By Pascale Casanova
The "world of letters" has continuously appeared a question extra of metaphor than of worldwide fact. during this e-book, Pascale Casanova exhibits us the nation of worldwide literature in the back of the stylistic refinements--a international of letters rather self reliant from monetary and political geographical regions, and during which language platforms, aesthetic orders, and genres fight for dominance. Rejecting facile speak of globalization, with its advice of a contented literary "melting pot," Casanova exposes an rising regime of inequality on this planet of letters, the place minor languages and literatures are topic to the invisible yet implacable violence in their dominant counterparts.
Inspired via the writings of Fernand Braudel and Pierre Bourdieu, this bold ebook develops the 1st systematic version for realizing the creation, flow, and valuing of literature around the world. Casanova proposes a baseline from which we would degree the novelty and modernity of the area of letters--the literary similar of the meridian at Greenwich. She argues for the significance of literary capital and its function in giving worth and legitimacy to countries of their incessant fight for foreign energy. inside of her overarching idea, Casanova locates 3 major sessions within the genesis of global literature--Latin, French, and German--and heavily examines 3 towering figures on this planet republic of letters--Kafka, Joyce, and Faulkner. Her paintings presents a wealthy and astounding view of the political struggles of our glossy world--one framed by means of websites of ebook, move, translation, and efforts at literary annexation.
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Sample text
80 The analysis of the ernergence of nationalism needs to go beyond the assumption of a binary and belligerent relation between nations to take into account a much rnore complex space of rivalries that proceed both for and through a variety of fonns of capital, which may be literary, political, or economic. The totality of world political space is the product of a vast range of national competition, where the clash between two historical enernies-such as the one described by Danilo Kis between Serbs and Croats-represents only the simplest and most archaic form.
This curious edifice, which joins together writers from different spaces whose n1utual rivalry is very often the only thing they have in con1mon-a rivalry whose existence, as 1 say, is always deniedwas constructed over tin1e by a succession of national conHicts and challenges to fonnal and critical authority. Unification of the literary world therefore depends on the entry of new contestants intent upon adding to their stock of literary capital, which is both the instrurnent and Principles oIa World History of Literature 1 39 the prize of their cornpetition: each new player, in bringing to bear the weight ofhis national heritage-the orùy weapon considered legitirnate in this type of struggle-helps to unify internationalliterary space, which is to say to extend the domain of literary rivalry.
Literatures are therefore not a pure emanation of national identity; they are constructed through literary rivalries, which are always denied, and struggles, which are always international. Given, then, that literary capital is national, and that there exists a relation of dependence with regard first to the state, then to the nation, it becomes possible to connect the ide a of an economy peculiar to the literary world with the notion of a literary geopolitics. No national entity exists in and of itself.
