Understanding Literary Concepts

What is Literature?

• One classical way to define literature is everything in print
• Literature can be limited to 'great books' (Belle lettres), which have notable literary form/expression
• The criterion can be aesthetic worth alone or in combination with general intellectual distinction
• The term 'literature' is best when limited to the art of literature, such as imaginative works of poetry, novels, and plays
• Language is the material of literature, like stone for sculpture
• Literary language is connotative (indirect, figurative, metaphorical)
• Scientific language is denotative (direct, one-to-one correspondence)
• Functions of literature: pleasure, conveying knowledge, teaching morals/ethics, and even philosophy

John Paul Sartre & The Reason of Writing

• Writing reveals one's freedom and existence in the world
• Literature invokes a positionality of commitment and is an act of commitment to the political cause
• Motives of artistic creation stem from feeling essential to the world
• Literature reveals human existence
• Writers do not write for themselves; art requires an audience
• Art of writing prose is distinct from poetry, painting, or music
• Sartre is against aesthetic purism and advocates for art that reflects and engages with the world

Types & Genres of Literature

• 'Genre' derives from French, meaning kind or type; it refers to the form, class, or type of literary work
• The main genres are poetry, drama/play, essay, short story, novel, or novella
• The term genre denotes literary sub-classifications
• Common Genres include fiction, drama/play, and poetry
• Fiction is categorized into sub-categories, such as short stories, novels, skits, postmodern fiction, modern fiction, and formal fiction
• Drama or plays are categorized into tragedy, comedy, romantic comedy, absurd theatre, and modern play
• Poetry divides into epic, lyrical, odes, sonnets, quatrains, and free verse poems

What is World Literature?

• Weltliteratur (world literature) was introduced in 1827 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a German author, scientist, statesman, and theorist
• Goethe is considered a canonic and influential writer in German literature
• The concept arose in a particular atmosphere in Germany and Europe during the emergence of nationalist sentiments in the nineteenth century
• Goethe imagined a kind of cosmopolitan literature that could transcend national and linguistic boundaries
• This literature can be read and appreciated by a wide range of readers globally
• Goethe believed national literature had become obsolete
• He stated in 1827 that "the epoch of world literature is at hand"

Critical Reflections On Goethe's Concept

• Analytical questions regarding different approaches to world literature include:
  • Which world?
  • Whose world?
  • One or many worlds?
  • How does world literature perform/is it performed?
  • The interfering factors in the world's production
  • The level where the world becomes worldly (linguistically, aesthetically, poetically, or politically)
  • The authority to decide what qualifies as world literature

David Damrosch & the idea of Circulation

• David Damrosch, a Harvard literary theorist, is known for approaching World Literature based on the idea of "circulation"
• A work enters world literature through being read as literature and circulating beyond its linguistic and cultural point of origin
• Translation is crucial for world literature as it enables the circulation worldwide
• World literature isn't a set canon, but a mode of reading and engagement beyond one's place and time

Key Concepts in Damrosch's Approach

• Circulation happens as literature is translated, reviewed, and appreciated across languages and cultures, spreading from one country/culture to another
• Mode of reading refers to how readers perceive the work; higher aesthetic value leads to worldwide recognition
• Canon refers to works/figures with established privilege, well-written, and sustained position through time/history
• Crossing borders is a figurative expression for transferring literature across languages/cultures via translation

Pascal Casanova & the World Republic of Letters

• The construction of this republic is related to the nation's political space, which helps to build the republic
• Casanova analyzes the historical transformation of French literature to its position, where Paris is the capital
• This is due to French's domination as an imperial nation in the late eighteenth/nineteenth centuries

Keywords in Casanova's Approach

• World republic of letters is another name for World Literature; the term gives more reference to the political power that brings literature popularity
• Imperial history comprises the history of the country that was once an empire, through with literature gained world dominance
• Cultural Capitals like Paris, London, and New York are also cultural hubs where literature and authors achieve international fame
• Invisible community refers to those hidden powers, like translators, reviewers, publishers, circles and pressure groups, who can approve or disapprove literature and its circulation worldwide

