Abstract
The aim of Gálik’s chapter is to briefly analyze the development of the concept of world literature from the beginning of the twenty-first century. He discusses essays following the comparative systemic approach of Dionýz Ďurišin and provides shorter or more extensive treatments of books or essays by other theorists, including those by Western authors: David Damrosch, Zhang Longxi, Haun Saussy, Franco Moretti, Alexander Beecroft, Pascale Casanova and Cézar Domínguez, as well as the Chinese scholars Yue Daiyun, Wang Ning, Xie Tianzhen, Wang Hongtu and some others. The problem of a “common denominator” for defining world literature is also discussed.
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Notes
- 1.
The English version of my paper “Some Remarks on the Concept of World Literature in 2000” appeared in the Proceedings of the conference Koncepcie svetovej literatúry v epoche globalizácie (Concepts of World Literature in the Age of Globalization. Ed. by Ján Koška and Pavol Koprda. Bratislava: Institute of World Literature, 2003, pp. 91–106.
- 2.
The English version of this essay appeared in Human Affairs (Bratislava), Vol. 11, No. 1, 2001, pp. 23–35. The Chinese version “Shijie wenxue yu wenxuejianxing. Cong Gede dao Du Lishen” 世界文学与文学间性。从歌德到獨里申 “World Literature and Interliterariness. From Goethe to Ďurišin ” appeared in Xiamen daxue xuebao 厦门大学学报 Journal of Xiamen University, 2, 2008, pp. 5–12.
- 3.
Cf. Frank Wollman, “Srovnávací metoda v literární věde” (Comparative Method in Literary Scholarship), in: Slovanské štúdie II (Slavic Studies !!). Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, 1959, pp. 9–27 and Dionýz Ďurišin, Theory of Literary Comparatistics. Bratislava: Veda, 1984, pp. 81–82.
- 4.
Dionýz Ďurišin, Čo je svetová literatúra?, p. 38.
- 5.
César Domínguez, “Ďurišin and a Systematic Theory of Literature”, in: Theo d’Haen, David Damrosch, and Djelal Kadir (eds.), The Routledge Companion to World Literature. London: Routledge, 2012, pp. 99–107.
- 6.
See Literary Research/ Recherche Littéraire, No. 21 (Winter/ hiver) 1993, pp. 27–29.
- 7.
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003.
- 8.
David Damrosch, What is World Literature? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, p. 281.
- 9.
I think that Ďurišin’s further stage of interliterary relationship, interliterary centrisms, is not necessary in his system. It is only an adaptation of interliterary communities for larger literary entities, such as the Central European centrism published later by Ivo Pospíšil and Miloš Zelenka (eds.), Centrisme interlittéraire des littératures de l’Europe centrale. Brno: Masarykova universita, 1999, or for the literatures around the Mediterranean Sea by Ďurišin and A. Gnisci (eds.), Il Mediterraneo. Una rete interletteria. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 2000. I suppose that the six volumes edited or written by Ďurišin and his international team entitled Osobitné medziliterárne spoločenstvá (Communautés interlittéraires spécifiques), Bratislava: Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, 1987–1993 are enough for understanding. Also the so-called standard interliterary communities are discussed. It is a pity that all these volumes were published in Slovak with the longer abstract in French. I tried in vain to persuade Ďurišin to publish at least the abstracts in English.
- 10.
Dionýz Ďurišin, Čo je svetová literature? pp. 185–190 and his Theory of Literary Comparatistics. Bratislava. Veda. The Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1984, pp. 178–192.
- 11.
Charles Bernheimer (ed.), op. cit. p. 92.
- 12.
H.H.H. Remak , “Comparative Literature: Its Definition and Function”, in: Newton P. Stallknecht and Horst Frenz (eds.), Comparative Literature: Method and Perspective. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971, p. 1,
- 13.
Harold Bloom , “We Have Lost the War. Interview with Ken Shulman”, in: Newsweek, Nov. 7, 1994, p. 82.
- 14.
Susan Bassnett, Comparative Literature. A Critical Introduction. Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, Blackwell, 1993, p. 161.
- 15.
Xie Tianzhen 谢天振, “Lun bijiao wenxue de fanyi zhuanxiang” 论比较文学的翻译转向 On the Translation Turn in Comparative Literature. In: Gao Xudong (Editor-in-Chief) 高旭东主编, Duoyuan wenhua hudong zhongde wenxue duihua 多元文化互动中的文学对话 Literary Dialogues in the Context of Multicultural Interactions. Vol. 1. Peking: Peking University Press, 2010, pp. 205–215. Less attention was given to the problem of translation at the next, Xth Congress of CCLA, Shanghai, August 9–11, 2011.
- 16.
Dionýz Ďurišin, op. cit., p. 14.
- 17.
Ibid., p. 38.
- 18.
This is The Report of the State of the Discipline by the American Comparative Literature Association published in Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press, 2006.
- 19.
Cf. Damrosch’s book above, p. 281 and Saussy’s essay, p. 11.
- 20.
