Literary Worlds in the Global Age

For a Multilingual, Intercultural Approach

Reine MeylaertsFWO-KULeuven (Belgium)

20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium: “Verbal, Visual, Virtual: New Canons for the Twenty-first Century”, University of Florida, Gainesville, 31/3-2/4/2005.

Literary Studies’ Concepts?

• Growing deterritorialization, delocation of culture: ‘geography’ as a ‘unified monolingual national territory’ is reconceptualised

• Focus on linguistic diversity, on plural identities, on relations between minority and majority literatures

• Need for Literary Studies to (re)consider phenomena of multilingualism and multiculturalism, and thus of ‘language’, ‘language plurality’, ‘translation’ and ‘intercultural contacts’

Literary Studies’ Concepts?

Crucial Question – New Research Program:

How do ‘(national) languages’, ‘(national) literatures’, ‘translation’ and ‘intercultural contacts’ interact in the definition, the redefinition and dynamics of literary worlds? What tools do we have to study the mapping of literatures past and present? To explain phenomena of linguistic diversity and plurilingual literary identities in multilingual spaces?

Literary Studies’ Concepts?

“Language is the slipperiest of human creations; like its speakers, it does not respect borders, and, like the imagination, it cannot ultimately be predicted or controlled.” (Greenblatt PMLA, 116.1, 2001:62)

Languages and cultures do not coïncide with political maps

Idealized view on ‘language’ and ‘cultural actors’ (authors, critics, readers …) as ‘unconstructed’ categories, “blind spot” (Sollors)

Literary Studies’ Concepts?

• ‘languages’, ‘literatures’, ‘cultures’ and ‘intercultural contacts’ are constructed through national, international, infranational institutional and discursive structures

• Institutional and discursive structures create and change power relations, hierarchies: cultures do not exist side by side as equal partners

• Intercultural relations are never relations of equality• Actors internalize these institutional and discursive

structures in various and variable ways (habitus)

Literary Studies’ Concepts?

• To study the mapping of literatures, of literary contacts, of plural literary identities, of literary dynamics in a multilingual space, take into account:

the hierarchical relations created by institutional and discursive structures

their various and variable internalisations by (inter)cultural agents

A = dominant language and culture = elites = institutions = most legitimate literary productionsB = minority language and culture = lower classes = no/less official institutional status = less legitimate literary productions C = bilinguals

Mapping of Literary Worlds in Multilingual Spaces?

• Legitimacy of choice for literary language(s)?

• Literary style? (e.g. literary heteroglossia, code switching)

• Intercultural contacts? Intercultural literary practices? Modalities?

Who is/has interest to be(come) bilingual?

• the more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more bilingualism is a unidirectional phenomenon: from B to A

• minority language groups, B language users in search of social mobility, of participation in (most) legitimate institutions, of literary prestige… through education in language A

• All cultural agents - A, B or bilinguals: internalise (more or less) superiority of majority language and culture through interaction with institutional and discursive structures

Legitimacy of choice for literary language(s)?

• Choice for a literary language: in theory open to bilinguals

• ! Bilingual writing is exceptional: never neutral, part of literary, socio-political positioning B = in favour of the emancipation of the

minority literature A = continuation of hierarchical status quo

Literary Style?

How heteroglossic can/must literary texts be in a multilingual space?

The more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more heteroglossia is:

• (very) frequent in minority literature: bilingual reader – ! criticise hierarchical socio-linguistic and literary relationships

• (much) less frequent in majority literature: superiority – monolingual reader – necessity of translation

Intercultural space?

To what extent do messages (texts, discursive practices) and actors living in a multilingual space cross linguistic and literary borders?

Continuum between two extremes:

• absolute language barrier vs.

• (temporarily) unexisting language barrier

Modalities of Intercultural Contacts?

• The more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more, for A-literature actors having internalised the superiority of the A-culture, the language barrier is absolute: promote literary translation from B into A:

confirmation of superiority – defensive reactiondisdain any other modality of intercultural contacts:

reviews, articles etc. on B-language publications are of no interest, also because of monolingual readers

Modalities of Intercultural Contacts?

• The more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more for B-culture actors with a strong internalisation of the superiority of the A-culture, the language barrier is unexisting:promote literary translation from B into A: take part in

superiority – promote minoritypromote numerous other modalities of intercultural contacts:

reviews, articles on • A-language works in B-language publications for bilingual B-readers

• B-language works in A-language publications written by bilingual B-critics for bilingual B-readers

• B-literary discussions/polemics in A-language publications for bilingual B-readers

Modalities of Intercultural Contacts?

• The more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more for B-culture actors struggling against their internalised superiority of the A-culture, the language barrier is absolute:opposed to literary translation from B into A: treachery

because confirming superiority of A-literatureopposed to other modalities of intercultural contacts:

treachery

Literary cartographies?

Not mirror of the political map of the nation-state: studying literatures in the Caribbean, in South-Africa, in France, in Belgium, crucial question is:

• NOT “is there a national literature?” • BUT:

what are the different models in the dynamics of literatures?how are they related to hierarchical institutional and

discursive structures?how are these structures internalised by various actors?how does this internalisation evolve?