Polysystems redux : The unfinished business of world literature

Journal article

Ganguly, Debjani. (2015). Polysystems redux : The unfinished business of world literature. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry. 2(2), pp. 272-281. https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2015.15
AuthorsGanguly, Debjani
Abstract

In responding to Muhsin al-Musawi’s two-part essay on the Arabic Republic of Letters, this essay proposes a rethinking of the world systems model in global literary studies in terms of a polysystems framework. Rather than trying to fit literary worlds—ancient, premodern, modern—within a single Euro-chronological frame culminating in a world capitalist systems model—where the non-European worlds appear as invariably inferior—it is worthwhile to see them as several polysystems with variable valences within a heterotemporal planetary literary space. This approach offers a comparative reading of the emergence of three language worlds—Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic—and urges us to rethink the totality of the world literary space as a diachronic field that generates overlapping, multiscalar, comparative histories of literary polysystems.

Keywordspolysystems; comparative literature; republic of letters; cosmopolis; Sanskrit; Arabic; Persian
Year2015
JournalCambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry
Journal citation2 (2), pp. 272-281
PublisherCambridge University Press
ISSN2052-2614
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1017/pli.2015.15
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85016470583
Page range272-281
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online03 Aug 2015
Publication process dates
Deposited20 Oct 2023
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