bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Erotic “World” of theKamasutra
Authors: Ali Daud 
Published: December 2019

AbstractTheKamasutra(Kāmasūtra) of Vatsyayana (Vātsyāyana Mallanāga) is a Sanskrit manual on the enjoyment of sexual pleasures. Composed in the first centuries of the Common Era, the treatise focuses on the sexual life of the urbane city dweller or courtier and his relations with different types of women. Despite being the first extant treatise of what came to be a distinct scientific tradition in later times that had deep connections with aesthetics, medicine, and politics, and that can tell us much about aesthetics, gender relations, and the material life of elites in early India, it has most often been glossed by modern European authors, from its first translation at the end of the ninetenth century by “enlightened Victorians,” as either a collection of exotic Oriental sexual habits or a humanist counterpoint to Christian notions of carnality.
Táin Bó Cúailnge: Ireland's Vernacular Epic
Authors: Le Blanc Julie A. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractTheTáin Bó Cúailnge(Cattle‐Raid of Cooley) is one of Ireland's most important medieval texts, both at the time of its redaction and in the twenty‐first century. It draws from premedieval oral tradition and it may – though it is still a point of controversy – have been influenced by classical texts. Though it is not a vernacularized foreign text, such as theIrish Aeneid(Imtheachta Aeniasa), theTáin's story hints at the multifaceted international relationships held among redactors and scribes in the medieval period. This chapter provides a brief survey of scholarship on theTáinand offers insight into its continuing influence on modern Ireland and modern audiences around the world, particularly in the realm of children's literature.
The Poetry of
X
in
Q
iji: Patriotism and Its Discontents
Authors: Yang Zhiyi 
Published: December 2019

Abstract
The song lyrics of Xin Qiji (1140–1207), Southern Song dynasty poet, are often praised for their heroism and patriotism. I will introduce Xin Qiji the person, his historical context, and his innovative lyric poetry, examine the hues of proto‐nationalism that his poetry expresses, and analyze the conflicts among his lyric persona. I argue that the modern notion of “patriotism” defined as loyalty to the nation‐state has changed the narrative of literary history, leading further to the canonization of Xin's literary style in China's contemporary textbooks. The relation between biographical construction and literary criticism is thus problematized.
Marco Polo and the World Empire of Letters
Authors: Kinoshita Sharon 
Published: December 2019

AbstractWhile the text commonly known as Marco Polo'sTravelsis often taken to typify a medieval European view of the non‐West, this chapter returns the work to its original title,The Description of the World(Le Devisement du monde), and moment of composition, the second half of the thirteenth century, to revisit the way it partakes of the interconnectedness of what Janet Abu‐Lughod described in 1989 as the premodern world system “before European hegemony.”
A Woman Flouts Expectations in the Literary World: The Case of
L
i
Q
ingzhao
Authors: Egan Ronald 
Published: December 2019

Abstract

Li Qingzhao (1084–c. 1155) is the most celebrated woman poet in Chinese literary history. Known best for her small but intense corpus of poems in the song lyric (
ci
) form, her way of writing about women and their emotional life points to new directions that had not been explored by the male writers of her day. Her songs about love and loneliness have traditionally been assumed to be outpourings of her affection for her husband, Zhao Mingcheng, who died in middle age. Li Qingzhao's subsequent brief remarriage proved to be deeply problematic for those who, in later centuries, clung to an idealized view of her first marriage. Controversy surrounding the historicity of her remarriage has consumed scholarship and interpretations of her works for the past 300 years. The advent of feminist approaches in recent decades has had the effect of defusing this controversy somewhat and redirecting attention to the literary excellences of her work. Those excellences have sufficed to keep her works read and admired by Chinese readers through the centuries. In later centuries, Li Qingzhao became an icon and an often‐cited precedent for women writers. She also deserves notice in global medieval history for having explored new directions in women's literary expression.
The Popular Chinese Novel
Authors: Wan Margaret B. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThe popular novel was one of the most widely available forms of reading material in China in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. This chapter defines “popular” in terms of accessibility (measured in numbers of editions) and surveys the thematic genres of the Chinese popular novel, including historical novels, military romances, scholar‐beauty romances, court case novels, tales of deities and eccentric monks, and martial arts novels. As the culmination of many older strands of oral storytelling and literature in China, these novels presented stories that were an integral part of the fabric of the culture. For these reasons, as well as the early availability of many of these works in translation outside China (in both Asia and Europe), popular Chinese novels deserve more attention as world literature.
Making it New in Tang Dynasty Poetry: Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu
Authors: Cartelli Mary Anne 
Published: December 2019

