Due to its formal and semantic flexibility, the novel is often viewed as exemplarily associated with globalization. Most interpretations of this view lead to a paradox – presentations that the genre of the novel offers can be specific, and yet, widely circulated – and refer it to transnationalism, to the worlding of many cultural identities, or to some kind of literary space. These interpretations leave open the questioning of the cultural denotations or literary features that empower novels to be widely circulated and universalized. This article identifies and analyzes this explicit questioning in Glissant’s Tout-monde, Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Volpi’s In Search of Klingsor, and suggests a quadruple answer. 1. Contemporary novels, that are read as world novels, reflect the paradox that qualifies their world circulation: they designate and deconstruct the signs of the universal by offering totalizing and detotalizing perspective and by questioning their universalization potential. 2. This formal and semantic paradox is presented by means of “partial connec tions”, i.e. objective or imagined references to distant or non-identical cultural references that can be viewed as partially overlapping. Partial connections impose a metonymic view of all chains of cultural mentions, and, between the latter, delineate special kinds of union – differences coexist and unite, and their discontinuities invite to view them as equally real. Partial connections found world novels’ rhetoric and transmissibility. 3. Due to these partial connections, some kind of specific herme neutics is developed or implied – hermeneutics of situation. No overall inter pretation of their own universalizability is offered by world novels – they generate symptomatic readings. 4. Remarkably, these literary and cultural montages apply to canonical kinds of novel – investigation novel (In Search of Klingsor), historical novel (The Moor’s Last Sigh), Bildungsroman (Tout-monde, Kafka on the Shore), that are most often recognized as universal because of their canonicity and the readability they show. On the one hand, these montages alter the canonicity and readability of these kinds of novels, on the other, they trigger their wide circulation because they negate any rule of reading and any overall interpretation, and however suggest some kind of universal hermeneutics – the use of partial connections is of utmost importance.
{"title":"Contemporary International/World Novels’ Transmissibility from Partial Connections to Hermeneutics of Situation (With References to Glissant, Volpi, Murakami, and Rushdie)","authors":"J. Bessière","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"Due to its formal and semantic flexibility, the novel is often viewed as exemplarily associated with globalization. Most interpretations of this view lead to a paradox – presentations that the genre of the novel offers can be specific, and yet, widely circulated – and refer it to transnationalism, to the worlding of many cultural identities, or to some kind of literary space. These interpretations leave open the questioning of the cultural denotations or literary features that empower novels to be widely circulated and universalized. This article identifies and analyzes this explicit questioning in Glissant’s Tout-monde, Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Volpi’s In Search of Klingsor, and suggests a quadruple answer. \u00001. Contemporary novels, that are read as world novels, reflect the paradox that qualifies their world circulation: they designate and deconstruct the signs of the universal by offering totalizing and detotalizing perspective and by questioning their universalization potential. \u00002. This formal and semantic paradox is presented by means of “partial connec tions”, i.e. objective or imagined references to distant or non-identical cultural references that can be viewed as partially overlapping. Partial connections impose a metonymic view of all chains of cultural mentions, and, between the latter, delineate special kinds of union – differences coexist and unite, and their discontinuities invite to view them as equally real. Partial connections found world novels’ rhetoric and transmissibility. \u00003. Due to these partial connections, some kind of specific herme neutics is developed or implied – hermeneutics of situation. No overall inter pretation of their own universalizability is offered by world novels – they generate symptomatic readings. \u00004. Remarkably, these literary and cultural montages apply to canonical kinds of novel – investigation novel (In Search of Klingsor), historical novel (The Moor’s Last Sigh), Bildungsroman (Tout-monde, Kafka on the Shore), that are most often recognized as universal because of their canonicity and the readability they show. On the one hand, these montages alter the canonicity and readability of these kinds of novels, on the other, they trigger their wide circulation because they negate any rule of reading and any overall interpretation, and however suggest some kind of universal hermeneutics – the use of partial connections is of utmost importance.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66673091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.13
Jinghui Wang
The preoccupation with human nature is deeply rooted in literature. This paper starts from the ancient Chinese rudimentary understanding of human nature, then passes through Mo Yan’s Frog, an epistolary novel which covers the 30-year history of the Chinese population control policy through the description of an obstetrician in quest of her own human nature, and ends with her mediation and effort to retrieve goodness in the face of state will. Mo Yan, as well as many other Chinese people, does not deny that the onechild family policy had been laid down with a good intention to promote the general welfare of all citizens in China. But through a detailed reading of the novel Frog, it is argued that this policy might be a legalized illegality, which results in the schizophrenia of the main character out of the dilemma of justifying her deeds as virtue or vice. It is suggested that the experience of the female character in the novel, as well as in the contemporary Chinese society, should be investigated allegorically, and it reveals a universal issue about the complexity of human nature, for in a certain sense, one may start aiming to be Mother Theresa, but end in finding himself or herself merely a devoted clownlike servant of the state will.
