<P>This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to and overview of World Literature. Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism to postmodernism, this book...
more
This remarkably broad and informative book offers an introduction to and overview of World Literature. Tracing the term from its earliest roots and situating it within a number of relevant contexts from postcolonialism to postmodernism, this book is the ideal guide to an increasingly popular and important term in literary studies. It is accessible and engaging and will be invaluable to students of world literature, comparative literature, translation and postcolonial studies and anyone with an interest in these or related topics.
Front Cover; The Routledge Concise History of World Literature; Copyright Page; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction: The (re)turn of world literature; 1. Naming world literature; Overview; Goethe's Weltliteratur; Weltliteratur, "letters" and literature; World literature versus national literature; Heine and world literature in nineteenth-century Germany; Philarète Chasles and world literature in nineteenth-century France; Histories of world literature; World literature and comparative literature; World literature, European literature
Rabindranath Tagore and Maxim Gorky on world literatureWorld literature beyond Europe; Conclusion; 2. Goethe's Weltliteratur and the humanist ideal; Overview; Humanität and humanism; Goethe in Italy; World literature and philology; Ernst Robert Curtius; Erich Auerbach; Edward Said; Leo Spitzer; Conclusion; 3. World literature and comparative literature; Overview; Intimations of comparative literature; Comparative literature: the early years; Beyond France: Hugo Meltzl and Max Koch; Comparative literature: the French school; The changing of the guard: comparative literature after 1945
Hutcheson Macaulay PosnettComparative literature in the United States: the early years; The crisis of comparative literature; René Etiemble; Re-thinking comparative literature in the United States; In Europe, Meanwhile …; Conclusion; 4. World literature as an American pedagogical construct; Overview; Higher education in the United States; Richard Moulton; The Great Books; World literature courses; The crisis of world literature; Anthologizing world literature: the "Norton"; The Norton's competitors; Worlding world literature; Conclusion; 5. World literature as system; Overview
The "free trade" of literatureSystemic world literature; Pascale Casanova and the world republic of letters; Criticism of Casanova; Franco Moretti conjectures on world literature; Against Moretti; Other world literature systems; Conclusion; 6. World literature and translation; Overview; The indispensable instrument; Walter Benjamin and translation; The rise of translation studies; Translation, postcolonialism and feminism; World literature and translation; Translation studies and the "new" comparative literature; Conclusion
7. World literature, (post)modernism, (post)colonialism, littérature-mondeOverview; Postcolonial literature as world literature; Postcolonialism and postmodernism; Postcolonialism as Western projection; World literature and "Anglophony"; Littérature-monde; Conclusion; 8. World literature and the literatures of the world; Overview; Europe's semi-periphery; Scandinavia; Spain and Portugal; Global South and Chinese world literature; Conclusion; Guide to further reading; Bibliography; Index