to participate in translation of Milton’s works: Korean. Close readings of the two landmark full translations of Paradise Lost of 1963 reflect the leadership of the South Korean government and Korean scholars to make available foreign literature, even highly provocative and Christian works. Korea’s socio-political moment is evinced in such elements as these translations’ characterizations of Satan and uses of Japanese translations as complements to English source texts. It is also seen in their production not as stand-alone publications or personal initiatives but rather as components of world literature anthologies by major Korean publishers cooperating with the Korean government and, by extension, with US funding and direction.

Under Children's Eyes: Becoming Pious in Tayeb Salih and Pramoedya Ananta Toer Short Stories

This research seeks to discuss how child characters navigate their interactions with the adults in two short stories set in the predominantly Islamic society of Sudan and Indonesia. It examines Tayeb Salih’s “A Handful of Dates” (1964) and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s “Circumcision” (1950) by locating both texts in World Literature which is largely Western or Eurocentric. Both short stories belong to the genre of initiation fiction often included in world literature anthologies. This paper argues that both authors help contribute to not only the rethinking of World Literature concept and circulation thereof, but also balanced view of heterogonous, multicultural Muslim society. Using post-Genette focalization theory as conceptual framework, this study finds out that the child narrators play distinct roles as (1) the perceptual focalizer to reveal injustice and frivolity of the adults’ world; (2) the ideological focalizer to make meaning of children’s faith through their relationship with the grown-ups. [Penelitian ini bertujuan membahas bagaimana tokoh anak berinteraksi dengan orang-orang dewasa dalam dua cerita pendek dari negara berpenduduk mayoritas Islam, Sudan dan Indonesia. Karya Tayeb Shalih, "A Handful of Dates"[Segenggam Kurma] (1964) dan karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer "Sunat" (1950) dikaji dengan menempatkan kedua teks dalam Sastra Dunia yang cenderung berkiblat ke dunia Barat dan Eropa. Kedua cerita pendek bergenre fiksi inisiasi ini sering diikutkan dalam antologi sastra dunia. Makalah ini menunjukkan bahwa kedua penulis memberikan kontribusi dalam penafsiran ulang konsep dan peredaran Sastra Dunia, serta pandangan yang lebih seimbang terhadap masyarakat Muslim yang heterogen dan multikultural. Menggunakan Teori Fokalisasi Pasca-Genette sebagai kerangka konseptual, studi ini menyimpulkan bahwa tokoh anak dalam kedua cerpen memainkan peran yang berbeda sebagai (1) focalizer (penyuara) perseptif yang mengungkapkan ketidakadilan dan kedegilan dunia orang dewasa; (2) penyuara ideologis yang memaknai keimanan anak lewat relasi dengan orang-orang dewasa.]

Anthologizing Arabic Literature

This paper examines the ways in which Arabic literature has been introduced into world literature anthologies. Taking The Longman Anthology of World Literature as a case study, the paper questions the politics of the inclusions and exclusions of Arabic literature in the anthology. Pertinent to the discussion is to ponder the nature of Arabic literature that “makes it” into the anthology. In addition, the paper will demonstrate how the anthology in fact obscures, rather than illuminates, major historical trajectories of Arabic literature. The complexity of Arabic literature, its highly self-reflexive texts, and its internal developments throughout history beg for a different approach that, I argue, this world literature anthology is lacking. Equally significant, The Longman recycles several common orientalist clichés about Arabic literature, the most important of which is that there is no Arabic literature worthy of inclusion in the three volumes of the anthology spanning the thirteenth-nineteenth centuries. As for the pieces that are included, the paper will reflect on the size and space they are offered, arguing that these are not arbitrary choices, but rather indicative of how a non-Western literary tradition is appropriated into a world literature anthology.

Ipotesi su lamartine. Contributo alla storia del "populismo"

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), removed from history manuals of political thought and confined to literature anthologies, is here discussed in the light of the hypothesis of a possible "resurrection". The battles of the Thirties - in particular the proposal for a politique naturelle, improbable mix of liberalism, Catholicism and democracy - now sound irreparably outdated. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that other cues of his public career help to historically understand one of the greatest dilemmas of our times: the populist drifting. The famous speech of 6 October 1848, read in the light of the most recent literature, suggests, in fact, to deem Lamartine not only as a "missing link" within the development of this phenomenon, but perhaps as the real initiator, at least from a theoretical point of view, of modern populism.