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Genre Definition
Genre means the type of art, literature or music characterized by a specific
form, content and style. For example, literature has four main genres;
poetry, drama, fiction and non-fiction. All of these genres have particular
features and functions that distinguish them from one another. Hence, it is
necessary on the part of readers to know which category of genre they are
reading in order to understand the message it conveys, as they may have
certain expectations prior to the reading concerned.
Types of Genre
Poetry is the first major literary genre. All types of poetry share specific
characteristics. In fact, poetry is a form of text that follows
a meter and rhythm with each lines and syllables. It is further subdivided into
different genres such an epic poem, narrative, romantic, dramatic, and lyric.
Dramatic poetry includesmelodrama, tragedy and comedy, while other poems
includes ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, song and epics. Popular examples of epic
poems are Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Iliad and The Odyssey by
Homer and romantic poem includes, Red Red Rose by Robert Burns etc. All
these poetic forms share specific features such as they do not follow
paragraphs or sentences; they use stanzas and lines instead. Some forms
follow very strict rules of length and number of stanzas and lines such
as villanelle, sonnet and haiku etc. while some may be free like a
free verse poem Feelings, Now by Katherine Foreman that is devoid of any
regular meter and rhyme scheme. Besides that, often poetry usesfigurative
language like metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and alliteration, etc. to
Fiction has three categories that are, realistic, non-realistic and semi-fiction.
Usually, fiction work is not real and therefore, authors can use complex
figurative language to touch readers imagination. Unlike poetry, it is more
structured, follows proper grammatical pattern and correct mechanics. A
fictional work may incorporate fantastical and imaginary ideas from everyday
Depending upon their types, different genres have different roles. For
example, fiction and dramatic genres help students and writers learn and
improve their communication skills. A poetic genre, on the other hand,
enhances imaginative and emotional power of the readers. Non-fictional texts
and essays help readers develop analytical and persuasive capabilities.
However, the major function of genre is to establish a code of behavior
between the writers and audience, and keep the readers informed about the
topics discussed or the themes presented.
http://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-genresdefinition-types-characteristics-examples.html
What Is a Genre?
Ever have a friend suggest a movie to go see, but you responded, 'I'm not in the mood for that?'
What did you mean? Was it a scary movie and you were in the mood to laugh? Was it a sad movie,
but you wanted some action? If so, then you already know about genres.
A genre is a broad term that translates from the French to mean 'kind' or 'type.' In entertainment, this
can translate to horror, romance, science fiction, etc. In general, these types differ for all sorts of
reasons, from the actions in their plots to the feelings they elicit from the audience. However, in
literature, there are some more defined genres. It is important to know which genre a piece of work
falls into because the reader will already have certain expectations before he even begins to read.
Genre, in broad terms, refers to any works that share certain characteristics. If enough
characteristics are in common, then the pieces are said to be in the same genre. In literature, there
are four main genres to help the reader focus their expectations for the piece, though these genres
can be broken down even further.
Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost focuses on Satan's fall from grace and his following pursuit of
revenge.
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nary.com/examples-ofgenre.html
Examples of Genre
A genre is a category of art, music, or literature. Following are some popular examples of
genres, along with some related sub-genres.
Comedy
Comedies are humorous, funny stories intended to make the reader or viewer laugh.
Black comedy. Although these stories are intended to be funny, they also touch
darker areas of storytelling, such as death and fear.
Parodies. A parody intends to mimic another genre to humorous effect. Parodies can
be intended to mock and criticize as well as to pay homage.
Rom-com. Romantic comedies, or rom-coms, mix love stories together with comedic
events.
Slapstick comedy. This type of comedy features physical humor such as pratfalls,
silly and exaggerated body language, and unlikely scenarios.
Fantasy
Stories about magic spells, mythical creatures, and fabled kingdoms are known as
fantasies. These stories sometimes include witchcraft and wizardry, dragons and unicorns,
and an emphasis on legend.
Horror
Horror stories are intended, as the name suggests, to horrify and scare an audience. The
genre of horror has been shocking audiences for many centuries and includes many subgenres.
Ghost stories. These are stories where the dead return to life and haunt the living,
such as Dickens A Christmas Carol. Sometimes the ghosts are trying to teach the living a
lesson.
Monster stories. Monster stories use creatures that frighten or threaten human
beings as the antagonists.