AbstractWang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu are considered the greatest poets of China's Tang dynasty (618–907). All three men lived during the period later known as the High Tang, coinciding with the cosmopolitan reign of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756). Although they were more versatile writers than is generally acknowledged, in later years Wang Wei became known as the Poet‐Buddha, Li Bai as the Poet‐Immortal, and Du Fu as the Poet‐Sage, respectively symbolizing Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian approaches in their poems. Accordingly, Wang Wei was characterized as the contemplative, Li Bai as the visionary, and Du Fu as the social conscience of the age.
Journey of Knowledge in Ibn Tufayl'sHayy Bin Yaqzan
Authors: Baroud Mahmoud Nayef 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThe abstract philosophical novel of Ibn Tufayl (Ibn Ṭufāyl),Hayy Bin Yaqzan(Ḥayy Bin Yaqẓān), is the historically first of a series of such reflections on the nature of human behavior and learning. For though by modern psychological standards, the intellectual development of Hayy as feral child is quite impossible, Ibn Tufayl's purpose is to offer a developmental trajectory of right thinking given the absence of contrived culture and society. Ibn Tufayl attempts to show that natural reason alone can engender ethics and knowledge of the universe that is in harmony with revelation, in this case the revealed scriptures of Islam. This chapter highlights the hero Hayy's journey of knowledge on which he depends only on his reason and contemplation to discover many truths about himself, the universe, and God.
Introduction to World Literature 1771 to 1919
Authors: Ekotto Frieda , Celis Abigail E. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThis part of theCompanionpoints to some of the currents in philosophy, translation practice, and cross‐cultural anthropology that laid the stakes for literary production and circulation in the period roughly corresponding to the long nineteenth century. Setting these intellectual and aesthetic debates in the sociopolitical context of imperial expansion, slavery, and revolutions, we argue that the worlding of literature in the time period went hand in hand with an “Othering” of the world. The structuring dynamic of worlding‐through‐othering manifests itself in the intellectual paradigms we deploy today. Through the seven thematic “bridges” we describe in this chapter, we suggest that the contributors to thisparttake varying approaches to situate the authors they study in this dynamic, while also moving beyond it.
The Other Woman: Mirza Hadi Rusva's
Umrao Jan Ada
and the Politics of Domesticity in Nineteenth‐Century India
Authors: Khan Maryam Wasif 
Published: December 2019

Abstract

Mirza Hadi Rusva's
Umrao Jan Ada
(
Umrāʿo Jān Adā
) (1899) has been read variously as Urdu's first novel or as an example of modern feminine autobiography. But the literary achievement of a work such as
Umrao Jan
is as much formal and aesthetic as it is historical. Challenging the then‐dominant perceptions of the nation and reformed Muslim piety in a post‐1857 India,
Umrao Jan
forces readers to rethink reformist edicts on morality, nationhood, and religion itself. In other words, Rusva uses the ostensibly marginalized figure of the courtesan to present Muslim life in north India as a series of contradictions that destabilize the dominant narratives of nationalism. In its time,
Umrao Jan
remained a bestseller despite its critique of the Muslim embrace of colonial modernity. Today, however, the work has been appropriated for various ends by the mainstream film and television industries of the modern nation‐states of India and Pakistan.
Splendors and Miseries of Modernity: Honoré de Balzac
Authors: Ginsburg Michal P. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractIn this chapter I argue that Balzac's contribution to world literature lies primarily in his description of the passage from premodern to modern society. Through a close reading of a few key texts, I discuss the representation of social mobility in his novels and of the ensuing shifts in understanding of power, wealth, language and representation, identity, poetry, and gender. I argue that in Balzac's works, celebration and critique of modernity – what I call, using his own terms, its “splendors and miseries” – should be seen, and read, as polemically co‐present.
Retrying Flaubert
Authors: Mills Kathryn Oliver 
Published: December 2019