{"title":"Virtue or Vice? Trauma Reflected in Mo Yan’s Frog","authors":"Jinghui Wang","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.13","url":null,"abstract":"The preoccupation with human nature is deeply rooted in literature. This paper starts from the ancient Chinese rudimentary understanding of human nature, then passes through Mo Yan’s Frog, an epistolary novel which covers the 30-year history of the Chinese population control policy through the description of an obstetrician in quest of her own human nature, and ends with her mediation and effort to retrieve goodness in the face of state will. Mo Yan, as well as many other Chinese people, does not deny that the onechild family policy had been laid down with a good intention to promote the general welfare of all citizens in China. But through a detailed reading of the novel Frog, it is argued that this policy might be a legalized illegality, which results in the schizophrenia of the main character out of the dilemma of justifying her deeds as virtue or vice. It is suggested that the experience of the female character in the novel, as well as in the contemporary Chinese society, should be investigated allegorically, and it reveals a universal issue about the complexity of human nature, for in a certain sense, one may start aiming to be Mother Theresa, but end in finding himself or herself merely a devoted clownlike servant of the state will.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.13","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44150701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Histories always deal with the construction of cities, announcements of new eras, and strategies of reformations; human history also shows that the bitter human experience of struggles, disputes and wars involve shifting identities or rivalries over territories. Among Shakespeare’s war plays, The First Part of Henry VI is one of the most significant representations of the war between France and England; the play refers to the Treaty of Troyes, an Anglo- French Treaty in 1420, which recognizes Henry V as heir to the French throne, resulting in internal divisions and tremendous chaos in France. This play by Shakespeare refers to the intrigue, spatial contest, politics of kingship and spatial struggle between England and France. Calais had been an enclave of England in France before Henry V succeeded to the throne; securing Calais, Henry V, the warrior king of England, attempted to build up another enclave at Harfleur. With the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Dauphin Charles, and Joan of Arc faced two enemies, England and the Dukedom of Burgundy. England and Burgundy had been allies against France in the Hundred Years’ War since 1415. Burgundy, because of its geographical location, is to play the key role in the tug of war between the two forces. Geopolitics and contesting identities are two intertwining motifs in the First Part of Henry VI. Shakespeare portrays the conquest of France by England and represents diplomatic relations and shifting identities through geography and spatial politics as related to nationhood. This paper by examining the conflicts between France and England, will discuss geopolitics and contesting identities, the territorial disputes as well as spatial politics in an era when boundary politics was in flux.
