Footnotes: Why and how they become essential to world literature?

Abstract

Footnotes that include supplementary and cultural messages are necessary for world literature studies. In world literature studies, we always expect perspectives that are macro, summarizing and concise. Yet given the countless literary works worldwide and the mortality of human beings, to give a close reading of all literary works seems to be the least probable method even for the most talented scholar. With the help of those footnotes however, “distant” readings with a comprehensive and comparative perspective can also produce solid argument. For translations, footnotes expand the working domain of translators where they can put cultural and contextual information that is necessary for readers. They enable translators to preserve the “whole” original work without sacrificing the meaning, form or taste of it. The claim of “untranslatability” is thus invalidated.