Anton Pokrivčák, “On Some Worlds of World Literature(s): A Book Review Article on Ďurišin’s, Casanova’s, and Damrosch’s Work”, in: CLCWEB: Comparative Literature and Culture, 15, 7, 2013, p. 4. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/vol15/iss6/21 Special Issue New Work about World Literatures. Ed. Graciela Boruszko and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek. Damrosch’s original states: “These three conceptions are not mutually exclusive, though sometimes people of decided taste champion one or another and even portray their favorite mode as the one form of literature worth serious attention […] There is really no good reason why we shouldn’t allow all three categories their ongoing value, particularly as a single work may effectively be classified under two or even all three headings” (What is World Literature, p. 15).
- 21.
César Domínguez, op. cit., p. 104. Under Franco Moretti is meant his “Conjectures on World Literature”, in: Christopher Prendergast (ed.), Debating World Literature. London: Verso, 2004, pp. 148–162, originally published in New Left Review, 1, January-February 2000, pp. 54–68; Andrew Milner: “When Worlds Collide: Comparative Literature, World-Systems-Theory and Science-Fiction”, in: Southern Review: Communication, Politics & Culture, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 54–68; Alexander Beecroft: “World Literature without a Hyphen. Towards Typology of Literary Systems”, in: New Left Review, Vol. 54, pp. 87–100; and Emily Apter, “Literary World-Systems”, in: David Damrosch (ed.), “Teaching World Literature.” New York: The Modern Language Association of America, pp. 44–60.
- 22.
Published in Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972.
- 23.
Published in Bratislava: Comenius University, 1974.
- 24.
Ďurišin’s paper “La conditionalité historique des formes de la communication interlittéraire” was later published in Actes du VI-e Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, Bordeaux, 1975, pp. 497–501.
- 25.
Douwe Fokkema : “Method and Programme of Comparative Literature”, in: Synthesis (Bucharest), 1, 1974, p. 1.
- 26.
Ulrich Weisstein, “Assessing the Assessors. An Anatomy of Comparative Literature”, in: János Riesz et al (eds.), Sensus Communis. Contemporary Trends in Comparative Literature. Tübingen: Günther Verlag, 1986, p. 101.
- 27.
See op. cit., Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 82.
- 28.
See “Present State and Perspectives of Slovak Comparative Literary Studies.” Neohelicon, Vol. 3, No. 3–4, 1975, p. 115.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 114.
- 30.
Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature (Bloomington), Vol. 37, 1988, p. 109.
- 31.
Loc. cit.
- 32.
It is possible to mention here Kushner’s “Towards a Typology of Comparative Literary Studies?”, in: ICLA’91 Tokyo. The Force of Vision 3. Literary Theory. Proceedings of the XIIIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1995, pp. 508–509.
- 33.
Ulrich Weisstein: Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft. Erster Bericht: 1968–1977. Bern und Frankfurt am Main. Peter Lang, 1981, pp. 48–51.
- 34.
Neohelicon. Vol. 11, no. 1, 1984, pp. 211–221.
- 35.
Letter was dated June 17, 1992.
- 36.
Zhongguo bijiao wenxue 中国比较文学 Comparative wenxue in China, 2, 1990, pp. 86–87.
- 37.
Chengdu: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1988, pp. 81–82. Xie Tianzhen’s reply to Ďurišin’s letter, dated March 15, 1988, shows that Xie Tianzhen regarded Ďurišin’s first book, which he, like Liao Hongjun, read in its Russian version, as one of the 10 best works on the theory of comparative literature.
- 38.
Gurbhagat Singh, “Futuristic Directions for Comparative Literature”, in: ICLA’91. Tokyo. The Force of Vision 3, pp. 309–317.
- 39.
Vojtech Filkorn, op. cit., Filozofia (Philosophy), No. 6, 1971, p. 607.
- 40.
Ibid., p. 606.
- 41.
Cf. a slightly corrected translation by Jessy Kocmanová of Dionýz Ďurišin : Theory of Literary Comparatistics, Bratislava : Veda. Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, 1984, p. 89.
- 42.
See his “World-System analysis: An Introduction.” Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
- 43.
See his Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip 11. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
- 44.
Poetics Today. Polysystem Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1990), pp. 53–72, especially 54–62.
- 45.
G. Lindberg-Wada (ed.), Studying Transcultural Literary History. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006, pp. 113–121.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 113.
- 47.
Loc. cit.
- 48.
Ibid., p. 121.
- 49.
Alexander Beecroft, “World Literature without a Hyphen. Towards a Typology of Literary Systems”, in: New Left Review, Nov.- Dec. 2008, p. 88.
- 50.
Loc. cit.
- 51.
Ibid., p. 100.
- 52.
David Damrosch, “Comparative World Literature”, in: Liviu Papadima, David Damrosch and Theo D’haen: “ The Canonical Debate Today. Crossing Disciplinary and Cultural Boundaries.” Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi, 2011, p. 169.
- 53.
Ibid. p. 174.
- 54.
Oana Fotache: “‘Global Literature’ – In Search of Definition.” In: Liviu Papadima, David Damrosch and Theo D’haen, op. cit., p. 194.
- 55.