Emily Apter & Untranslatability

• Apter argues against World Literature relying on the translatability assumption
• She means a tendency towards reflexive endorsement of substitutability and cultural equivalence or celebration of nationally/ethnically branded differences
• Apter argues for rethinking the theory by focusing mainly on translatability and readability
• She focuses on the politics of the "Untranslatable" — those words that are resistant to substitution but constantly being mistranslated
• Apter revisits presumptions of equivalence/substitutability and activates the realm of checkpoints, private zones, and crossing difficulties

Keywords in Apter's Approach

• Untranslatability is the impossibility or difficulty to translate
• World literature can be achieved through acculturation happened via untranslatability
• Singularity refers to the sovereignty of the local language being translated
• Singularity rejects the theory of easy and full language translatability
• Private Zone has a special part of every language that cannot be translated

Franco Moretti & Distant Reading

• World literature is approached as a planetary system with interconnected stakeholders canonizing authors, genres, and styles
• World literature is one and unequal, meaning canonized works achieve ranking due to unified global system where local and national literatures are ignored and unequal
• A model where scholars study literature from different languages and cultures called 'distant reading,' derives conclusions about literary phenomena
• Distant reading aids in understanding the circulation of themes, devices, and genres since one cannot read close on a global scale

Distant Reading & World Literature

• Distant reading refers to allowing one to focus on units smaller or larger than a text (devices, themes, tropes, genres, or systems)
• Moretti's projection of World Literature scales up representation by tracing themes, styles, and genres without focusing on the importance of the text itself

Differences in Reading Types

• Close reading uses nuanced and particular analyze of a text within itself by looking at language, style, themes, characters, dialogue, climax
• While Distant reading is zooming out the text by connecting it with other texts and contexts be it cultural, social, economic and political

Zhang Longxi & Non-Western World Literature

• Zhang Longxi engages in the debate of world literature from non-Western/European calling for an enlargement of scale of it
• Today's World Literature needs to encompass outside Eurocentrism
• Include works coming from the East, Africa that will greatly contribute in expanding the cannon
• The Chinese theorist builds a perspective that all literature has worth for discovery, and has an aesthetic that we need to discover
• He calls for reservation of all canons suggesting more inclusive representation

Canon & the Question of Standards

• The word canon means "a straight rod," "a ruler," and thus "a standard"
• It refers to the best books of literature as exemplars; standards of literary tradition.
• Canons are exemplary works that stood test of time
• Canons get prestige because of its well-crafted style, language, or due to scholars endorsing them
• Canon gets it through internal (style, language, tone...) or external connection of that with its surrounding contexts

Questioning the viability of canons

• Questions being raised on viability of Canons
  • How do canons reach their canonical status?
  • Who has the power to designate such canons?
  • How a particular work may appeal to readers in very different social, political, cultural, and historical conditions beyond its national origin?
  • How can specific work of literature get a lasting value judgment as 'World literature’ through ages and times?
  • How do canons affect the emerging books and authors who strive to have a place in the market as great writers?
  • Can literary canons be decanonized if proven that they lost their unique aesthetic pleasure?

The Centrality of Literary Translation in World Literature

• Literary translation involves rendering original literature in other languages
• Aesthetic intent and effects are preserved
• Artistic and creative value of the text is more important than themes
• Translators typically translate the style of the text, tone of the language, and authors voice

Aesthetic View of Translation

• As Edith Grossman states, “Translators need to develop a keen sense of style in both languages, honing and expanding our critical awareness of the emotional impact of words, the social aura that surrounds them, the setting and mood that informs them, the atmosphere they create. Translators will strive to elaborate and sharpen our perceptions of these implications and connotations behind denotative meaning”

Influence of Translators

• Kafka is a German speaking novelist, who is Jewish
• Kafka is canonized through the successive translation that are accumulated
• His language can be characterized by the representation of Minor communities of alienated anxieties
• To be both multilingual and untranslatable gives reason to more interpretation of what to recodify in the language, giving more power to interpreters of words

Terminology

• World literature (Weltliteratur)
• Literary genre
• National literature
• Circulation
• Mode of reading
• Crossing borders
• Imperial history
• Cultural capitals
• Invisible community
• Translatability/untranslatability
• Singularity
• Private zone
• Canon
• Aesthetic pleasure

Explore the distinctions between literary and scientific language, Sartre's view on prose, and the role of writers. This set also covers genre definitions, the function of literature, and critiques of translatability in World Literature, including Emily Apter's perspective on 'private zones'.