Literatura mondială ca intervenție asupra lumii prezentului

Betty Warren: My teacher, Katherine Watson, lived by her own definition, and would not
compromise that. Not even for Wellesley. I dedicate this, my last editorial, to an
extraordinary woman who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world through
new eyes. By the time you read this, she'll be sailing to Europe, where I know she'll find new
walls to break down and new ideas to replace them with. I've heard her called a quitter for
leaving, an aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who
seek truth beyond tradition; beyond definition; beyond the image. We'll never forget you...
Susan Delacorte: [Katherine shows the class a painting of a rotting animal] What
is that?
Katherine Watson: You tell me. “Carcass”, by Soutine, 1925.
Susan Delacorte: It’s not on the syllabus.
Katherine Watson: No it’s not. Is it any good? Hm? C’mon, ladies, there’s no
wrong answer. There’s also no textbook telling you what to think. It’s not that
easy, is it?
Betty Warren: Alright, no. It’s not good. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it art. It’s
grotesque.
Connie Baker: Is there a rule against art being grotesque?
Giselle Levy: I think there’s something aggressive about it. And erotic.
Betty Warren: To you, everything is erotic.
Giselle Levy: Everything *is* erotic.
Susan Delacorte: Aren’t there standards?
Betty Warren: Of course there are! Otherwise, a tacky velvet painting could be
equated to a Rembrandt!
Connie Baker: Hey, my Uncle Ferdie has two tacky velvet paintings. He loves
those clowns.
Betty Warren: There *are* standards! Technique, composition, color, even
subject. So, if you’re suggesting that rotted side of meat is art, much less *good*
art, then what are we going to learn?
Katherine Watson: Just that. You have outlined our new syllabus, Betty, thank
you. What is art? What makes it good or bad, and who decides?
 Antologia sau manualul de literatură mondială ca formă
extinsă a canonului curricular

World literature is not, simply, all of literature.

Rather, world literature is that subset of literature
that maintains a crucial relation to the world. World
literature is literature insofar as it pertains to the
world: a worldly literature . . . it is the literature
arising from this [canonical] struggle itself . . . it was
the canon debate that led to the extreme expansion of
anthologies of world literature, initiating a phase
dominated by a cumulative model: more and more
literature had to be included, and not only so-called
masterpieces

-- Martin Puchner, “Teaching Worldly Literature”

 Literatură mondială ca intervenție asupra realului
This goal of comprehensive totality without restrictions needs to
be abandoned and we need to return to the Goethean and
Marxian notion of world literature. Put in terms of the canon
debate, this means that we need to arrive at a notion of world
literature as something other than a sampler of the whole,
something based on a restricted notion of world literature. In my
suggestion, the concept worldly literature offers such a restriction,
aiming to tell a story not of the whole but of a conjunction, a story
about literature and the world . . . it was this emphasis on world
making that led me in the opposite direction from the sampler,
reminding me and my collaborators of the importance of
including long excerpts and even complete works: in the last
analysis, only complete works unfold and create complete worlds.
Worldly literature as I understand it is also that: literature that is
world making.
-- Martin Puchner, “Teaching Worldly Literature”
 Literatură mondială ca lume alternativă

But if we want to arrive at a good definition of worldly literature, I think we need to

include Twain, along with Goethe and Marx, as a writer who recognizes the relation
between world literature and the world market. I am convinced that this aspect, too,
should play a role in the teaching of world literature, especially of contemporary world
literature . . . one of the ways in which literature – all literature, but perhaps particularly
world literature – concerns itself with our world is by constructing alternatives to it.

[I understand worldly literature] in a restricted sense as literature for the world, adopted
and made by the world, oriented towards the world market, and oriented towards this
world rather than the next while remaining non-committal with respect to literature’s
possible other-worldliness; finally, world literature foregrounds the world-creation power
of literature, which is expressed in world creation myths but also whenever literature
presents a world as world.
-- Martin Puchner, “Teaching Worldly Literature”