This essay explores the idea of a world poetics through the lens of system theory. I propose three hypotheses that relate to Wang Ning's call for a world poetics: 1) world literature is coterminous with world poetics as guidelines for "making" world literature; 2) world literature is brought about by rendering the vast majority of literature invisible, whether the distinction is drawn geographically, generically, chronologically, or otherwise; and 3) world literature is third-order observing of literature, and that observing is its (...) poetics. These theses are explained, exemplified, and applied to Wang's ideas in the course of my piece. (shrink)

The first part of the present paper offers a critical response to Wang Ning's proposed construction of world poetics, based on a brief reexamination of the changing meanings and implications regarding the concept of world literature. The second part is an elucidation of the dynamics and tensions between global tendencies and local manifestations, taking the May Fourth writers and Xueheng School as examples. I argue that by transcending the binary opposition between the local and global, world poetics transforms perspectives from (...) Eurocentrism to a "glocalized" vision, and provides a solid foundation for further exploration of world literary theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Distance of Irish Modernism: Memory, Narrative, Representation by John GreaneyXiaojing Chen and Hamid FarahmandianThe Distance of Irish Modernism: Memory, Narrative, Representation, John Greaney; 248 pp. London: Blooms-bury Academic, 2022.In his thought-provoking book The Distance of Irish Modernism, John Greaney embarks on a metacritical journey to unravel the paradoxical nature of Irish modernist fictions. The book delves into the enigma of how these works serve as vessels for (...) national and transnational histories while simultaneously presenting themselves as elusive and peculiar in terms of their temporal and geographical settings. Greaney skillfully examines the complexities of Irish modernism in the twenty-first century through close reading, formal analysis, narratology, philosophical accounts of literature, historicist and materialist approaches, and postcolonial and world literature paradigms. The result is a groundbreaking narrative that challenges existing notions of Irish modernism and offers a fresh perspective on the cultural memories they portray.IThe book's introduction, "The Vicinities of Irish Modernism," sets the stage for an engaging exploration of the subject matter. Greaney adeptly frames the paradox inherent in Irish modernist fictions and introduces the central question of how these texts function as mirrors of historical events and realities. By drawing attention to the proximities and distances between modernist aesthetic practices and the history of modernity in Ireland and beyond, the introduction lays the foundation for the subsequent chapters' analysis.In chapter 1, "Samuel Beckett and the Contexts of Modernism," Greaney evaluates the works of the renowned Irish author. Greaney meticulously examines Beckett's literary legacy, probing the contexts that shaped his artistic expression. Through comprehensive scrutiny, Greaney highlights how Beckett's writings transcend conventional boundaries and invite interpretations that go beyond the historical and geographical confines of Ireland. This chapter masterfully [End Page 251] combines textual analysis with an exploration of Beckett's broader contributions to the modernist movement."Brian, Flann, Myles and the Origins of Irish Modernism," the second chapter, delves into the works of one man—but three pivotal figures—in Irish literature: Brian O'Nolan, who wrote under the pen names Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen. Greaney uncovers the origins of Irish modernism through the lens of this iconic author, shedding light on his creative methodology and his impact on the Irish literary landscape. By situating his works within the broader modernist context, Greaney reveals the ways in which this writer revolutionized Irish literature and paved the way for the future generations of Irish modernists.Chapter 3, "Elizabeth Bowen's Modernist History," focuses on well-known novelist Elizabeth Bowen. Greaney conducts an in-depth analysis of Bowen's modernist approach to historical events, providing an intriguing investigation of how her texts intertwine with the collective memory of Ireland. Bowen's unique style and intricate narratives come under scrutiny, offering readers a profound understanding of her role in shaping Irish modernism and her contribution to the literary canon.Moving forward, "Kate O'Brien's 'Flawed' Modernism" explores the works of another significant figure in Irish literature. Greaney examines the perceived flaws in O'Brien's modernist approach, challenging conventional criticism and reevaluating her contributions to the Irish modernist tradition. By deftly analyzing O'Brien's works, the chapter seeks to reposition her within the context of Irish modernism, enriching the reader's comprehension of this multifaceted literary movement.The subsequent chapter, "John McGahern