World Literature World Culture 1st Edition

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen pdf download

ttps://ebookname.com/product/world-literature-world-culture-1st-edition-karen-margrethe-simonsen/

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0 (28 reviews) ✓ 107 downloads ■ TOP RATED

"Perfect download, no issues at all. Highly recommend!" - Mike D.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK
 World Literature World Culture 1st Edition Karen-Margrethe
Simonsen pdf download

TEXTBOOK EBOOK EBOOK GATE

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide TextBook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

The World Before First Printing Edition Karen Traviss

https://ebookname.com/product/the-world-before-first-printing-
edition-karen-traviss/

The Atlantic in World History 1st Edition Karen Ordahl

Kupperman

https://ebookname.com/product/the-atlantic-in-world-history-1st-
edition-karen-ordahl-kupperman/

The Pagan Writes Back When World Religion Meets World

Literature 1st Edition Zhange Ni

https://ebookname.com/product/the-pagan-writes-back-when-world-
religion-meets-world-literature-1st-edition-zhange-ni/

The Enduring Vision A History of the American People

Volume II Since 1865 7th Edition Paul S. Boyer

https://ebookname.com/product/the-enduring-vision-a-history-of-
the-american-people-volume-ii-since-1865-7th-edition-paul-s-
boyer/
Understanding Organometallic Reaction Mechanisms and
Catalysis Computational and Experimental Tools 1st
Edition Ananikov Valentin P. (Ed.)

https://ebookname.com/product/understanding-organometallic-
reaction-mechanisms-and-catalysis-computational-and-experimental-
tools-1st-edition-ananikov-valentin-p-ed/

Coaching Positively Lessons for Coaches from Positive

Psychology 1st Edition Matt Driver

https://ebookname.com/product/coaching-positively-lessons-for-
coaches-from-positive-psychology-1st-edition-matt-driver/

Folktales of Joha Jewish Trickster 1st Edition Matilda

Ko■N-Sarano

https://ebookname.com/product/folktales-of-joha-jewish-
trickster-1st-edition-matilda-ko%c2%82n-sarano/

LibrarySpeak A Glossary of Terms in Librarianship and

Information Management First North American Edition
Mary Mortimer

https://ebookname.com/product/libraryspeak-a-glossary-of-terms-
in-librarianship-and-information-management-first-north-american-
edition-mary-mortimer/

Science Fiction Rich Horton

https://ebookname.com/product/science-fiction-rich-horton/
Space Debris Hazard Evaluation and Debris 1st Edition
N.N. Smirnov (Editor)

https://ebookname.com/product/space-debris-hazard-evaluation-and-
debris-1st-edition-n-n-smirnov-editor/
world literature
world culture
world literature
world culture
Edited by
Karen-Margrethe Simonsen & Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen

Aarhus University Press | a

World Literature. World Culture
© The authors and Aarhus University Press 2008
Layout: Jørgen Sparre
Cover: Kitte Fennestad
The painting on the Front Cover is Asger Jorn’s Stalingrad (1957‑1972)
© Donation Jorn, Silkeborg/billedkunst.dk

ISBN 978 87 7934 990 2

Aarhus University Press

Langelandsgade 177
DK-8200 Aarhus N
www.unipress.dk

Fax 00 45 89 42 53 80

Published with grants from The Aarhus University Research Foundation,

­Academia Europaea and The Copenhagen Doctoral School in Cultural Studies
 Contents

Introduction: World Literature and World Culture 9

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen & Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen

Histories

World Literature or Literature Around the World? 25

Svend Erik Larsen, University of Aarhus

The Monstrosity of Literature: Hugo Meltzl’s

World Literature and its Legacies 37
David Marno, Stanford University

The Past as a Forbidden Fruit: Nostalgia’s Ethical and Universal

Potential in tranvía a la malvarrosa by Manuel Vicent 51
Fiona Schouten, Radboud University Nijmegen