Slasher fiction. Popular in cinema, slasher stories tell of deranged killers who are out
to punish regular people.
Survival stories. These stories paint a future where humankind is up against a threat
like zombies or vampires and must survive against the odds.
Science Fiction
Any story that uses scientific concepts to explain the world or the universe is known as
science fiction, sci-fi, or syfy. This genre is very similar in construction to fantasy, except that
science is a central theme.
Apocalyptic sci-fi. Any science fiction that has to do with the end of the world or the
destruction of mankind is known as "apocalyptic" sci-fi.
Hard sci-fi. When the science of a particular story is well-researched and stands up
to scrutiny, it is considered "hard" sci-fi.
Soft sci-fi. Soft sci-fi typically deals less with the complications of applied science
and more with the effects of science.
Space opera. This type of science fiction deals with the long-term effects of a life
lived in space, such as Star Trek or Star Wars.
There are many examples of genres and sub-genres. The movies, books, literature and
entertainment you enjoy fall into one of these genres.
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6950.html
Types of Literature
Here are some of the popular categories of books and stories in literature.
An autobiography is the story of a person's life written or told by that person.
A myth is a traditional story that a particular culture or group once accepted as sacred and true. It
may center on a god or supernatural being and explain how something came to be, such as lightning
or music or the world itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature
Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. More
restrictively, it is writing considered as an art form, or any single writing
deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying
language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. Its Latin
root literatura/litteratura (derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting)
was used to refer to all written accounts, though contemporary definitions
extend the term to include texts that are spoken or sung (oral literature).
Literature can be classified according to whether it is fiction or nonfiction and whether it is poetry or prose; it can be further distinguished
according to major forms such as the novel, short story ordrama; and works
are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to
certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
The concept has changed meaning over time: nowadays it can broaden to
have non-written verbal art forms, and thus it is difficult to agree on its
origin, which can be paired with that of language or writing
itself. Developments in print technology have allowed an evergrowing
distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic
literature.
Definitions[edit]
There have been various attempts to define "literature".[1] Simon and Delyse
Ryan begin their attempt to answer the question "What is Literature?" with
the observation:
The quest to discover a definition for "literature" is a road that is much
travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory.
Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they inevitably change
over time. In fact, the only thing that is certain about defining literature is
that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over
time as well. [2]
Novel: a long fictional prose narrative. It was the form's close relation
to real life that differentiated it from the chivalric romance;[23][24] in most
European languages the equivalent term is roman, indicating the
proximity of the forms.[24] In English, the term emerged from the Romance
languages in the late fifteenth century, with the meaning of "news"; it
came to indicate something new, without a distinction between fact or
fiction.[25] Although there are many historical prototypes, so-called "novels
before the novel",[26] the modern novel form emerges late in cultural
history roughly during the eighteenth century. [27] Initially subject to
much criticism, the novel has acquired a dominant position amongst
literary forms, both popularly and critically.[24][28][29]
form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written
for radio broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or
television. Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been
adapted to printed or electronic media.
History[edit]
Main article: History of literature
our history. Through the study of past literature we are able to learn about
how society has evolved and about the societal norms during each of the
different periods all throughout history. This can even help us to understand
references made in more modern literature because authors often make
references to Greek mythology and other old religious texts or historical
moments. Not only is there literature written on each of the aforementioned
topics themselves, and how they have evolved throughout history (like a
book about the history of economics or a book about evolution and science,
for example) but we can also learn about these things in fictional works.
Authors often include historical moments in their works, like when Lord Byron
talks about the Spanish and the French in Childe Harolds Pilgrimage: Canto
I[48] and expresses his opinions through his character Childe Harold. Through
literature we are able to continuously uncover new information about history.
It is easy to see how all academic fields have roots in literature. [49]Information
became easier to pass down from generation to generation once we began
to write it down. Eventually everything was written down, from things like
home remedies and cures for illness, or how to build shelter to traditions and
religious practices. From there people were able to study literature, improve
on ideas, further our knowledge, and academic fields such as the medical
field or trades could be started. In much the same way as the literature that
we study today continue to be updated as we continue to evolve and learn
more and more.
