What is it about?
The main contrast in this chapter is between (Answer 1) the traditional view that WL is a collection of great books (tracked through Walter Benjamin) and (Answer 2) the postmodern view that WL is a loosely linked/shifting collection of reading strategies (tracked through David Damrosch). Answer 3 is the constellation model that attempts to synthesize Answers 1 and 2; Answer 4 is the icotic theory that organizes the book.
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Why is it important?
David Damrosch's approach to World Literature is so (justifiably) attractive that a lot of people miss the complexities in the tensions between his postmodern view and the traditional view. This chapter unpacks those complexities.
Perspectives
In a way this chapter is a long preface to the book: it introduces my theoretical model. But it also works as a stand-alone study of the prevailing thought on "What Is World Literature?"
Professor Douglas J. Robinson
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
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This page is a summary of: What is World Literature? Four Answers, January 2017, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004340268_002.
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