World Literature as Discoveries

ZHANG Longxi

doi:10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

Volume 7 Issue 1

Mar. 2024

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ZHANG Longxi. World Literature as Discoveries[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 5-17. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

Citation:

ZHANG Longxi. World Literature as Discoveries[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 5-17. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

ZHANG Longxi. World Literature as Discoveries[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 5-17. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

Citation:

ZHANG Longxi. World Literature as Discoveries[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 5-17. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

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World Literature as Discoveries

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247101

ZHANG Longxi^,

Hunan Normal Univesity

Received Date: 2023-12-21
Accepted Date: 2024-01-10

Abstract

Abstract

Given the geopolitical reality of the imbalance of power between the West and the Rest, there is also the imbalance of cultural capital and knowledge. The currently circulating works of world literature are by and large canonical works of the major European and Western literary traditions, while non-Western and even “minor” European literatures remain largely unknown, untranslated, and unappreciated beyond their culture of origin. Even today, traces of Eurocentric biases can still be influential in the study of world literature, as can be seen in Pascale Casanova’s book, The World Republic of Letters. Therefore, world literature should not be just returning to the reading of literature, but to the discovery of many of the world’s yetunknown literary classics, the canonical works that have long been recognized in different literatures but not yet introduced to the global readership beyond their original scope of native readers. It is now the task of literary scholars of the world’s different literary traditions to bring those works to the global critical attention and expand the canon of world literature. World literature in its true sense will be the discovery of the yet-unknown canonical works from the world’s different, especially non-Western and the “minor” European, literary traditions.
- literary canon,
- Eurocentrism,
- Pascale Casanova,
- the yet-unknown world literature,
- world literature as discovery

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References(19)

References

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