As a more urban culture developed, academies provided a means of
transmission for speculative and philosophical literature in early civilizations,
resulting in the prevalence of literature in Ancient China, Ancient
India, Persia and Ancient Greece and Rome. Many works of earlier periods,
even in narrative form, had a covert moral or didactic purpose, such as the
Sanskrit Panchatantra or the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Drama and satire also
developed as urban culture provided a larger public audience, and later
readership, for literary production. Lyric poetry (as opposed to epic poetry)
was often the speciality of courts and aristocratic circles, particularly in East
Asia where songs were collected by the Chinese aristocracy as poems, the
most notable being the Shijing or Book of Songs. Over a long period, the
poetry of popular pre-literate balladry and song interpenetrated and
eventually influenced poetry in the literary medium.
In
ancient
China,
early
literature
was
primarily
focused
on
philosophy, historiography, military science, agriculture, andpoetry. China,
the origin of modern paper making and woodblock printing, produced the
world's first print cultures.[50] Much of Chinese literature originates with
the Hundred Schools of Thought period that occurred during the Eastern
Zhou Dynasty(769-269 BCE). The most important of these include the
Classics of Confucianism, of Daoism, of Mohism, of Legalism, as well as works
of military science (e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War) and Chinese
history (e.g. Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian). Ancient Chinese
literature had a heavy emphasis on historiography, with often very detailed
court records. An exemplary piece of narrative history of ancient China was
the Zuo Zhuan, which was compiled no later than 389 BCE, and attributed to
the blind 5th century BCE historian Zuo Qiuming.
In ancient India, literature originated from stories that were originally orally
transmitted.
Early
genres
included drama, fables,sutras and epic
poetry. Sanskrit literature begins with the Vedas, dating back to 15001000
BCE, and continues with theSanskrit Epics of Iron Age India. The Vedas are
among the oldest sacred texts. The Samhitas (vedic collections) date to
roughly 15001000 BCE, and the "circum-Vedic" texts, as well as
the redaction of the Samhitas, date to c. 1000-500 BCE, resulting in a Vedic
period, spanning the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE, or the Late Bronze
Age and the Iron Age.[51]The period between approximately the 6th to 1st
centuries BC saw the composition and redaction of the two most influential
Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, with subsequent
redaction progressing down to the 4th century AD.
In ancient Greece, the epics of Homer, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey,
and Hesiod, who wrote Works and Days andTheogony, are some of the
earliest, and most influential, of Ancient Greek literature. Classical Greek
genres
included
philosophy, poetry,
historiography, comedies and dramas. Plato and Aristotle authored
philosophical
texts
that
are
the
foundation
of Western
philosophy, Sappho and Pindar were
influential lyric
poets,
and Herodotus and Thucydides were early Greek historians. Although drama
was popular in Ancient Greece, of the hundreds of tragedies written and
performed during the classical age, only a limited number of plays by three
authors
still
exist: Aeschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides.
The
plays
of Aristophanes provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama
known as Old Comedy, the earliest form of Greek Comedy, and are in fact
used to define the genre.[52]
reporting into strong subjective statements after the second World War,
and post-modern critics have disparaged the idea of objective realism in
general.
Awards[edit]
Main article: List of literary awards
There are numerous awards recognising achievement and contribution in
literature. Given the diversity of the field, awards are typically limited in
scope, usually on: form, genre, language, nationality and output (e.g. for
first-time writers or debut novels).[53]
The Nobel Prize in Literature was one of the six Nobel Prizes established by
the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895,[54] and is awarded to an author on the basis
of their body of work, rather than to, or for, a particular work itself. [b] Other
literary prizes for which all nationalities are eligible include: the Neustadt
International Prize for Literature, the Man Booker International Prize and
the Franz Kafka Prize.
Essays[edit]
An essay consists of a discussion of a topic from an author's personal point of
view, exemplified by works by Michel de Montaigne or by Charles Lamb.
Genres related to the essay may include the memoir and the epistle.
Other prose literature[edit]
Philosophical, historical, journalistic, and scientific writings are traditionally
ranked as literature. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in
existence; novels and prose stories earned the names "fiction" to distinguish
them from factual writing or nonfiction, which writers historically have
crafted in prose.
