In this book, Casanova shows us the state of world literature behind the stylistic refinements—a world of letters relatively independent from economic and political realms, and in which language systems, aesthetic orders, and genres struggle for dominance.

Preface to the English-Language Edition Introduction: The Figure in the Carpet Part I: THE LITERARY WORLD 1. Principles of a World History of Literature The Bourse of Literary Values Literature, Nation, and Politics 2. The Invention of Literature How to "Devour" Latin The Battle over French The Cult of Language The Empire of French The Herderian Revolution 3. World Literary Space Roads to Freedom The Greenwich Meridian of Literature Literary Nationalism National versus International Writers Forms of Literary Domination 4. The Fabric of the Universal The Capital and Its Double Translation as Litterarisation Language Games The Importance of Being Universal Ethnocentrisms Ibsen in England and in France 5. From Literary Internationalism to Commercial Globalization? Part II. LITERARY REVOLTS AND REVOLUTIONS 6. The Small Literatures Literary Destitution Political Dependencies National Aesthetics Kafka and the Connection with Politics 7. The Assimilated Naipaul: The Need to Conform Michaux: What Is a Foreigner? Cioran: On the Inconvenience of Being Born in Romania Ramuz: The Impossible Assimilation 8. The Rebels Literary Uses of the People National Tales, Legends, Poetry, and Theater Legacy Hunting The Importation of Texts The Creation of Capitals The International of Small Nations 9. The Tragedy of Translated Men Thieves of Fire Translated from the Night Comings and Goings Kafka: Translated from Yiddish Creators of Languages Literary Uses of the Oral Language Andrade: The Anti-Camoes Swiss Creoleness 10. The Irish Paradigm Yeats: The Invention of Tradition The Gaelic League: Recreation of a National Language Synge: The Written Oral Language O'Casey: The Realist Opposition Shaw: Assimilation in London Joyce and Beckett: Autonomy Genesis and Structure of a Literary Space 11. The Revolutionaries Dante and the Irish The Joycean Family The Faulknerian Revolution Toward the Invention of Literary Languages Conclusion: The World and the Literary Trousers Notes Index

This is a marvelous study of the international networks and ethnic forcefields out of which a modern world literature has emerged. In drawing a map of the literary globe, Pascale Casanova shows just how different it is from any political map ever framed. Unlike many previous comparativists, she shows just how many of the texts of literary modernism have been contributed by peoples without financial or political power. This is a brave, audacious and luminous analysis, and a bracing challenge to those who still believe in the nation as an explanatory category. This book will provoke debate for years to come.

This is a marvelous study of the international networks and ethnic forcefields out of which a modern world literature has emerged. In drawing a map of the literary globe, Pascale Casanova shows just how different it is from any political map ever framed. Unlike many previous comparativists, she shows just how many of the texts of literary modernism have been contributed by peoples without financial or political power. This is a brave, audacious and luminous analysis, and a bracing challenge to those who still believe in the nation as an explanatory category. This book will provoke debate for years to come. -- Declan Kiberd, author of Inventing Ireland and Irish Classics As a researcher, Pascale Casanova specializes in the exception. Along with a literary knowledge that is exceptional in its breadth and depth, she possesses a theoretical knowledge that is truly vast and wielded with great authority. In pursuing this immense topic - the universe of relations that constitute the "World Republic of Letters" - she has set herself a daunting challenge: that of constructing, and empirically verifying, a theoretical model for the "fabric of the universal." -- Pierre Bourdieu, author of Distinction and Language and Symbolic Power The book is remarkable for its multidisciplinary and transnational approach, and for the response it has excited in Japan as well as many other countries, where it will surely continue to inspire lively debate. -- Hidehiro Tachibana, Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) Casanova's book is a major contribution to modern literary theory. It effectively shatters national boundaries. -- Gilles Lapouge, O Estado de Sao Paolo (Brazil) Corpus literarium universalis... What is interesting is that Casanova reads a series of concrete events in the history of the "republic," showing the need... for constant interpellation of aesthetic and linguistic notions. -- Patricia de Souza, El Pais (Madrid, Spain)