Abstract
In this chapter, I will establish duality as the source of Flaubert's originality. I consider Flaubert's trial as well as the work of modern critics and novelists to observe that in some cases our view of Flaubert's posterity has been reductive. However, I use these negative examples to restore and put into relief the particular genius of Flaubert, and the full significance of his contribution to modern world literature. After close looks at the text and its context, the chapter concludes that literary irony – understood as “stable” as opposed to undermining in this instance – is the form best suited to represent the duality inherent both in a liminal period and in modernity.
Between Ideas and Practices: Bharatendu Harishchandra and Modern Hindi in Colonial India
Authors: Orsini Francesca 
Published: December 2019

AbstractHailed as the “father of modern Hindi” language and literature and one of the most brilliant and creative writers of colonial India, Bharatendu Harishchandra (1850–1885) cuts a more complex worldly figure. A modernizer who spent the last 15 years of his life tirelessly experimenting with print media, new literary genres, and modes of association, he was at the same time also a connoisseur of traditional poetry and music. An advocate and standardizer of modern Hindi, he nonetheless composed all his poetry in the earlier language of Brajbhasha and experimented with Urdu verse and macaronic English–Hindi satirical poems as well.
Machado de Assis: Beyond Brazilian Imperatives
Authors: Dixon Paul 
Published: December 2019

AbstractJoaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908) is a major figure of the nineteenth century, but anticipates many trends of more current literary production. Although he practiced all the major genres, his reputation now resides primarily in his short stories and novels. His writing is replete with allusions to the classics of world literature. He enjoys a small but devoted international readership, including numerous writers who have expressed their appreciation for Machado. While for the last few decades Brazilian critics have tended to concentrate on Machado's sometimes ambiguous engagement with national issues, he was never confined by nationalism and important analysts outside Brazil have helped established his more universal perspectives.
Ahmad Shawqi: At the Threshold of World Literature
Authors: Noorani Yaseen 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThe Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi (1868–1932) was long regarded as the greatest modern Arabic poet by many critics and in the popular imagination. Shawqi sought to draw on the prestige of the Arabic poetic tradition to fashion from it a national literature that could take its place among other national literatures. He composed poems for the Egyptian and Arabic public sphere that addressed issues of national identity as well as political and social topics. These poems were published in newspapers on a regular basis and attained great popularity. Yet writers and critics of the younger generation who adopted European ideals of the literary and world literature regarded Shawqi's work as anathema to an authentic national literature. In this conflict we see the effects of the ideal of world literature on the formation of national literatures as well as the limitations of this concept.
W.E.B. Du Bois, World Literature, and the Problem of Method
Authors: Clarke Ainsworth 
Published: December 2019

Abstract
Despite W.E.B. Du Bois's role in helping contemporary scholars rethink the terms of diasporic subjectivities and the manner in which the relation between disparate identities can be conceptualized, he nonetheless remains a peripheral figure in the current resurgence of interest in the notion of world literature. Du Bois's work appears principally concerned with the racial regime of Jim Crow in the United States and thus seemingly placed at odds with the question of the global that animates world literature. Yet, this view discounts the methodological challenge that Du Bois and the present rethinking of world literature foreground. This chapter argues that world literature and the work of W.E.B. Du Bois are each compelled by a methodological problematic and that it is on this point that Du Bois and world literature intersect.
Mahmoud Darwish: A Plurality of Voices for Invoking the Other
Authors: Milich Stephan 
Published: December 2019