See Liviu Papadima, David Damrosch and Theo D’haen, op. cit., p. 22.
- 56.
See the opinion of Czech comparatist Frank Wollman in note 2.
- 57.
Cf. the claims in notes 2 and 3 of this chapter.
- 58.
See Terian’s essay, p. 23.
- 59.
Wang Ning, “Comparative Literature in the Global Context: A Chinese Theoretical Perspective”, in: Cheng Aimin 程爱民 and Yang Lixin 杨莉馨 (eds.), Comparative Literature in the Cross-cultural Context 跨文化语境中的比较文学. Nanking: Yilin Press, 2003, p. 64.
- 60.
Peking: Peking University Press, 1981.
- 61.
Changsha: Hunan Renmin chubanshe, 1985.
- 62.
Cf. Gao Xudong 高旭东 (Editor-in-Chief), op. cit. Peking: Peking University Press, 2010, pp. 51–57. The last part connected with Vietnamese literature from Damrosch’s paper is omitted.
- 63.
Yan Shaodang and Chen Sihe 陈思和 (eds.), op. cit., Peking: Peking University Press, 2007.
- 64.
As far as I know, the papers by Wang Ning and Wang Jiezhi have not been published as yet.
- 65.
The proceedings of this symposium were published in Neohelicon, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2011.
- 66.
See http://iwl.fas.harvard.edu/pages/past-sessions (June 25, 2015).
- 67.
The book was published in Shenyang: Liaoning University Press, 1989.
- 68.
The text and translation are taken from The Works of Hsüntze 荀子. Trans. from the Chinese, with Notes by Homer H. Dubs, Taipei: Wenzhi chubanshe, 1983, pp. 28–29.
- 69.
Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Portland House, 1989, p. 297.
- 70.
Haun Saussy, “Comparisons, World Literature, Common Denominator”, in: Ali Behdad and Dominic Thomas (eds.), A Companion to Comparative Literature. New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011, p. 61.
- 71.
Ibid., pp. 61–62.
- 72.
Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, p. 239.
- 73.
Bratislava: Veda. Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, p. 225.
- 74.
See Slovak version, pp. 239–240.
- 75.
See the blurb of the book edited by the comparatists mentioned above: Comparative Literature. Theory and Practice. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study Shimla in association with Allied Publishers, 1989.
- 76.
Dionýz Ďurišin: Osobitné medziliterárne spoločenstvá 6. Pojmy a princípy (Specific Interliterary Communities. 6. Concepts and Principles). Bratislava: Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, 1993, p. 14.
- 77.
See the book in note 75.
- 78.
Originally published at http://www-ditl.unilim.fr/interlit.html.
- 79.
“Interliterariness as a Concept in Comparative Literature”, in: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2,4, 2000. https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1089 and “Concepts of World Literature, Comparative Literature, and a Proposal”, in: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2, 4, 2000. https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1091. One essay: “Comparative Literature as a Concept of Interliterariness and Interliterary Process” was published among the selected papers of the XIVth Congress of the ICLA/AILC, Edmonton 1994, in Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Milan V. Dimić and Irene Sywenky (eds.), Comparative Literature Now. Theories and Practice. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999, pp. 95–104.
- 80.
Lu Zhaoming 陆肇明, “Shijie wenxue” yu Jiu Lishen de “wenji gongtongti” “世界文学”与久里申的”文际共同体” “World Literature” and Ďurišin’s “Interliterary Communities”. Zhongguo bijiao wenxue Comparative Literature in China, 3, 1997, pp. 148–153. Lu Zhaoming used for his essay the book by Dionýz Ďurišin and others: Osobyje mežliteraturyje obščnost (Specific Interliterary Communities). Tashkent: Izdateľstvo Fan, 1993.
- 81.
Cao Shunqing 曹顺庆 (Editor-in-Chief), Bijiao wenxuexue 比较文学学 The Study of Comparative Literature. Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 2005, p. 116.
- 82.
Cf. note 81, p. 152 and note 82, p. 116. The part concerned with Ďurišin and his views on world literature and interliterary process was written by Wang Qinfeng 王钦锋。
- 83.
See opening remarks to the Xth International Conference of the CCLA, Shanghai, 2011, “Back to Literariness? – And What About Interliterariness”, published in its English version in Studia orientalia slovaca, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 427–430.
- 84.
Marián Gálik, “On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community,” in: Frontiers of Literary Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2011, pp. 139–158. Its Chinese version Zuo wei quawenxue gongtongti de hanyu xin wenxue 作为跨文学共同体的汉语新文学 appeared in Nanguo renwen xuekan 南国人文学刊 South China Journal of Humanities, 1, 2011, pp. 14–30.
- 85.
Dionýz Ďurišin, Problémy literárnej komparatistiky (Problems of Literary Comparatistics). Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, 1967, p. 73.
- 86.
Ibid., p. 84.
- 87.
Fritz Strich, Goethe und die Weltliteratur. Bern: A . Francke AG, 1946, p. 14.
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Gálik, M. (2018). Some Remarks on the Concept of World Literature After 2000. In: Fang, W. (eds) Tensions in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0635-8_6
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