and the Limits of Irish Modernism," centers on an author whose writings have earned him a prominent place in Irish literature. Greaney investigates the boundaries and constraints of Irish modernism as portrayed in McGahern's oeuvre. By unraveling the complexities of McGahern's narratives, the chapter sheds light on how his works both align with and challenge the conventions of Irish modernism. This nuanced exploration opens up new perspectives on the extent of Irish modernist expression in the literary realm.The epilogue serves as a captivating conclusion, drawing together the threads of the preceding chapters to present a cohesive reflection on the book's core themes. Greaney reinforces the idea that the examination of Irish modernism necessitates a multifaceted approach, one that embraces various critical lenses and paradigms. The epilogue encourages readers to reevaluate their perceptions of Irish modernism, urging them... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob DylanPeter CheyneThe Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob Dylan; 422 pp. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2022.Bob Dylan, like Dante's Virgil, takes us on an odyssey through sixty-six levels, not of the Underworld but of Songworld, in The Philosophy of Modern Song. With playful prose rhythms measured for pleasure and effect, these vistas are almost all seen through second-person portrayals. His gorgeous (...) write-up on Uncle Dave Macon's "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" (1924), for instance, conveys the "happy wanderer, the chicken thief," embodying the flagrant aristocracy of freedom: "You're the Dalai Lama, the Black Monk … The Thief of Baghdad … prowling and shoplifting … Multiracial, bisexual, celibate … freethinking … fucking and farting … Long John Silver … a pastry chef … hash slinger" (pp. 237–38). In Dylan's telling, this great song shimmies through a Whitmanesque catalogue of types united in aesthetic thrill.Invented characters inhabit this book, as they do Dylan's songs. Most prominent are the personae he extemporizes from others' songs in barnstorming flights of fancy. Upheld by writerly performance rather than argument, they act out his view that "it's what a song makes you feel about your own life that's important" (p. 9).The standout weird turn is the antihero he conjures from Webb Pierce's "There Stands the Glass" (1953). This is a country song about alcoholic consolation after a breakup, the toper hoping his love still thinks of him, in his misery. Simple, clichéd even, but Dylan invents a backstory hell of a Vietnam vet who "doesn't recall ever having a soul" and is "betrayed by politicians back home." Standard old-drunk fare, but then comes the nightmare of having "stuck a bayonet into babies' bellies and gouged out old men's eyes," "assassinated priests," and a concatenation of sins. "He rounds up the elderly, women and children, torches their huts" (p. 21). No bar-time happy hours for him; all those become "zero hour," "surrounded by the enemy" (p. 22). Dylan still protests the empire grotesque. Following each dark dive or wild fantasia is a straighter section that zooms out to more objective viewpoints, factoids, and historical analysis."You," ubiquitous and protean. "You," Dylan's projected center of subjective meaning. "You," his device, as he brings you along to reinvent a mood and mind frame, a world for each song. A thesis on mimesis, the second-person fantasies urge the reader to identify with the original first-person narrative, then fly it sky high. Dylan maintains that a successful song sings the listener into an alternative existence, a temporary self, through imagery and rhyme. This is just what Plato warned against, and what Dylan values: the art of making the listener mimetically become, for a few timeless minutes, what the writer and performer sing into being. In the ancient tussle between philosophers and poets, Dylan holds the agora through the harp. [End Page 254]Popular song as fiction is nothing unusual, but criticism as fiction? Is this critical license in extremis or is Dylan stressing the idea that music is always subjective? According to Dylan, songs earn their wings not just in the hearing but in how far and wide hearers can take them. While Dylan fabricates characters that weren't even dreamt of by the song performers, this book is also autobiographical throughout. The commentary relates as much of himself as the records he highlights. The book sustains a mood where the host impishly swaps masks all the while (as when he reveals, in a tiny chapter, that "Long Tall Sally" [1956] is about a one-story-tall woman from the Nephilim tribe in antediluvian Samaria). On Bobby Bare's "Detroit City" (1963), he writes, "Everybody assumes you're a bigwig, that things are cool and beautiful, but they're not." Here, many readers will flash back to young Zimmerman in Greenwich Village, desperate to pull off his move to the big city, "and the disgrace of failure is overwhelming" (p. 1). Through songs by selected others, Dylan recounts Dylan.Channeling small-hour talk radio, pulp Westerns, and hardboiled prose, the bourbon-scented mood evokes... (shrink)