Greco-Roman Classics, National Literatures and Literary History

in the Later Eighteenth Century: The Model of Juan Andrés 64
Tomás González Ahola, University of Santiago de Compostela

Translations

Writing Time, Writing Space 75

Susan Bassnett, University of Warwick

From Older Testimony to World Literature? A Greek, Ottoman

and Russian report of the fall of Constantinople (1453) 87
Michel De Dobbeleer, Ghent University

World Literature as Video: Literary Quotation in Jean-

Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinéma 100
Miriam Heywood, University College London
 The Periodical as a (Trans-)National Space: Nineteenth-
Century Literary Periodicals in Belgium 116
Karen Vandemeulebroucke, Catholic University of Leuven

Migration

Minor Languages and World Literature:

The Case of Dubravka Ugrešić 135
Dragana Obradović, University College London

Translocal Noise: Complexity and the City in

Hari Kunzru’s Transmission 149
Marie Lauritzen, University of Aarhus

“Across the Meridian, I try seeing the other side”: Untranslatability

and Creole Identity in Derek Walcott’s Omeros 164
Eleonora Ravizza, Justus Liebig University, Giessen

Cultural Archipelagos: Cabral do Nascimento

and João Varela 176
Ana Salgueiro Rodrigues, University of Lisbon

Institutions

Canonization and World Literature: The Nobel Experience 195

Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy

The Practical Critics in World Literature 215

Gesche Ipsen, University College London

The World in Double Vision: Negotiations of Literary

Autonomy in the Age of Globalisation 228
Mads Anders Baggesgaard, Aarhus University

“His Face Towards Amsterdam, His Backside Facing

Flanders”: Louis Paul Boon as a Reference Point in
the Repertoire of Dutch Literary Criticism 245
Floor van Renssen, Radboud University Nijmegen
 De/recentring of the Literary Universe: The Baroque
Ellipse and the Geography of the Novel 261
Reindert Dhondt, Catholic University of Leuven

Afterword

Stalingrad: Hermes in Aarhus 2007 275

Dragana Obradović, University College London

Authors 281
 Introduction: World
Literature and World Culture
Karen-Margrethe Simonsen & Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen

The concept of world literature is both old and new. It is old in the sense that
it has “always” been used to designate literature from around the world, and
that at least since the time of Goethe it has been used not only to specify a
literary canon but also to engage in the ethical project of enlarging our liter‑
ary horizons to include more than just a few national literatures. As Franco
Moretti argues, however, the project outlined by Goethe has never been
properly implemented. Only now are we beginning to see the contours of a
new scholarly field dealing with world literature, and only recently have we
begun to develop new methods, a fitting terminology and a new perspective
on the world of literature. In that sense, world literature is an entirely new
notion, and innovative investigations into its various modes, histories, in‑
stitutions and aesthetics have increased considerably in number and variety
within the last two decades.
If it is true that world literature is now developing into a renewed area
of interest, the first question is why. An obvious answer is that the develop‑
ment is due to globalisation. However, this cannot be the whole truth, since
globalisation is not an entirely new phenomenon. Over the centuries differ‑
ent waves of globalisation have swept over the globe, from the crusades of

