I just got back from a graduation trip/literary pilgrimage to London and Paris. Obviously, what we see when we visit a city for three days is probably less than reality but I realized it is important to consider what we mean when we talk about the state of literature today. Is it possible that while American poetry may be in more of a rusty age than a golden age, other countries are currently experiencing a golden literary/artistic age? I certainly don't think there is a Shakespeare thriving in London today or a Baudelaire in Paris but I did sense a greater appreciation for literature in both cities, especially Paris. And in London, I even stopped to speak to a poet in Tragalfar square who could recite all his poems by heart. I started to wonder if other countries, not in Europe necessarily, might indeed have a truly great author writing today? Of course, there is the question what is great, but that is a subject for a different post.
Literature of course is based on language, the medium, the form, etc. but in an age of technology, is there a way to make the literary world more international? It seems that all areas booming today have something to do with the advantages of high speed and immediate connection. Is language the problem? There is obviously no way to use a machine to translate in the literary sense (word for word yes but not the essence). It would be interesting if we could somehow start a program to use the internet to speed up the process of translation and sharing of literature across cultures, or maybe the beauty of literature and art is that it requires us to slow down, that it resists that other web of buzz. As an online publication, I think these are important things to consider. Maybe if we conceive of the literary world in more international terms, some of the stifling categories might dissolve and other forms and traditions can inspire new life in literature across language barriers. Not to mention, the MFA program culture and other divisive schools/institutions of poetry that are both helpful and harmful at times in the U.S. does not seem fully present in Europe or other places for that matter as far as I can tell.
On a more random note, I went to the amazing ex-pat bookstore in Paris, Shakespeare and Co., the sister store of City Lights in San Francisco. Sylvia Beach, an American in Paris, opened the store and is responsible for publishing the first edition of Ulysses I believe, in addition to introducing, networking really, among the various writers of the 20's (see Midnight in Paris). I read her correspondences and it was really fascinating to see what a non-writer but true lover of books (and a woman in the 20's and 30's!) could contribute so much to the literary world. She even had a petition against the pirating of Ulysses which she had signed by people ranging from Forster to Woolf to Einstein. I recommend reading the book of her letters!
Re: an "international" literature
kelly.swope — June 19, 2011 - 22:23I enjoyed your reflections here, Elizabeth, and I'll add a thought for everybody's consideration.
My thought is this: We ought to be careful (especially because we are an online publication, operating in the universal - and universalizing - space of the internet) in wielding terms like "international literature," even if we do so with good intentions. I don't think there exists such a unified thing as a "world" or "international" literature. If such a category did exist, it would be a production of anthologies or other forms of media that gather literature with good intentions - media like Literary Laundry, unless we are attentive to how we qualify our literature.
It is important to ask ourselves what the pros of an international internet literature would ultimately be if we sought to create it. The form of the international is attractive, but what content, what substance would be exchanged once other literatures are translated into more "neutral" languages such as English? I have a feeling these translations would be mostly limited to European or Euroamerican languages and would only serve a certain kind of reader, probably the same reader who invented the need for translation. I am not in any way opposed to translation (how would most of us read Tolstoy?), but I do believe that, although essential for reading and learning from non-English, non-Western, literatures, translation on an "international" scale is likewise a project that runs the risk of cultural imperialism with every awkwardly transliterated word.
Because the internet is a "shared" and "universal" space, we can become swept away with the idea of its democratic potential before we consider the manner in which we deploy this potential. International does not equal democratic; it might actually mean normalizing. Worse yet, it might efface the particularities of literatures not originally written in English. Therefore, in our own efforts here to make an online, internationally accessible journal that publishes literature, we need to evaluate how we are qualifying this so-called "literary" project. To which international does it speak? We often refer to our mission as the expansion of a certain literary tradition. I must ask, then - which literature? which tradition?
KMS
Re: International Literature
jamessheldon1 — June 29, 2011 - 17:31I think we are on the cusp of a technological revolution which will make translation a group activity done by dedicated volunteers who police themselves and self insure their own quality (in the manner of Wikipedia for its more complicated subjects). People who are dedicated enough to work for free will offer their intelligence and literary nuances by helping to translate a text, offer changes for previous updates, or create notes or appendices where needed. The more nuanced ideas and larger memes that are lost in translation can be expanded upon through commentary, analysis, mockery, quotation, etc. This could allow a broader group of individuals a chance to at the very least become acquainted with a school of thought or a genre of literary expression.
re: the above comment
kelly.swope — June 30, 2011 - 22:25I agree with much of the above post but I wonder if this self-policing force of translators doesn't already exist to an extent in academic circles. And I wonder if the technological possibilities of the internet haven't transformed a historical desire for "literature" into something else altogether (like the desire for a cursory knowledge of literary history provided by sites like Wikipedia). The internet potentializes more exposure to literature but perhaps shallows the reader's engagement with literature - that's my main concern. Literary Laundry in this sense is probably a preservationist publication, in that it preserves a historical desire for a certain kind of literature that is falling by the wayside with the givenness of the internet.
To be anachronistic, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. My misgivings about a totalized international literature, or just the possibility of achieving an all-subsuming "internationalism" with the internet, are definitely behind the times. Yet I still believe that we should preserve these outdated misgivings lest we forget that we ever had them. The internet is not neutral space: cultural imperialism has already "gone digital" in spite of the internet's radical democratic potential. We should not forget this, even if we are careful with our translations and annotations of non-English language, non-Euroamerican literatures.