World Literature: From the Politics to a Poetics

  • Thirthankar Chakraborty University of Kent
Keywords: World Literature, Cosmopolitanism, Translation, Samuel Beckett, Rabindranath Tagore, Marx and Engels

Abstract

This article examines the place of world literature today. Starting with the current political context in Britain, the first part outlines a brief history of Weltliteratur via Goethe, Marx and Engels, and contemporary literary critics such as Pascale Casanova and Emily Apter. Using Samuel Beckett’s views and letters on nationalism and translation, the second part problematizes the centre and periphery model upon which most of these theories are based. The final part introduces Tagore’s contrasting view of visva-sahitya, which, as evidenced through Beckett’s position as a writer and translator of impotence, presents an alternative mode of perceiving world literature.

Author Biography

Thirthankar Chakraborty, University of Kent

Thirthankar Chakraborty is Associate Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. His doctoral thesis, entitled “Samuel Beckett and Indian Literature”, was funded by a University of Kent 50th Anniversary Scholarship. He read an MA in Twentieth Century Literary Studies at Durham University and has presented papers at various international conferences. Sponsored by the Centre for Modern European Literature, he co-organised the Samuel Beckett and World Literature conference in 2016. He also won the BCLT bursary for participating at the Institute of World Literature in 2015 and was recipient of the Samuel Beckett Summer School's international bursary in 2014.

Published
2017-09-30
How to Cite
Chakraborty, T. (2017). World Literature: From the Politics to a Poetics. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 4(1), 43-54. Retrieved from http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/53
Issue
Vol 4 No 1 (2017): Why World Literature
Section
Articles

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