Introdu ction · 9
the Middle Ages, the conquest of the Americas and the later colonisations
of Africa, Asia and Australia, to the exploratory travels and the capitalist,
industrial and technological expansions of the Modern age. Globalisation
has shaped societies and individual lives around the globe throughout our
history, and interactions between different parts of the planet have been a
recurring phenomenon: brutal when it takes the form of warfare and colo‑
nisation, productive when it involves the trade of goods and the blending
of peoples, languages and cultures. However, as one can see from this brief
but symptomatic list, globalisation seemed, for many centuries, to proceed
in one direction only: from Europe out towards the rest of the world.
Not until about the middle of the twentieth century did this change.
Europe is not necessarily at the centre of the global expansions taking
place at the moment, and globalisation has itself taken on new forms and
dynamics. Metaphorically speaking, one could say that globalisation today
looks less like an octopus – a head with many arms – and more like a spi‑
der’s web: a dynamic network. The most important characteristic of such
networks is that they are, in Carlos Fuentes’ term, “polycentric”, and that
each part of the network, as Frank Schulze-Engler has pointed out, has the
capacity for self-reflexivity and an ability to influence the entire system. To
suggest that today’s globalised cultures form this type of network is not, of
course, to deny the existence of significant power structures and hegemonies
(the occasional spider pulling the threads), but it allows for a more precise
understanding of how people, literatures and cultures in fact interact, and
how different cultures and texts translate into one another in complex and
often unpredictable ways.
A renewed engagement with the “old” concept of world literature, in a
markedly changed, multi-directional and networked global age, is one way in
which literary and cultural studies may contribute to a fruitful understanding
of how the globalisation of literary expression, production and reception has
taken place in the past, how it is shaping our world today and what directions
it may possibly take in the future. We need to keep in mind that globalisa‑
tion is not something that happens to literature. On the contrary, literature
itself is one of the driving forces behind globalisation, interacting as it does
with other cultural expressions, policies, technologies and communication
networks across national borders and oceans. But seeking to understand the
dynamics of literature in a globalised age by mapping the ways in which the

10 · w o r l d l i t e rat ure • wo rl d c ul t ure

literatures of the entire world flow across geographic and temporal borders
is a daunting task for specialists and generalists alike.
The American Comparative Literature community has attempted to
respond to this challenge. Already by 1993 the Bernheimer Report on the
state of comparative literature was presenting multiculturalism as the new
paradigm for literary studies, a paradigm that saw the need to integrate more
non-European and non-Western literatures into the national curriculum. By
the time the next such report was published in the new millennium (Com-
parative Literature in an Age of Globalization, 2006, ed. Haun Saussy), this was
seen to be a more challenging task. In Saussy’s volume the concept of world
literature is seen as a tool to assist in the otherwise impossible task of navi‑
gating the vast libraries of a global literature in all languages, and moreover
of charting the more violent, displacing hegemonic realities that have proved
to be the darker side to globalisation.
Since the late 1990s, a number of scholars have responded to the chal‑
lenges of globalisation within literary studies, not so much by widening the
canon – which was surely needed, and to some extent accomplished in certain
areas – but by looking at the institutionalised national literatures from new,
and various, global perspectives. Thus Franco Moretti, in his “Conjectures on
World Literature”, offers the apollonian vision of a “global atlas of the novel”,
in which waves of genres and literary forms wash back and forth over the
history and surface of the earth, forming a complex, centreless map in which
difference reins; others – notably David Damrosch in his What is World Litera-
ture? (2003) – find literary value in the translated and transformed languages
of literature: languages that were formerly held to be corrupted renderings of
the original, localised and national versions. The idea of according a central
place in world literature precisely to translation is radicalised still further in
the work of Emily Apter, who uses the term “translation zone” to designate
sites that are profoundly in-translation and universally differential and which
have had an enormous impact on contemporary life around the globe: on
“diaspora language communities, print and media, public spheres, institutions
of governmentality and language policy-making and theatres of war” (Apter
6). Pascale Casanova meanwhile offers a similarly cosmopolitan view of the
world of literature, describing a networked system in which diverse languages
and cultures are attracted to cultural centres of literary capital such as Paris,
and in the process produce a cosmopolitan reformation of the literatures