Natural science[edit]
As advances and specialization have made new scientific research
inaccessible to most audiences, the "literary" nature of science writing has
become less pronounced over the last two centuries. Now, science appears
mostly in journals. Scientific works of Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton still
exhibit great value, but since the science in them has largely become
outdated, they no longer serve for scientific instruction. Yet, they remain too
technical to sit well in most programmes of literary study. Outside of "history
of science" programmes, students rarely read such works.
Philosophy[edit]
Philosophy has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its
practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless
most new philosophical work appears in academic journals. Major
philosophers
through
historyPlato, Aristotle,
Socrates, Augustine, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzschehave become as
canonical as any writers. Some recent philosophy works are argued to merit
the title "literature", but much of it does not, and some areas, such as logic,
have become extremely technical to a degree similar to that of mathematics.
Psychology[edit]
Literature allows readers to access intimate emotional aspects of a persons
character that would not be obvious otherwise.[55] It benefits the
psychological development and understanding of the reader. For example, it
allows a person to access emotional states from which the person has
distanced himself or herself. An entry written by D. Mitchell featured inThe
English Journal explains how the author used young adult literature in order
to re-experience the emotional psychology she experienced as a child which
she describes as a state of "wonder".[56]
Hogan also explains that the temporal and emotional amount which a person
devotes to understanding a characters situation in literature allows literature
to be considered "ecological[ly] valid in the study of emotion". [57] This can be
understood in the sense that literature unites a large community by
provoking universal emotions. It also allows readers to access cultural
aspects that they are not exposed to thus provoking new emotional
experiences.[58] Authors choose literary device according to what
psychological emotion he or she is attempting to describe, thus certain
literary devices are more emotionally effective than others.[59]
Furthermore, literature is being more popularly regarded as a psychologically
effective research tool. It can be considered a research tool because it allows
psychologists to discover new psychological aspects and it also allows
psychologists to promote their theories. [60] For example, the print capacity
available for literature distribution has allowed psychological theories such
as Maslows Hierarchy of Needs to be universally recognized.
Maslows "Third Force Psychology Theory" even allows literary analysts to
critically understand how characters reflect the culture and the history in
which they are contextualized. It also allows analysts to understand the
Films, videos and broadcast soap operas have carved out a niche which
often parallels the functionality of prose fiction.
Genres of literature[edit]
Literary genre is a mode of categorising literature. The term originates from
French, designating a proposed type or class. [64] However, such classes are
subject to change, and have been used in different ways in different periods
and traditions.
Literary techniques[edit]
Main article: Literary technique
A literary technique or literary device can be used by authors in order to
enhance the written framework of a piece of literature, and produce specific
effects. Literary techniques encompass a wide range of approaches to
crafting a work: whether a work is narrated in first-person or from another
perspective, whether to use a traditional linear narrative or anonlinear
narrative, or the choice of literary genre, are all examples of literary
technique. They may indicate to a reader that there is a familiar structure
and presentation to a work, such as a conventional murder-mystery novel;
or, the author may choose to experiment with their technique to surprise the
reader.
In this way, use of a technique can lead to the development of a new genre,
as was the case with one of the first modern novels, Pamela by Samuel
Richardson. Pamela is
written
as
a
collection
of
letter-writing
correspondence,
called
"epistolary
technique";
by
using
this
technique, Pamela strengthened the tradition of the epistolary novel, a genre
which had been practiced for some time already but without the same
acclaim.
Literary technique is distinguished from literary device, as military strategy is
distinguished from military tactics. Devices are specific constructions within
the
narrative
that
make
it
effective.
Examples
include metaphor, simile, ellipsis,
narrative motifs,
and allegory.
Even
simple word play functions as a literary device. The narrative mode may be
considered a literary device, such as the use of stream-of-consciousness
narrative.
Literary criticism implies a critique and evaluation of a piece of literature
and, in some cases, it is used to improve a work in progress or a classical
piece, as with an ongoing theatre production. Literary editors can serve a
similar purpose for the authors with whom they work. There are many types
http://classiclit.about.com/od/literaryterms/g/aa_whatisliter.htm
Definition: What is literature? Why do we read it? Why is literature important?
Literature is a term used to describe written and sometimes spoken material. Derived
from the Latinlitteratura meaning "writing formed with letters," literature most commonly
refers to works of the creative imagination, including poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction,
journalism, and in some instances, song.
Why do we read literature?
Simply put, literature represents the culture and tradition of a language or a people. It's
difficult to precisely define, though many have tried, but it's clear that the
accepted definition of literature is constantly changing and evolving.