{"title":"Geopolitics and Contesting Identities in Shakespeare’s The First Part of Henry VI","authors":"I-chun Wang","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.5","url":null,"abstract":"Histories always deal with the construction of cities, announcements of new eras, and strategies of reformations; human history also shows that the bitter human experience of struggles, disputes and wars involve shifting identities or rivalries over territories. Among Shakespeare’s war plays, The First Part of Henry VI is one of the most significant representations of the war between France and England; the play refers to the Treaty of Troyes, an Anglo- French Treaty in 1420, which recognizes Henry V as heir to the French throne, resulting in internal divisions and tremendous chaos in France. This play by Shakespeare refers to the intrigue, spatial contest, politics of kingship and spatial struggle between England and France. Calais had been an enclave of England in France before Henry V succeeded to the throne; securing Calais, Henry V, the warrior king of England, attempted to build up another enclave at Harfleur. With the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Dauphin Charles, and Joan of Arc faced two enemies, England and the Dukedom of Burgundy. England and Burgundy had been allies against France in the Hundred Years’ War since 1415. Burgundy, because of its geographical location, is to play the key role in the tug of war between the two forces. \u0000Geopolitics and contesting identities are two intertwining motifs in the First Part of Henry VI. Shakespeare portrays the conquest of France by England and represents diplomatic relations and shifting identities through geography and spatial politics as related to nationhood. This paper by examining the conflicts between France and England, will discuss geopolitics and contesting identities, the territorial disputes as well as spatial politics in an era when boundary politics was in flux.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45965014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since the publication of How to Do Things with Words in 1962, Austin and his speech-act theory caused a great disturbance in the arena of linguistics and literature, not only initiating the study of pragmatics but also triggering the paradigm change of literary studies in the 20th century. Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Derrida, de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and many other scholars in the 1970s showed great enthusiasm for theory. Yet, the theory’s limitations and applications are widely known. The publication of Speech Acts in Literature and Literature as Conduct by J. Hillis Miller seems to have given a kind of momentum to its development. Taking Miller’s initiatives as a starting point, this article analyzes a specific literary text, The Ninth Widow by a Chinese overseas writer Yan Geling, with an intention to illustrate that the application of the speech-act theory in the literary studies is indeed promising and productive.
{"title":"Literature as Conduct: On J. Hillis Miller’s Speech-act Theory and Its Application","authors":"Rongqiong Guo","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.8","url":null,"abstract":"Since the publication of How to Do Things with Words in 1962, Austin and his speech-act theory caused a great disturbance in the arena of linguistics and literature, not only initiating the study of pragmatics but also triggering the paradigm change of literary studies in the 20th century. Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Derrida, de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and many other scholars in the 1970s showed great enthusiasm for theory. Yet, the theory’s limitations and applications are widely known. The publication of Speech Acts in Literature and Literature as Conduct by J. Hillis Miller seems to have given a kind of momentum to its development. Taking Miller’s initiatives as a starting point, this article analyzes a specific literary text, The Ninth Widow by a Chinese overseas writer Yan Geling, with an intention to illustrate that the application of the speech-act theory in the literary studies is indeed promising and productive.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46716286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Speaking About Small Literatures in Their Own Language","authors":"Katre Talviste","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42540194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.12697/il.2019.24.1.11
Jiang Yuqin
Yann Martel expresses his Orientalism and describes Pi’s Re-Orientalism in Life of Pi. Martel’s Orientalism presents the typical postcolonial writing model, which constructs a postcolonial exotic. Pi’s Re-Orientalism reflects a diasporic Eastern boy’s desire and identity in the West. The survival story for Pi and the Bengal tiger is a metaphor for Pi to grow up to be a true western man. Martel uses paratexts such as the author’s note, author’s interview with the protagonist Pi, records for a Japanese investigation on the truth, and inserts into the protagonist Pi’s narration, which expose the hidden intention for latent cultural hegemony. The departure of Richard Parker represents Pi’s final conforming to Western culture.