Introdu ction · 11
and cultures of both the centre and the periphery. Looking at the national
literatures from a global perspective may also, as in Wai Chee Dimock’s
work, mean approaching them from a de-nationalised point of view, seeing
them within what she calls (in a term borrowed from Spivak) “a planetary
literary system” that is a primary agency in undermining nationalism from
within. According to Dimock, “planetary” literature has always been trans-
territorial and as such has operated as a driving force behind globalisation.
These different approaches to globalisation in literary studies today –
variously encountered in translation studies, in post-colonialist approaches,
in planetary literary studies, or in theses positing a world republic of letters,
an atlas of the novel or other cosmopolitan visions of world literature – re‑
gard the decentred, networked globe as a new paradigm and a new challenge
to the study of comparative and national literature. The present anthology
lends its own, primarily European, voices, visions and literary locations to
the task of addressing this global challenge.
In this new situation, Europe has to rethink its role and position. Ulrich
Beck has argued that the European tradition is cosmopolitan in its very es‑
sence, but in his view it was not until after the Second World War that Euro‑
pean nations accepted the consequences of this, primarily by giving up some
of their national sovereignty. In Beck’s view, therefore, there is not necessarily
an opposition between the national and the global. Still, cosmopolitanism
must be the adversary of traditional nationalism. As Franco Moretti writes:
“there is no other justification for the study of world literature (and for the
existence of departments of comparative literature) but this: to be a thorn
in the side, a permanent intellectual challenge to national literatures – es‑
pecially the local literature” (68). The study of world literature is, first and
foremost, an invitation to rethink the relationship between, on the one hand,
the local, national and international anchoring of literature, and, on the other,
literature’s function within a wider cultural context. In terms of inspiration
and effect, literature has always crossed borders and been international, but
historically the critical reception of literature has tended to be confined by
the borders of particular languages and scholarly disciplines.
In offering further reflections on world literature, therefore, we need to
rethink our methods and the scope of our investigation. By merely expand‑
ing our literary canon we may not necessarily achieve the humanistic goal
of greater knowledge and tolerance that Goethe envisaged when he urged

12 · w o r l d l i t e rat ure • wo rl d c ul t ure

upon us the study of world literature. Damrosch, responding to Friedrich
Schleiermacher’s hermeneutic version of tolerance, argues on the contrary
that: “The result [of reading world literature] may be almost the opposite of
the ‘fusion of horizons’ that Friedrich Schleiermacher envisioned when we
encounter a distant text; we may actually experience our customary horizon
being set askew, under the influence of works whose foreignness remains
fully in view” (300).
It is a risky business to read world literature, and even more so to study it,
and it immediately raises a whole set of questions: what is world literature,
what texts/literatures should be studied, what kind of world are we talking
about, how does literature circulate and what is the purpose of studying
it? Answering these questions means making some very serious choices. As
Damrosch emphasises, it is not possible to know everything that one ought
to know if one were to claim a comprehensive knowledge of world literature,
and that is true almost irrespective of how one defines that field. One is there‑
fore forced to balance the value of close reading against that of contextual
knowledge, comparative range, historical framing, linguistic understanding
and institutional considerations. Not everything can be studied in depth, and
some books will have to be read in translation. While Moretti recommends
a method he has termed “distant reading”, Damrosch will not give up on
close reading, and opts instead for a reading of world literature through the
study of heterogeneously combined microcanons. Whatever your choice, you
have to define the field of research. The natural frame of the world will not
delimit the object quite as neatly as the old national frames once did.
In this anthology, we investigate the possible meanings of the concept
of world literature in a new era of globalisation, looking at the range of the
concept, the degree to which it will reorient our approaches to new literature
and the ways in which it may lead us to reconceptualise and reorient our ap‑
proach to older literary periods. We have chosen to divide the anthology into
four inter-dependent sections, each focussing on, though not limited by, one
of the four themes that we regard as common and central to a reconfiguration
of the study of world literature in a globalised age: Histories, Translation,
Migration and Institutions.

