Abstract
Casanova's characterization of the world literary space as “a detour” frames this review of her experiences and works alongside the portrayal of the original context in which she proposed “the World Republic of Letters,” as a detour itself. Such a study provides a crucial reference for understanding The World Republic of Letters. Building upon this, a re-examination of the World Republic of Letters through the “World” perspective unveils that Casanova's Republic not only inherits from the transnational tradition of the historical Republic of Letters but also applies its principles of transhistoricity and discursive diversity in a contemporary context. Viewed through a global lens, the World Republic of Letters transcends the previous limitations of Republic of Letters as an ideal community. Moreover, it assumes multiple meanings within a generative world literary space: it constitutes an invisible yet tangible literary world and offers a fresh approach to world literature studies — depicting the origin and evolution of international literature through a spatial hypothesis, a world perspective and a blend of internal and external literary analysis. Meanwhile, the process of describing such a literary world illustrates a distinct method of writing the history of international literature.
Keywords
world literature, Pascale Casanova, the Republic of Letters, literary space, world perspective, internal and external criticism
First Page
161
Last Page
171
Recommended Citation
Xin, Wu. 2024. "Inside and Outside the Text: Revisiting Casanova and the “World” Republic of Letters." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 44, (4): pp.161-171. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol44/iss4/17
