The Influence Of David Damrosch On World Literature

What is World Literature? David Damrosch is a force to reckon with in contemporary study of world literature. And the debate may be fairly new, but it all goes back to Goethe’s. World literature is also controversial concept given the parameters of what makes or qualifies a text as a world text. Damrosch’s essays “World Literature in a Postliterary Age” (2013) and “What is World Literature” (2011)? Discuss anthology in world literature—what makes an anthology? And Damrosch poses the challenge of what is at stake for the future of world literature in a postliterary age. In Damrosch’s conversational interview with Wang Ning, it became clear that pedagogy and politics are major influences on World literature. Pedagogy because of what teachers

Readers rely on anthologies to know what to read, but what about amazing literary texts out there that are not included in the cannon or anthology? For example, African literature suffer from poor representation in the anthology, and perhaps the same for Mexican/Chicano literature. Also, what and who is included in the anthology raises the question of gender. Are women not writing? A look at the anthology, and the question become, where are the Ghassan Kanafanis? The Ben Okri, The Nwapa and Ba in these anthologies? However, Damrosch acknowledges the imbalance of the anthology. Commenting on the Longman Anthology and the Norton Anthology both of which have lesser representation of non-western literature, He writes “it is still unbalanced, not as various and inclusive as we would like it to be...” (185). The audience is important to what makes a literary work world literature, but at the same time; it still circle back to what teachers are willing to teach. As an undergraduate student of literature, I read barely any African texts outside of Chinua Achebe while I read a lot of Western works as world literature. In the interview, Damrosch credits China for being hospitable to world literature, however what makes China the new world literature

The answer might be translation. Translation according to Damrosch and Ning is necessary to promote literature in the world, but what about those works originally written in English or French especially from colonized countries? This brings to mind Amir Mufti’s position on the role of English in world literature and the economic profitability of world literature. However, things get lost in translation, and is what gets lost in translation a concern at all in world literature sphere? While I do not share Emily Apter’s deep pessimism on world literature as a single concept, her call for more creativity is worth something and the cannon or anthology of world literature is unbalanced and untranslated works need a space. In one of his writings, Damrosch maintain that “World literature is a refraction of national literature” (281). The implication of this is that postcolonial literary texts are intrinsically or inherently world literary texts or they are at least worldly text. In Nigeria for example, national literature was born out of the struggle for independence. A ready example is Chinua Achebe, but beside Achebe, other literary text can fit into the world literary category if explored as liminal text. Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah (1987), is a global