The World Republic of Letters : , (Convergences: Inventories of the Present)
Editorial Reviews
Review
Declan Kiberd, author of Inventing Ireland and Irish Classics : This is a marvelous study of the international networks and ethnic forcefields out of which a modern world literature has emerged. In drawing a map of the literary globe, Pascale Casanova shows just how different it is from any political map ever framed. Unlike many previous comparativists, she shows just how many of the texts of literary modernism have been contributed by peoples without financial or political power. This is a brave, audacious and luminous analysis, and a bracing challenge to those who still believe in the nation as an explanatory category. This book will provoke debate for years to come.
Pierre Bourdieu, author of Distinction and Language and Symbolic Power : As a researcher, Pascale Casanova specializes in the exception. Along with a literary knowledge that is exceptional in its breadth and depth, she possesses a theoretical knowledge that is truly vast and wielded with great authority. In pursuing this immense topic - the universe of relations that constitute the "World Republic of Letters" - she has set herself a daunting challenge: that of constructing, and empirically verifying, a theoretical model for the "fabric of the universal."
Hidehiro Tachibana, Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) : The book is remarkable for its multidisciplinary and transnational approach, and for the response it has excited in Japan as well as many other countries, where it will surely continue to inspire lively debate.
Gilles Lapouge, O Estado de S�o Paolo (Brazil) : Casanova's book is a major contribution to modern literary theory. It effectively shatters national boundaries.
Patricia de Souza, El Pa�s (Madrid, Spain) : Corpus literarium universalis� What is interesting is that Casanova reads a series of concrete events in the history of the "republic," showing the need� for constant interpellation of aesthetic and linguistic notions.
Book Description
The �world of letters� has always seemed a matter more of metaphor than of global reality. In this book, Pascale Casanova shows us the state of world literature behind the stylistic refinements� a world of letters relatively independent from economic and political realms, and in which language systems, aesthetic orders, and genres struggle for dominance. Rejecting facile talk of globalization, with its suggestion of a happy literary �melting pot,� Casanova exposes an emerging regime of inequality in the world of letters, where minor languages and literatures are subject to the invisible but implacable violence of their dominant counterparts. Inspired by the writings of Fernand Braudel and Pierre Bourdieu, this ambitious book develops the first systematic model for understanding the production, circulation, and valuing of literature worldwide. Casanova proposes a baseline from which we might measure the newness and modernity of the world of letters�the literary equivalent of the meridian at Greenwich. She argues for the importance of literary capital and its role in giving value and legitimacy to nations in their incessant struggle for international power. Within her overarching theory, Casanova locates three main periods in the genesis of world literature�Latin, French, and German�and closely examines three towering figures in the world republic of letters�Kafka, Joyce, and Faulkner. Her work provides a rich and surprising view of the political struggles of our modern world�one framed by sites of publication, circulation, translation, and efforts at literary annexation.
The World Republic of Letters : , (Convergences: Inventories of the Present)
The World Republic of Letters: , (Convergences: Inventories of the Present),Pascale Casanova,M. B. DeBevoise,Harvard University Press,067401345X,European - General,European literature,History,History and criticism,History: World,Literature - Classics / Criticism,World - General,Literary Criticism & Collections / European,Literary studies: general
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