{"title":"Orientalism and Re-Orientalism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi","authors":"Jiang Yuqin","doi":"10.12697/il.2019.24.1.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/il.2019.24.1.11","url":null,"abstract":"Yann Martel expresses his Orientalism and describes Pi’s Re-Orientalism in Life of Pi. Martel’s Orientalism presents the typical postcolonial writing model, which constructs a postcolonial exotic. Pi’s Re-Orientalism reflects a diasporic Eastern boy’s desire and identity in the West. The survival story for Pi and the Bengal tiger is a metaphor for Pi to grow up to be a true western man. Martel uses paratexts such as the author’s note, author’s interview with the protagonist Pi, records for a Japanese investigation on the truth, and inserts into the protagonist Pi’s narration, which expose the hidden intention for latent cultural hegemony. The departure of Richard Parker represents Pi’s final conforming to Western culture.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.12697/il.2019.24.1.11","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42899039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.10
Ning Wang
In commemorating the centenary of the end of World War I, we could not but reflect on many of the valuable legacies and lessons the War has left behind it. To us humanities scholars, what we are most concerned about is the legitimacy of universalism or whether there is such a thing as absolute universalism. The same is true of modernity, for people may well think that modernity represents the great interest of all people in the world. But modernity manifests itself in different modes in different countries and nations as different countries and nations have different conditions, especially in such an ancient country as China. The present article will illustrate how modernity was imported from the West into China and how it has been readjusted according to its own condition and thereby developing in an uneven way. Through some theoretical elaboration the article has deconstructed the so-called “singular” or “universalist” modernity with the Chinese practice and reconsidered the concept of cosmopolitanism which has certain parallel elements in ancient Chinese philosophy. Considering the pluralistic orientation of contemporary cosmopolitanism, the author offers his own reconstruction of a sort of new cosmopolitanism in the era of globalization.
{"title":"Rethinking of the Crisis of Universalism: Toward a Pluralistic Orientation of Cosmopolitanism","authors":"Ning Wang","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.10","url":null,"abstract":"In commemorating the centenary of the end of World War I, we could not but reflect on many of the valuable legacies and lessons the War has left behind it. To us humanities scholars, what we are most concerned about is the legitimacy of universalism or whether there is such a thing as absolute universalism. The same is true of modernity, for people may well think that modernity represents the great interest of all people in the world. But modernity manifests itself in different modes in different countries and nations as different countries and nations have different conditions, especially in such an ancient country as China. The present article will illustrate how modernity was imported from the West into China and how it has been readjusted according to its own condition and thereby developing in an uneven way. Through some theoretical elaboration the article has deconstructed the so-called “singular” or “universalist” modernity with the Chinese practice and reconsidered the concept of cosmopolitanism which has certain parallel elements in ancient Chinese philosophy. Considering the pluralistic orientation of contemporary cosmopolitanism, the author offers his own reconstruction of a sort of new cosmopolitanism in the era of globalization.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47366964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Theory and Practice","authors":"J. Hart","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49668319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.14
Xiaoli Wang
This article sets out to explore, from a socio-cultural perspective, the heavy use of omission in the English translation of a popular Chinese novel Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong and its side effect: the shifts that take place on the characterization of the main character in the translated text. The descriptive perspective on the use of omission, the highly motivated, deliberate operation, shows that this method is well justified when taking into consideration the socio-cultural constraints. Nevertheless, its side effects that come along cannot be overlooked.
{"title":"Omission and its Impact on Character Reshaping in Literary Translation: A Case Study of Wolf Totem","authors":"Xiaoli Wang","doi":"10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.14","url":null,"abstract":"This article sets out to explore, from a socio-cultural perspective, the heavy use of omission in the English translation of a popular Chinese novel Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong and its side effect: the shifts that take place on the characterization of the main character in the translated text. The descriptive perspective on the use of omission, the highly motivated, deliberate operation, shows that this method is well justified when taking into consideration the socio-cultural constraints. Nevertheless, its side effects that come along cannot be overlooked.","PeriodicalId":41069,"journal":{"name":"Interlitteraria","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.12697/IL.2019.24.1.14","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46810622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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