AbstractMahmoud Darwish (Maḥmūd Darwīsh) has been one of the most prominent poets of the Arab world. Celebrated as the poetic voice of “Palestinian resistance,” he renewed his poetic vision and lyrical language time and again, transforming poetry into a means of transcending oppression and negation. Highlighting three of his masterpieces from different periods of his rich oeuvre, the chapter traces Darwish's changing visions of identity, otherness, and exile. On his trajectory from a monolithic conception of identity to a cohabitation of various forms of being in the world, Darwish's poetry creates a hospitable space for a dialogue between the other – the enemy, guest, or stranger – and the self, introducing postcolonial concerns into world literature. The chapter concludes with a note on Darwish's creation of a true humanism, emanating from a postexilic consciousness, in which the colonial condition is transcended and the human essence liberated.
Salman Rushdie and the World Picture of Islam
Authors: Ganguly Debjani 
Published: December 2019

Abstract

This chapter analyzes Salman Rushdie's agonistic relationship with Islam as theology and as a geopolitical ideal. It explores Rushdie's lifelong engagement with Islam as a world‐making power, and the limits and possibilities of reading his works theologically. The chapter argues that the magic realist mode that Rushdie deploys in novels such as
The Satanic Verses, Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh
,
Shalimar the Clown
, and
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty‐Eight Nights
generates a novelistic vision of Islam that simultaneously aspires to a secularization of this embattled religious faith and a return to its philosophical and cultural riches in the late medieval era. It is generative, the chapter avers, to read the
Satanic Verses
controversy less as a clash between a medieval morality and an enlightened aesthetic than as a fissure between two modes of the aesthetic, one that has the theological as its horizon, and the other a modernist secularism.
Kazuo Ishiguro's Thinking Novels
Authors: Holmes Chris 
Published: December 2019

Abstract

This chapter analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's attraction to genres of speculative fiction according to a theory of world literature that relies upon epistemological limits. My contention is that this shift in his novelistic project can be understood as a career‐spanning interest in the dynamic between constraint and freedom that generic conceits force upon us in any conceptualization the world. The genre conventions of
The Buried Giant
and
Never Let Me Go
signify not unbounded fantasy, but indeed the opposite: a writer hemming his style and characters into worlds in which structures necessary for understanding have been reduced to the barest elements by which meaning might be produced. Such constraints flag a parallel concern about the way the novel can and should be read as it concerns knowledge gleaned about the world. Thinking according to the novel's limits is in this way the beginning of meaning‐making, rather than the end.
Franz Kafka: Modernism, Modernity, Myth, and Religion
Authors: Engel Manfred 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThis chapter outlines those features of Kafka's work which mark his specific contribution to modernist narration. Section 1 describes his prototypical narrative model as a combination of fantastic writing, parabolic narration, and internal focalization. Section 2 discusses three social models that he uses for his critique of modernity. Section 3 considers Kafka's modernist use of myth as a placeholder for a lost religious dimension of life.
Kawabata Yasunari: Modernism, Memory, and Desire
Authors: Washburn Dennis 
Published: December 2019

Abstract
Kawabata Yasunari received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 for works that, according to the selection committee, revealed the essence of the Japanese mind. Having long idealized Japan's artistic traditions, Kawabata embraced this judgment. Yet he was more than a parochial literary conservator. Influenced by the global spread of modernist movements, his traditionalism and nationalist aesthetic allowed him to give voice to the spiritual homelessness of modern urban subjects and their desire to return to an authentic Japan. His conservative brand of modernism was proto‐fascist, and he disavowed it after Japan's defeat. The struggle to come to terms with his early career gave his postwar fiction greater moral depth and secured his place in the canon of world literature.
William Faulkner and the World Literature Debate: Is the Radical in Radical Form the Radical in Radical Politics?
Authors: Aboul‐Ela Hosam M. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractFaulkner's work, reputation, and impact have a particular resonance for questions of literature's relationship to the material world and its agency within it. He at times insisted that he aspired to write for himself rather than an audience, and his fiction uses a style and language that provocatively challenges readers. Still, his work has had special purchase for so many global writers who read English as a second language or who needed to access his work through translations. In their own voices, these global authors consistently yoke both Faulkner's style and his context as the double‐sided base of his importance for them. This productive connection between stylistics and worldliness indicates to the critic of world literatures the necessity of reading global texts both from a distance and from up close.
Lu Xun's Fictional Worlds
Authors: Kaldis Nicholas A. 
Published: December 2019