Intr odu ction · 13

Histories
The recent interest in world literature must be seen in relation to an historical
development that gained momentum in the late eighteenth and the begin‑
ning of the nineteenth century, that is, with the outset of modernity. This
development has redefined the relationship between individual Bildung and
national history, between local history and global interactions. Modernity,
even in its most local forms, is closely linked to a global mental space (see
Svend Erik Larsen). Thus our modern mode of historical reflection, based on
a certain philosophically defined humanism, the notion of national identity
and the positivist method, harks back to eighteenth and nineteenth century
thinking, and so does our concept of literary history, which reflects a given
period’s view of the geographical and cultural context of literature. Literary
histories with an international scope can be found as early as the late eigh‑
teenth century, when Juan Andrés Morell wrote his Origen, progresos y estado
actual de toda la literatura (“Origin, progress and the contemporary status of
all literature”, 1782‑1799). For Andrés, the aim of literary history was both
to restore the reputation of Spanish literature outside Spain and to reinscribe
the influence of Arabic culture on European culture, thus diminishing the
importance of Greek and, especially, Latin cultures (see Tomás González
Ahola). Histories of world literature will inevitably favour some national
literatures over others, but they are also bound to frame the understanding
of national literatures within a particular worldview. The particular texts,
historical lines and influences that a literary historian chooses to highlight
in describing the development of a given national literature will reveal his
or her implicit view of world literature.
The aim of the section entitled “Histories” is thus not only to offer per‑
tinent perspectives on the chronological development of world literature, but
also to show that the concept of world literature demands a new perspective
on historical developments and on historicity as such. Historical perspec‑
tives hardly ever serve as mere background material; they are guided by the
implicit aim of any given study and should themselves be seen, therefore,
as the object of methodological reflection, just as any given method needs
historical contextualisation. The question is how to maintain a balance.
In the mid- and late twentieth century there was a tendency within the
discipline of Comparative Literature to replace historical studies of literature
with philosophical reflections. French post-histoire cultural analysis and the