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, we have seen a revival of interest in world literature and, in its wake, interest in its parent discipline: comparative literature. Many of the more recent interventions charge these disciplines, including the subdiscipline of poetics, with Eurocentrism. Though the debate ranges most intensively in US academe, Chinese scholars also have increasingly ventured onto this terrain. The present contribution elaborates on the "re-orientation" of comparative poetics and on the possibility of a world poetics.

"World literature" has come of age. Its maturity calls for a world theory of literature. In this context, I will examine some important issues arising from Wang Ning's proposal for its conception and construction. Critically reviewing the historical movement from national literature to world literature and world poetics, this article addresses some fundamental issues including: Is it necessary to posit the concept of "world poetics"? If necessary, what is its nature? How should we conceive and define it? What paradigm should (...) be adopted for its construction? How can we construct it in practical terms? What resources can we draw from existing scholarship? (shrink)

This article questions the extent to which interpretation explains literature, arguing that interpretation and explanation are not the same thing. It first engages with recent critical discussions of method and explanation in literary studies, finding that they are not much about method at all. It then offers a methodological framework that goes beyond various "method wars" over "critique" and "postcritique," and toward ways of explaining literature that are not reducible to matters of interpretation.

Friedrich Nietzsche is the protagonist of many novels, but for authors of biofictions of the German iconoclast, their Nietzsche is not supposed to be seen as the real Nietzsche. Following Nietzsche's method in _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, which is an early and vitally important biofiction, authors of biofiction about Nietzsche use the life of the German philologist to give readers themselves. By analyzing and interpreting _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_ as a biofiction, I show how authors of Nietzsche biofictions fictionalize and metaphorize, rather (...) than represent, the life of Nietzsche in order to project into existence their own vision of life and the world. (shrink)

Does Gulliver's apparent equiphilia (love for equines) at the conclusion of Jonathan Swift's satire signify madness or misanthropy? I say neither, and propose that the neighing narrator is a satirical figure encompassing the animal debate between Michel de Montaigne and René Descartes. Swift's satire, I argue, addresses the early-modern controversy over human-animal distinctions by dramatizing a profound skepticism toward human reason. Swift's stance is registered in a vacillation between literalization of human-animal conversations, lampooning Montaigne, and satirizing Cartesian mechanism. I conclude (...) that the greatest paradox of _Gulliver's Travels_ is that Swift's satirization of skepticism is an endorsement of skepticism itself. (shrink)

Following Wang Ning's postulation that world poetics is "an open theoretical body that gains in translation and cross-cultural interpretation and can be constantly reconstructed," I expound on the role of translation in the making of world poetics. I argue that the worlding of poetics manifests as a mode of circulating and reading literary theory and criticism by transcending the boundaries of languages and cultures. With reference to two polemical episodes in a Chinese literary context, I illustrate how world poetics serves (...) as a platform for the cross-cultural engagement of literary theory; and conversely, how it is contingent on translation and cross-cultural interpretation. (shrink)

This article puts forward, from a Chinese and international perspective, a theoretical construction of world poetics, based on preliminary researches in the field. Its theoretical foundation mainly lies in three aspects: (1) World poetics is a theoretical sublimation of the research results of world literature and comparative poetics. (2) So far almost all the relatively universal literary interpretive theories are produced in the West, which can hardly cover all literary and theoretical categories and experiences. (3) Chinese literary theorists are always (...) concerned about the cutting-edge issues in international literary theory, and they have paid particular attention to comparative poetics. (shrink)

Othello truly loves Desdemona and yet, this paper argues, he wants on some level to believe in her infidelity. But if he loves her so much, why would he want to believe in something that would destroy that love? The answer to this mystery, I contend, must be found in the connections between jealousy, love, and the great existential fragility to which love can expose us—connections that Shakespeare's play is capable of illuminating in uniquely powerful and profound ways.

As a response to Wang Ning's proposal for world poetics, this paper makes a brief revisit to Earl Miner's work on comparative poetics in connection with his pursuit of literary systems before dwelling on the tenets and principles of Wang's proposed world poetics. Subscribing to Wang's position that all literary theories from different cultures should be given equal access to the theoretical body of world poetics, it takes genre studies as the point of departure and examines Wang's conceptualization of world (...) drama in addition to narrative theory as particular cases to explore the means of constructing world poetics. (shrink)

Is _Invisible Man_ a sexist novel? Some critics have said so. I argue that reading _Invisible Man_ solely with a focus on gender representation misses an ethically significant dynamic between Ralph Ellison's narrator and white women. Reading _Invisible Man_ alongside Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy reveals a shared emphasis on cultivating attention to the realities of individuals by resisting fantasy. In viewing white women, the invisible man undergoes a Murdochian moral pilgrimage from fantasy to reality with courage, humility, and generosity. By (...) situating this triumph within the American white supremacist patriarchy, Ellison corrects some of Murdoch's disengagement from politics. (shrink)

This article offers a new reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's _The Birth of Tragedy_ by reading it as a satyr play that utilizes motifs from Euripides's _Bacchae_, which itself has recently been read as a satyr play. Reading _The Birth of Tragedy_ this way offers new insights into Nietzsche's notion of satyr plays and their relation to Greek tragedy. It also helps to shed light on Nietzsche's depiction of the dual nature of Dionysus and the complex character of human suffering. Finally, (...) it even helps explain Euripides's and Socrates's eventual recognition of the importance of illusion for life. (shrink)

This article enquires into the notion of world poetics constructed by Wang Ning in the lead article of this symposium. By examining the relationship between the discourses of world literature and literary theory, and between theory and poetics in the context of Western, Middle Eastern, and Chinese cultural production, I argue that poetics and theory should be desynonymized. The notions of theory and poetics in these cultural zones were shaped and functioned differently. My analysis of these differences involves a conceptual (...) toolkit that goes beyond the current assumptions of Western theory. (shrink)

World literature entangled in the forms, values, terms, and genres of comparative poetics makes the literatures of sites like Asia Pacific, India, and Oceania better recognized in world creativity and border-crossing archipelagic agency. World literature can become enframed not just along "borderlands" of nations and regions but also across "borderwaters" of entangled places, regions, and zones. Given the increasing recognition of this postcolonial world-literary creativity and agency—which implies taking seriously the reworlding power of these literatures—world poetics will have to revise (...) and decenter its literary and theoretical frameworks. (shrink)