BMCR 2009.04.40: Constantinou on Damrosch, How to Read World Literature. How to Study Literature

David Damrosch, How to Read World Literature. How to Study Literature.
Oxford:  Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.  Pp. vii, 139.  ISBN 9781405168267.
$25.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Stavroula Constantinou, University of Cyprus
([email protected])
Word count:  1284 words
-------------------------------
To read a print-formatted version of this review, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-04-40.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/04/20090440.html
-------------------------------

Preview (http://books.google.com/books?id=G-SPOJ5IAZMC)

The latest book by David Damrosch How to Read World Literature may be
seen as a supplement to one of his earlier books entitled What Is World
Literature? (2003), even though some of the themes discussed in the
older book, such as literary translation and the circulation of texts,
are repeated in the new book, and despite the fact that many of the
texts and authors used to support the first book's arguments are reused
for similar purposes in the second one. Both books aim at offering
"ways in which works of literature can best be read" (What Is World
Literature?, p. 5), "a set of modes of entry into the many worlds of
world literature" (How to Read World Literature, p. 2). As for the
meaning of the term "world literature", Damrosch defines it in the
first book as "all literary works that circulate beyond their culture
of origin, either in translation or in their original language" (What
Is World Literature?, p. 4), while the more difficult question: what is
"literature?" occupies him in the second book. In contrast to his first
book on world literature, Damrosch's latest work is not addressed to
specialists. Its intended readership includes general readers
interested in world literature, and undergraduate students of
literature. Such a readership determines the less scholarly character
of this accessible and well-written book: there are no footnotes, and
the use of technical terminology is minimal.

The book's clear and balanced structure also contributes to its
accessibility . There are six chapters of more or less the same length,
a short introduction and epilogue, a bibliography and an index. The
first chapter ("What Is 'Literature'?") serves as a background to the
rest of the book. Damrosch discusses briefly the meaning of
"literature", which changes across times and cultures; as a result, the
authors and readers of each tradition have different ideas about ways
of creating  and about its social role. They also have different
expectations as to how to read various literary genres.

The other five chapters of the book under review may be divided into
two main groups according to whom they mainly concern: the reader of
world literature or the author. Chapters 2-4 belong to the first group.
Their aim is to show how a reader can access the world of world
literature. The second group, Chapters 5-6, discusses how authors can
enter foreign cultures through their works. In this case, Damrosch's
definition of "world literature", given above, does not seem to apply
unless a work set in a culture different from that of its author
circulates abroad.

Chapter 2 ("Reading Across Time") is about how to read a genre, for
instance epic, across time In this chapter Damrosch intends, using the
example of epic, to "explore the kinds of continuity and change we can
encounter over time, as stories and metaphors evolve across centuries
and languages within a varied but broadly connected tradition" (p. 25).
Unfortunately, the author's purpose is not fully achieved. His analysis
does not allow the reader to get a clear picture of the ways in which
Western epic evolves throughout time. For instance, Damrosch chooses to
discuss two traditional epic themes: the interaction between human
beings and gods, and descent to the underworld. The examples he uses in
his presentation of the first theme are only two: the Iliad and the
older Epic of Gilgamesh, which does not belong to the Western literary
tradition. He does not undertake a diachronic approach, as one would
expect, in which the appearance of the theme, its uses and
transformations in important Western epics from antiquity until today,
would have been examined. In his discussion of the theme of descent to
the underworld the author refers to more texts (Odyssey, Aeneid, Divine
Comedy, Joyce's Ulysses and Walcott's Omeros). However, he does not
cover all periods. Late antiquity, the earlier Middle Ages, the
Renaissance, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are not included.
The chronological gaps among the discussed texts are so big, and the
analysis so sketchy that the theme's "kinds of continuity and change"
(p. 25) are neither sufficiently explored nor actually understood.

The third chapter ("Reading Across Cultures") concerns ways of reading
a genre, such as drama, across cultures. Here the author's purpose  is
to offer "effective strategies for relating works from distant
cultures" (p. 47). He compares Sophocles' Oedipus the King with
Kalidasa's Shakuntala on the level of character and plot, and in their
treatment of fate.

The last chapter of the first group ("Reading in Translation")
discusses how readers should approach the translations of world
literature they come across. One of the purposes of this chapter,
achieved successfully by Damrosch, is to change translation's bad
reputation. According to Damrosch, an excellent translation has the
power to transform the original and even to improve it allowing readers
to enter two cultural worlds: that of the author and that of the
translator. Translation's higher importance, however, lies somewhere
else: it makes world literature possible. A literary work wouldn't be
able to travel outside its country of origin in order to reach foreign
readers if it hadn't been translated into their own language. A chapter
on translation, therefore, should be an essential part of every book
devoted to the subject of world literature. In this case, the author
outlines the issues readers should take into account when reading
translations. In order to be able to appreciate a translation, a reader
has to understand first the translator's strategies. Damrosch
encourages his readers to read translations intelligently. An
intelligent reading allows the reader to grasp the cultural exchange
involved in a translation and the "new stage in a work's life as it
moves from its first home out into the world" (p. 66).

While Chapter 4 is devoted to linguistic translations, Chapter 5
("Going Abroad") talks about cultural translations made by the authors
themselves who set their stories abroad and send their heroes there. In
this chapter, Damrosch discusses the ways in which writers of various
times and cultures "invade" foreign worlds. His emphasis is on the
relationship between the foreign and the native worlds: how different
or how close is the depicted foreign world to the author's own culture.
As in the case of linguistic translations, Damrosch understands
cultural translations as negotiations between two cultures.

The last chapter ("Going Global") investigates the strategies developed
by writers in their attempt to reach the readers of our globalizing
world. An important strategy is "glocalism" which according to Damrosch
has two forms: the exportation of local situations abroad and the
importation of global situations home. An example of the first form is
the work of Kipling while the work of Orhan Pamuk is a graphic example
of the second form.

In the epilogue, which is unusual in that it does not bring the book to
a conclusion, the author offers answers to an important question that
could have been asked at the outset: how to choose what to read from a
massive literary production of 5000 years? As Damrosch rightly
suggests, an easy way of selecting texts is to browse in some of the
collections and anthologies of world literature. This is a very good
advice; however, it does not apply to everyone, but mostly to
English-speaking readers, since almost all big collections and
anthologies of world literature are in English.

Undoubtedly, Damrosch's latest book is a useful tool for prospective
readers (especially English-speaking ones) of world literature. It
introduces them to major works of world literature and shows them how
to read these works, both in their original form and in translation.
The author succeeds in his endeavor to launch his readers to "read, and
read, and read still more" (p. 124).