For many, the word literature suggests a higher art form, merely putting words on a
page doesn't necessarily mean creating literature. A canon is the accepted body of
works for a given author. Some works of literature are considered canonical, that is
culturally representative of a particlar genre.
But what we consider to be literature can vary from one generation to the next. For
instance, Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby Dick was considered a failure by
contemporary reviewiers. However, it's since been recognized as a master work, and is
frequently cited as one of the best works of western literature for its thematic complexity
and use of symbolism to tell the story of Captain Ahab and the white whale. By reading
Moby Dick in the present day, we can gain a fuller understanding of literary traditions in
Melville's time.
In this way, literature is more than just a historical or cultural artifact, but can serve as
an introduction to a new world of experience.
Why is literature important?
Ultimately, we may discover meaning in literature by looking at what the author writes or
says, and how he or she says it. We may interpret and debate an author's message by
examining the words he or she chooses in a given novel or work, or observing which
character or voice serves as the connection to the reader. In academia, this decoding of
the text is often carried out through the use of literary theory, using a mythological,
sociological, psychological, historical, or other approach to better understand the context
and depth of a work.
Works of literature, at their best, provide a kind of blueprint of human civilization. From
the writings of ancient civilizations like Egypt, and China, to Greek philosophy and
poetry; from the epics of Homer to the plays of Shakespeare, from Jane Austen and
Charlotte Bronte to Maya Angelou, works of literature give insight and context to all the
world's societies.
Whatever critical paradigm we use to discuss and analyze it, literature is important to us
because it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us on a deeply personal level. Even
when it is ugly, literature is beautiful.
Also Known As: Classics, learning, erudition, belles-lettres, lit, literary works, written
work, writings, books.
Examples: "The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to
affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish." --Robert Louis Stevenson
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be
intolerably stupid." -- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own
myth. -Rumi
Ill call for pen and ink and write my mind. -- William Shakespeare, Henry VI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_literature
World literature is most of the times used to refer to the sum total of the worlds national literatures,
but usually it refers to the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin.
Often used in the past primarily for masterpieces of Western European literature, world literature
today is increasingly seen in a global context. Readers today have access to an unprecedented
range of works from around the world in excellent translations, and since the mid-1990s a lively
debate has grown up concerning both the aesthetic and the political values and limitations of an
emphasis on global processes over national traditions.
History[edit]
James "Agent Bond" Bond used the concept of Weltliteratur in several of his essays in the early
decades of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary
works in Europe, including works of non-Western origin. The concept achieved wide currency after
his disciple Johann Peter Eckermann published a collection of conversations with Goethe in 1835.
[1]
Goethe spoke with Eckermann about the excitement of reading Chinese novels and Persian and
Serbian poetry as well as of his fascination with seeing how his own works were translated and
discussed abroad, especially in France. In a famous statement in January 1827, Goethe predicted to
Eckermann that in the coming years world literature would supplant the national literatures as the
major mode of literary creativity:
I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing
itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men. . . . I therefore like to
look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is
now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must
strive to hasten its approach.[2]
Reflecting Goethe's fundamentally economic understanding of world literature as a process of
trade and exchange, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the term in their Communist
Manifesto (1848) to describe the "cosmopolitan character" of bourgeois literary production,
asserting that
In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants,
requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climates. . . . And as in
material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations
become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more
and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a
world literature.
Martin Puchner has argued that Goethe had a keen sense of world literature as driven by a
new world market in literature. It was this market-based approach that Marx and Engels pick
up in 1848. But while the two authors admire the world literature created by
bourgeois capitalism, they also seek to exceed it. They hoped to create a new type of world
literature, one exemplified by the Manifesto, which was to be published simultaneously in
many languages and several locations. This text was supposed to inaugurate a new type of
world literature and in fact partially succeeded, becoming one of the most influential texts of
the twentieth century.[3] Whereas Marx and Engels followed Goethe in seeing world literature
as a modern or even future phenomenon, in 1886 the Irish scholar Hutcheson Macaulay
Posnett argued that world literature first arose in ancient empires such as the Roman
Empire, long before the rise of the modern national literatures.[4] Certainly today, world
literature is understood as including classical works from all periods, as well as
contemporary literature written for a global audience. By the turn of the twentieth century,
intellectuals in various parts of the globe were thinking actively about world literature as a
frame for their own national production, a theme found in essays by several of the
progressive writers of China's May Fourth movement, including Lu Xun.
