WORLD

LITERATURE/WORLD LT 730

LITERATURE IN Dr. Maria Farooq Maan

TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTION
There are many worlds and therefore many world literatures. World is a changing
notion, reshaped by changing world views and because of different contemporary
agencies
It is possible to define the concept of world literature more precisely: only pertains
to world literature in this more restricted sense what really transcends the borders of
the nation, what really has become known and appreciated by other nations by
means of translation, and what has influenced other literatures; in other words, what
participates in the exchange of ideas and in the world literary traffic between the
nations.
(Fritz Strich,1930, “Weltliteratur und Vergleichende Literaturgeschichte”)
HOW THE REPOSITORY OF
WORLD LITERATURE FORMED
HISTORICALLY?
Goethe (1827) Weltilieratur

Europe was finally experiencing a period of peace after the Napoleonic Wars. From
this point of view, the emphasis is on cultural exchange at an international level
between the different groups of people, through which they form their own identity
and their relationship with the alien.
Goethe subscribed to the idea of the circulation and reception of WL in Europe,
which included literature from non-European origins as well
“I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind,
revealing itself everywhere and at times to hundreds and hundreds of men….I
therefore like to look about me in foreign nations,and advise everyone to do the
same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term, the epoch of world
literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.”
World literature comes in two alternate, conceivable versions:
Contemporary World Literature: Contemporary world literature is the literature of
contemporary societies — particularly works of literature that obtain an international
reputation
Global classicism: can be described as contemporary literature inspired by the
multiple traditions of the premodern regional literate civilizations of Eurasia,
including the Chinese, Indian, Greco-Roman, Euro-Christian, and Muslim.
Karl Marx /Engels (1848)
Numerous national and local literatures will form the world literature therefore
freeing the readers/consumers from the narrowness of the national literature.

Politics of exclusion
OUR FOCUS

WORLD LITERATURE IN
TRANSLATION
World literature not as a canon of texts but as a mode of circulation of reading.
World literature is work that gains in translation.
When effectively presented, a work of literature moves into an elliptical space
between the source and receiving cultures, shaped by both but circumscribed by
neither alone.
“Works become world literature by being received into the space of a foreign
culture, a space defined in many ways by the host culture’s national tradition and
the present needs of its own writers”. (Damrosch 2003: 283).
(David Damrosch,2003)
Literary language is thus language that either gains or loses in translation, in contrast
to non-literary language, which typically does neither. The balance of credit and loss
remains a distinguishing mark of national versus world literature: literature stays
within its national or regional tradition when it usually loses in translation, whereas
works become world literature when they gain on balance in translation, stylistic
losses offset by an expansion in depth as they increase their range (Damrosch 2003:
289).