Author：David Porter, Omid Azadibougar

Abstract: Introduction of the Special Column "World Literature before World Literature"

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Jean MacDonald

Abstract: Literature, with its diverse and broad spectrum of platform, medium, and delivery, has long been an indicator of a civilization’s culture. How the literature of various cultures was either preserved, lost, or shared has shaped the modern conception of World Literature. Libr...

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Irma Ratiani

Abstract: The history of Georgian writing starts much earlier than when Goethe introduced the term “Weltliteratur.” It starts from the era of Christianity from the 4th century. Due to the fast spread of Christianity in the Early Medieval period, Georgia was already included in the European net of Christian writing. All branches of Christian spiritual literature were presented. Georgian culture and literature naturally were developing in the frame of the Western European tradition. The period of the 11th-12th centuries was a Golden Era for Georgia, and the heyday of fame for Georgian culture and literature as well. Precisely during this period, “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” was created by Shota Rustaveli. Apart from its aesthetic, philosophical, and worldview depth, it is a first text in Georgian literature as well as in European literature which reflects the

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Fábio Almeida de Carvalho

Abstract: The article both presents how, from the end of the 1980s onwards, native peoples have begun to occupy certain spaces of textual production and circulation that they had not previously occupied in the Brazilian cultural scene (for social, linguistic, and cultural...

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Anna M. Brígido-Corachán

Abstract: This essay considers the main features and status of contemporary Zapotec literature, an “ultraminor” Indigenous literature in southern Mexico. Tracing its modern emergence through 20th century literary circuits that were preeminently local and politically-...

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Kyrie Miranda-Farnell

Abstract: This essay investigates Fray Ramón Pané’s text from 1500 CE, Relación acerca de las antiguëdades de los Indios, within the literary context of the paradoxography. It examines cultural frameworks and general literary knowledge that would have been understood by Pané within the structures of Spanish and Hieronymite societies. This essay compares the framework and content of Pané’s work with the known paradoxographies of Aelian and Aristotle, focusing on the emphasis placed by Pané on transformation via linguistic translation/interpretation and mythological animal representation. Through my

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Mrinmoy Pramanick

Abstract: The idea of the world is a dynamic phenomenon, and the development of world literature is tied to both literary and extra-literary events. Worldwide literary centers can be found in many locations spanning both time and space. The concept of the world, or Visva (Sanskrit), is considerably older even if world literature has been a discursive framework that has affected the literary structures of many languages around the world since the 19th century. “Vasudhaiba Kutumbakam,” or the universal neighborhood, is a term from ancient Indian literature that attests to the age of the concept of Vasudha, or the world. As a result of numerous trade routes, cultural interactions, the expansion of ancient and medieval...

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Forkan Ali

Abstract: Circulation and reception of various national literatures, particularly significant texts and literary traditions in minority languages such as Bengali, are often neglected by the scholarly community and literary institutions. This creates an incomplete view of world literature, which should encompass the wholeness or totality of literature from different geographical locations. In an effort to minimize this gap, this research article explores the popular collection of Bengali narrative ballads, Maimansingha Gitika, compiled by Dineshchandra Sen. Most of the collected narrative ballads were composed between the 16th and early 18th century, yet this prime text is largely unavailable to readers and unobtainable to experts in politico-cultural and historical contexts. Using the concept of

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：David Porter, Omid Azadibougar

Abstract: Professor Jonathan Locke Hart answers our questions about Comparative Literature in Canada, Canadian indigenous literary traditions, Shakespeare, and the dominance of American academia, and the English language. He refers to a wide range of texts and scholars, his personal experience as a poet and scholar, and comments on the potential future of our shared disciplines.

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation

Author：Kaiwei Xia

Abstract: Don DeLillo’s Libra is often considered a postmodernist rendition of history, but there exist temporal distortions in his fiction that must be parsed into the subjunctive mood instead of the simple past tense. The fictive transformation from the temporal tense to the mood of pote...

Vol. 7 No. 2 Dec. 2023      Time：2024-02-01 View Citation