Contemporary understandings[edit]
Over the course of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the rising tide of
nationalism led to an eclipse of interest in world literature, but in the postwar era,
comparative and world literature began to enjoy a resurgence in the United States. As a
nation of immigrants, and with a less well established national tradition than many older
countries possessed, the United States became a thriving site for the study of comparative
literature (often primarily at the graduate level) and of world literature, often taught as a firstyear general education class. The focus remained largely on the Greek and Roman classics
and the literatures of the major modern Western European powers, but a confluence of
factors in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a greater openness to the wider world. The
end of the Cold War, the growing globalization of the world economy, and new waves of
immigration from many parts of the world led to several efforts to open out the study of world
literature. This change is well illustrated by the expansion of The Norton Anthology of World
Masterpieces, whose first edition of 1956 featured only Western European and North
American works, to a new expanded edition of 1995 with substantial non-Western
selections, and with the title changed from masterpieces to the less exclusive
Literature.[5] The major survey anthologies today, including those published by Longman
and by Bedford in addition to Norton, all showcase several hundred authors from dozens of
countries.
The explosive growth in the range of cultures studied under the rubric of world literature has
inspired a variety of theoretical attempts to define and delimit the field and to propose
effective modes of research and teaching. In his 2003 book What Is World Literature? David
Damrosch argued for world literature as less a vast canon of works and more a matter of
circulation and reception, and he proposed that works that thrive as world literature are ones
that work well and even gain in various ways in translation. Whereas Damroschs approach
remains tied to the close reading of individual works, a very different view was taken by the
Stanford critic Franco Moretti in a pair of articles offering Conjectures on World
Literature.[6] Moretti argued that the scale of world literature far exceeds what can be
grasped by traditional methods of close reading, and he advocated instead a mode of
distant reading that would look at large-scale patterns as discerned from publication
records and national literary histories, enabling one to trace the global sweep of forms such
as the novel or film.
Morettis approach combined elements of evolutionary theory with the world-systems
analysis pioneered by Immanuel Wallerstein, an approach further discussed since then by
Emily Apter in her influential book The Translation Zone.[7]Related to their world-systems
approach is the major work of French critic Pascale Casanova, La Rpublique mondiale des
lettres (1999).[8] Drawing on the theories of cultural production developed by the sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu, Casanova explores the ways in which the works of peripheral writers must
circulate into metropolitan centers in order to achieve recognition as works of world
literature. Both Moretti and Casanova emphasize the inequalities of the global literary field,
which Moretti describes as one, but unequal.
The field of world literature continues to generate debate, with critics such as Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak arguing that too often the study of world literature in translation smooths
out both the linguistic richness of the original and the political force a work can have in its
original context.[9] Other scholars, on the contrary, emphasize that world literature can and
should be studied with close attention to original languages and contexts, even as works
take on new dimensions and new meanings abroad. Once a primarily European and
American concern, world literature is now actively studied and discussed in many parts of
the world. World literature series are now being published in China and in Estonia, and a
new Institute for World Literature, offering month-long summer sessions on theory and
pedagogy, had its inaugural session at Peking University in 2011, with its next sessions at
Istanbul Bilgi University in 2012 and at Harvard University in 2013. Since the middle of the
first decade of the new century, a steady stream of works has provided materials for the
study of the history of world literature and the current debates. Valuable collections of
essays include:
Though Pavi remained primarily a print-based writer, the Korean/American duo known as
Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries create their works entirely for internet distribution, often
in several languages.[11] World literature today exists in symbiosis with national literatures,
enabling writers in small countries to reach out to global audiences, and helping readers
around the world gain a better sense of the world around them as it has been reflected and
refracted in the worlds literatures over the past five millennia.
Wide international distribution alone is not a sufficient condition for attributing works to world
literature. The decisive factor is an exemplary artistic value and the influence of the
respective work on the development of humankind andscience[citation needed] in general, and on
the development of literature(s) of the world in particular. An agreement on universally
accepted criteria to decide what works have literary world ranking is not easy, especially
since individual works have to be considered in their respective temporal and regional
contexts.