AbstractLu Xun (1881–1936) is considered China's leading literary figure of the modern era. Readers, writers, and intellectuals in China and around the world have been drawn to and inspired by his work for 100 years. Scholars frequently comment on his complex use of irony, his representations of the relationship between modern intellectuals and subalterns, and his conflicted struggle to comprehend, reconcile, and critique both tradition and modernity. Lu Xun was at once a model reader and writer of world literature; when we read his work, we mirror and instantiate the practice of world literature in which he himself was engaged.
The Tale of Genji: Showing and Telling a World
Authors: Kamens Edward 
Published: December 2019

AbstractWho tells the tale, how, and why? Focusing on two episodes inThe Tale of Genji(and illustrations of them), one with female readers, the other with male storytellers, this chapter explores key features of this core classic text from the eleventh century, including its use of tropes of spirit possession, voyeurism, surrogacy, and the tale‐telling act itself, as well as the ways in which these features are gendered. The chapter also describes some of the modes and means of representation that characterizeThe Taleand the genre of which it is exemplary.
Jorge Isaacs's Diasporic Novel:Maríabetween National and World Literatures
Authors: Martínez‐Pinzón Felipe 
Published: December 2019

AbstractThis chapter revisitsMaría(1867) and Jorge Isaacs's biography in the context of the growing discourse amongst and betweennationalnovels andworldliterature. By doing so, the chapter emphasizes how imaginations of the nation are fed and produced in the novel by larger global designs, by histories of forced migration, exile, and diaspora. Reading the novel as the story of several diasporic communities seeking to legitimize themselves as newcomers in Valle del Cauca (the location of the novel),Maríaexpands and complicates literary geographies that tie reading practices to distinct national histories, showing how these are usually embedded in imperial histories.
General Introduction: The Companion to World Literature … For Those Who Yearn
Authors: Seigneurie Ken 
Published: December 2019

Abstract

This General Introduction frames world literature as a “home” for readers in a culturally integrating world. Keeping with this metaphor, the
Wiley Blackwell Companion to World Literature
bids to provide a floor plan and furnishing. This essay sketches the structural outline and rationale for the
Companion
. What are the principles of topic selection? Who is the target readership? What is the relationship between the
Companion
essays and academic scholarship in fields such as national, regional or ethnic literatures? The General Introduction also anticipates some of the objections often leveled at the emerging discipline of World Literature: Does it reduce cultural specificities to neocolonial commodities? Does it seek to supplant disciplines relating to national and Comparative Literature? Without disregarding these objections, this essay stresses the
Companion's
commitment to recognizing and bridging, not denying or emulsifying, cultural differences.
Demosthenes,strategos
Authors: Roisman Joseph 
Published: December 2019

AbstractDemosthenes, son of Alkisthenes (ca. 460–413bce), was an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War, famous for his capture of Pylos and subsequent defeat of the Spartans on island of Sphacteria. He died in Sicily after the failure of the Athenian attempt to capture Syracuse.
Dorian tribes
Authors: Jones Nicholas F. 
Published: December 2019

Abstract“Tribes” is the conventional but misleading rendering of Greekphylai(singular,phyle), the principal units segmenting the populations and/or territories of many, perhaps originally all, city‐states. Just as in the case of the four ancestralphylaiof the Ionians, Dorians inherited a set of threephylai, with an attested historical distribution among the Peloponnesian city‐states and their colonial foundations, on the islands of the southern Aegean, and along the southwestern seaboard of Asia Minor.