Abstract
In current international comparative literature scholarship, Earl Miner’s significant contribution seems to be overlooked, although comparative poetics is still discussed periodically. To the author, Miner is not the first to shift critical attention from a traditional Eurocentric or West-centric mode to East-West comparative literature and theoretical studies. But he should, however, be regarded as having transcended what was achieved by his contemporaries such as René Étiemble, Douwe Fokkema and James Liu; and as having reached the level of general literary studies. His practice is close to current studies of world literature, although he seldom used this term. But the present discussion on the issue of world literature lacks the construction of world poetics. Inspired by Miner’s preliminary work, the author tries to continue his incomplete project and offer his own theoretical construction of such a world poetics as crossing the boundary of languages and cultures. To the author, even in today’s global cultural context, Miner’s legacy should still be considered important and pioneering in the construction of world literary theory.
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Notes
Cf. Abrams (1971), especially Chapter 1, pp. 8–29.
Cf. Greenblatt (1989, pp. 1–14).
Miner (1990, p. 238).
Ibid., p. 7.
Ibid., p. 20.
Miner (1990, p. 216).
Ibid., p. 214.
In this regard, cf. Zhang (2011, pp. 319–327).
Cf. Wang (2010, p. 4).
Miller (2002, p. 33).
Ibid.
Miner (1990, p. 226).
Greenblatt (1989, p. 12).
Todorov (2007, pp. 16–17).
Cf. Miller (2002), especially pp. 1–10.
Said (1983), p. 226.
Cf. Liu (1975).
Miner (1990, pp. 230–231).
Ibid., pp. 232–233.
Ibid., p. 233.
Ibid., p. 234.
In this respect, cf. the special issue Comparative Literature: Towards a (Re)construction of World Literature I have edited for Neohelicon 38, 2(2011).
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The Second Sino-American Symposium on Comparative Literature was held in November 1987 in Princeton, Indiana and Stanford Universities; the third symposium was held at Tsinghua University in Beijing in August 2001; the fourth one was held at Duke University in October 2006; the fifth one was held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in August 2010, and the sixth one was held at Purdue University in May 2013.
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Wang, N. Earl Miner: comparative poetics and the construction of world poetics. Neohelicon 41, 415–426 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0255-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0255-8