A controversial concept in reading ＂third-world literature,＂ Fredric Jameson＇s ＂national allegory＂ has more often been refuted or approvingly appropriated than properly understood. Taking the ＂national allegory...A controversial concept in reading ＂third-world literature,＂ Fredric Jameson＇s ＂national allegory＂ has more often been refuted or approvingly appropriated than properly understood. Taking the ＂national allegory＂ as a convenient theoretical category describing the content of ＂third-world literature＂ misses Jameson＇s underlying problematic, i.e. his concern about ＂third-world literature＂ as an immanent deconstructive force leading to the breaking down of chains of signification of capitalist culture. Insofar as the functional concept of the ＂national allegory＂ is concerned, one must read ＂nation＂ not as a term designating a substantial entity, but as an ＂allegory＂ in itself. To read ＂third-world literature＂ through the lens of a ＂national allegory＂ thus means to deterritorialize the third world from its substantial determinants in terms of traditional geo-politics. Rather, ＂third-world literature＂ in its deconstructive force is toward what Jean-Luc Nancy calls the inoperative community.展开更多
A 1942 meeting of T.S.Eliot in a BBC recording studio with George Orwell,alongside several Caribbean and British Indian writers of color,suggests a multicultural vision of high modernism that never quite happened.The ...A 1942 meeting of T.S.Eliot in a BBC recording studio with George Orwell,alongside several Caribbean and British Indian writers of color,suggests a multicultural vision of high modernism that never quite happened.The exemplary modernism of Eliot's The Waste Land prompted a number of imitations,extensions,and experiments,only some of which made it into subsequent literary history.This paper concerns two modernist nonhappenings,Epistle to Prometheus by Babette Deutsch and F.M.S.R.by Francis P.Ng.Epistle to Prometheus^a book-length poem combining Eliotic modernist ambition and broadly left politics,was suppressed by the author almost immediately after publication for reasons that remain obscure.F.M.S.R.,a long poem in the Eliot tradition addressing a train journey between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur,was completely lost until recently discovered and the author(Teo Poh Leng)identified.The diversity of approaches in these poems shows how,in the postwar years,modernism was retroactively unified,and how many approaches,including some taking Eliot's influences in unusual directions,have been lost to history.展开更多
The writing of history has encountered many challenges in twenty-century theoretical discussions,and postmodernism and deconstruction in particular have made literary history all but impossible in the West.Because wor...The writing of history has encountered many challenges in twenty-century theoretical discussions,and postmodernism and deconstruction in particular have made literary history all but impossible in the West.Because world literature today remains the canonical works of Western literature,while much of the non-Western literatures and even“minor”"European literatures remain unknown and untranslated,a world history of literature is absolutely necessary to introduce the yet-unknown world literature to a global readership beyond the original linguistic and cultural milieux of those unknown literary works.Translating those yet-unknown works into English for a wider circulation is the first step to make world literature go beyond Eurocentrism,and writing a world history of literature will help us know the basic situation of the world's literary traditions from a truly global perspective.展开更多
文摘A controversial concept in reading ＂third-world literature,＂ Fredric Jameson＇s ＂national allegory＂ has more often been refuted or approvingly appropriated than properly understood. Taking the ＂national allegory＂ as a convenient theoretical category describing the content of ＂third-world literature＂ misses Jameson＇s underlying problematic, i.e. his concern about ＂third-world literature＂ as an immanent deconstructive force leading to the breaking down of chains of signification of capitalist culture. Insofar as the functional concept of the ＂national allegory＂ is concerned, one must read ＂nation＂ not as a term designating a substantial entity, but as an ＂allegory＂ in itself. To read ＂third-world literature＂ through the lens of a ＂national allegory＂ thus means to deterritorialize the third world from its substantial determinants in terms of traditional geo-politics. Rather, ＂third-world literature＂ in its deconstructive force is toward what Jean-Luc Nancy calls the inoperative community.
文摘A 1942 meeting of T.S.Eliot in a BBC recording studio with George Orwell,alongside several Caribbean and British Indian writers of color,suggests a multicultural vision of high modernism that never quite happened.The exemplary modernism of Eliot's The Waste Land prompted a number of imitations,extensions,and experiments,only some of which made it into subsequent literary history.This paper concerns two modernist nonhappenings,Epistle to Prometheus by Babette Deutsch and F.M.S.R.by Francis P.Ng.Epistle to Prometheus^a book-length poem combining Eliotic modernist ambition and broadly left politics,was suppressed by the author almost immediately after publication for reasons that remain obscure.F.M.S.R.,a long poem in the Eliot tradition addressing a train journey between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur,was completely lost until recently discovered and the author(Teo Poh Leng)identified.The diversity of approaches in these poems shows how,in the postwar years,modernism was retroactively unified,and how many approaches,including some taking Eliot's influences in unusual directions,have been lost to history.
文摘The writing of history has encountered many challenges in twenty-century theoretical discussions,and postmodernism and deconstruction in particular have made literary history all but impossible in the West.Because world literature today remains the canonical works of Western literature,while much of the non-Western literatures and even“minor”"European literatures remain unknown and untranslated,a world history of literature is absolutely necessary to introduce the yet-unknown world literature to a global readership beyond the original linguistic and cultural milieux of those unknown literary works.Translating those yet-unknown works into English for a wider circulation is the first step to make world literature go beyond Eurocentrism,and writing a world history of literature will help us know the basic situation of the world's literary traditions from a truly global perspective.