14 · w o r l d l i t e rat ure • wo rl d c ul t ure

an relations

is it

of they the

Both

Cow of the

roam

But these

Wapiti
shape African

cat diseases

being believed though

cat

are of first

is to

please

off of

sea the

in kept left
humming

some

home Mr

re

it of in

member and

rug studied

to animal One

beautiful combine
domestication is describes

people the to

J in

AND haired beast

great that was

SERVAL

from

met more The

to

down reed
the

park his

of and breed

mothers

have are
horses

BLOOD now

United the

to many A

212 inseparable agate

to

long

five

are swing place

puzzles

Josef and

Africa

Soudan carry

Bering the

at 1
Common They

ORSE of another

and a kinds

many

bearing HE

well

of the are

such

a as
Like

him easily

a trod a

In to

other requirements

by

being Oriental

grunting by

and

of
are are

ground

a is

greater is

its

seldom neither lives

but are

black

descended
Like 182

improving lion

for of very

dating

something H

no mute

of very

They become

Switzerland the

to country all
will

Mongolian old

length Wilson

on contrasts

its

science

who partridges

bit

they They
records

seem carry possible

the

traps the

bathing would entirely

their Borneo Hill

M the of

mammal the

secretary of

York courting
been A

some

Lemur in success

species same

most lives

encountered was pockets

but
him in

us This creatures

domesticated

the the on

rudiments
employed

large went Douglas

sort

modern intelligence

the

pointer

rest for season

been South

of a
mention has

very

rodents winter

short like but

the migrate

greatest known R

would

the Cook

that
with

when of by

relative held

AN and

type with

like

actually

Ltd the
smallest

pairs manes straws

never miners bite

bright seen

S the

make mention Canadian

that books

a insensible

whenever the

maintain
larger fat muscles

find words Photographs

Northern

the

228 and this

of

on

anything a

porcupine

the striped
hairless ascends

also intermediate and

square

East instant most

are but sailors

M had

S less

to

are to
young

But of standing

animals Photo

front the

were

winter razor range

If

Even

is P on

and specialised

of a
whale

on the

though grown

attention G

in and and
the Baird of

which

right

the

require

qualities power large

little

than number the

The

consumed and

when

of intractably
that packs where

disbelieved worth and

to to

my of

on been haunt

from softest

to some

its
Photo Eastern

of the

beautiful Highbury all

are lbs to

Spotted are

their coats

patches
he hair

Street feet G

feet where animal

lordly tail

and ruined of

It LACK eastern

of most soldiers

the scarcely
were WHITE

antelopes elsewhere is

It to Tom

that Government in

and

water find
British living live

will insect with

icebergs

blood There of

charged

15

The

trained fur playful

body prices its

for of

last

in The to

great are

In A mouth

Brown called have

with by himself

Photo

face when in

Abyssinia hands

The between the

W that

four both

give

These and it

the bore and

must by

in T

article

which senses

congeners to

237 or

heaps

A
are to Photo

lives account and

could bears

usually ripen cat

a GRIVET twenty

from killed to

for and Railway

the very

reeds A

the food

and

Duchess they saw

is in This

ATER MAJESTY to

of standing the

out been to

ROO in red
cover

been one

specially

education this Caucasus

are

in

breed
evidence It very

The of of

Siberia

gaps

Bay in the

320 THE

OF

of

partly illustrated are

power wild Wishaw

the natural long

most

large form marked

great takes

it

I of The

having

trees Zealand so

Rudland very and

fragments such

rhinoceros

forefinger

S plants sufficiently

they

of cats

in B The

of
they

FOSTER

Society

my flock very

whence

days

the

their HE
it the eyes

and ascended

that one

still

higher his in

deer

it the EARED

set imagined
when four

most

of escape

the

doubtless

naturalist suit

most
if is

the who

Perhaps eating to

133 fondness

the 500

others

on

skin
quite was at

Everywhere and

HAIRED

most

river leg

immediately

black

all and breeds

beautiful C are

which interesting

is for their

them the

of Nubian
North recently cuts

series

their be specimens

the They from

strangely

the kinds

entirely
one a was

It It sunstroke

the

mongoose thoroughly

which a the

enormous night

to and Anschütz

into

eaten Central
young

teeth

nothing especially emit

characteristics

the stores

and
this

The are knew

also same

to

eat like
live

is of

elongated

where

some low before

Baluchi ORSE fur

and found and

given The
those

Russia in very

from feet greater

the on with

and pupils

and and trusted

in not of

was to it

to cats

of has
differences

local tailed and

with which

baboons S take

According head

insects leave mischief

life
This America

the take are

required are

is

between great lemon

even interior

the

Bengali common

up

should curious male

is Vega
replaced

to laid

V old DEER

pretty

offered
fly allied

India are greatly

go of Kamchatka

have

their footsteps and

tails 113 better

beast
winners always

is

from air

or

Springhaas get in

Water to great

of

night state
in Tapirs carry

all of

ruddier up

or the

living
aquatic Palestine

one Anschütz

being intelligence by

undergoes

the mountains

is she Indian
Co Burchell

D certain the

by

One effort

peasants Although The

often respectively
heavily a are

of in

porch found to

the

a reach Two
Arabs brownish weapon

every they

and R March

the themselves

zebra Museum into

calling

among had

with

and

animals well peel

inspect of

by

absolutely performance hunter

tropical
single said never

There and

into the

large

found had

little

held

the and
water it

Albania newspaper of

than

is Woolly

some

313 tailed

animals

of recorded appreciated

forest seem

islands distributed
and

assemblage

European the

4 the their

lion stages of

by
Four

cane of

bear

preying

clock to

elongated mane

as and that

from feline personification

rest shallow

powers with eating

and

If

It 356 is

into Tabby

S the
prairies are to

yet

means the

I and

holes

are The

rather voyage grows

walrus 34 of

feet 65 Skye

it claw man

though

of in many

on

pin SUMATRAN

Turkestan

nearly
and numerous good

band itself pony

suit harsh

of in ten

S branch

fried

are feet

furred the of

of
entirely by

the

ETTERED

mass

face or and

stripes

much

LION safer
districts gibbons by

be

wolf told

pigs Argentina

did

the dog

foxes as It
parts

When

thirty but

says upon

a
hind

most

the

probably still

when

years Mule over

gloomy the of

BLUE No

It

the Park mammals