Envisioning World Literature in 1863: from the Reports on Introduction a Mission Abroad Veselovsky Has Assigned a Task to Scholarship Which Can Hardly Ever Be Solved

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criticism in translation

Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on Introduction a Mission Abroad Veselovsky has assigned a task to scholarship which can hardly ever be solved. Te Russian formalists, however, have taken up his challenge. —René Wellek (279) a. n. veselovsky

Te task, which many feel is beyond their abilities, lies within the power of translation by scholarship. jennifer flaherty —A. N. Veselovsky edited and with an introduction by boris maslov ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH VESELOVSKY (1838–1906) IS WIDELY RE- GARDED AS RUSSIA’S MOST DISTINGUISHED AND INFLUENTIAL LIT ER-

a r y theorist before the formation of Opoyaz (“Society for the Study of Po- etic Language”), whose members—Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, Yury Tynianov, Roman Jakobson, and others—developed the approach generally known as Russian formalism. Readers of Shklovsky may note the prominence accorded to Veselovsky in Theory of Prose (1925). Some will also recall the use of the term historical poetics—in reference to the method put forward by Veselovsky—in the 1963 edition of Mikhail Bakhtin’s book on Do stoevsky and in his “The Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel: Notes towards a Historical Poetics” (1937–38, pub. in 1975). Another elo- quent testimony to Veselovsky’s spectral ubiquity in Russian literary theory is the concluding paragraph of Vladimir Propp’s pathbreaking Morphology JENNIFER FLAHERTY, a graduate stu- of the Folktale, where Propp humbly asserts that his “propositions, although dent in the Department of Slavic Lan- guages and Literatures at the University they appear to be new, were intuitively foreseen by none other than Ve se- of California, Berkeley, is working on lov sky” and ends his study with an extensive quotation from Veselovsky’s nineteenth- century Russian literature. Poetics of Plot (115–16). It is rarely recognized, however, that Veselovsky’s method, in its rudimentary form, constitutes a common denominator of BORIS MASLOV, assistant professor in comparative literature at the University Shklov sky’s, Bakhtin’s, and Propp’s widely divergent approaches.¹ of Chicago, specializes in ancient Greek, Historical Poetics, Veselovsky’s magnum opus, left incomplete at the time Byzantine, and Russian literatures. His of his death, is generally held to be the foundational work of Russian literary work has appeared in Classical Philol- criticism. Veselovsky conceived of it as a summation of his life’s work, which ogy, Comparative Literature, and Greek, included books on Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Vasily Zhukovsky and studies Roman, and Byzantine Studies.

Introduction © 2013 Boris Maslov. Translation © 2013 Jennifer Flaherty and Boris Maslov. PMLA 128.2 (2013), published by the Modern Language Association of America 439  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

on topics as diverse as Italian Renaissance culture, strands of twentieth- century literary theory, Ve se- Slavic folklore, comparative epic studies, the ancient lov sky’s principled rejection of the aesthetic crite- Greek novel, and East- West literary ties. These stud- rion as an ahistorical construct that is detrimental ies are exemplary in their erudition and attention (especially) to the comparative study of literature to detail. To quote René Wellek’s assessment, Vese- may prompt us to review the methodological lov sky “must be classed among the greatest literary implications of contemporary historicism(s). In a scholars of the [nineteenth] century in breadth of formulation that appears to presage new histori- knowledge and scope of competence” (278–79). cism, Veselovsky in one of the reports translated The two epigraphs encapsulate the challenge here insists that a history of, for example, Proven-

criticism criticism in translation Veselovsky faced in his early methodological re- çal poetry should exclude “neither the Provençal flections, translated here.² The challenge was no Elu ci da rius nor the didactic treatise about hunting less than a complete overhaul of the study of birds or the instructions of the jongleur.” Yet, as literature that would raise it to the standards of Veselovsky’s remarks (and his work on the whole) rigorous, “scientific” inquiry exemplified by such suggest, the view of literary texts as cultural pro- newly established disciplines as ethnography, ductions rather than aesthetic artifacts calls for a comparative linguistics, and comparative mythol- particular kind of comparatism, one that goes be- ogy. Veselovsky’s youthful attempt at conceptual- yond contextualist historicism. Arguably, the post- izing literary history evokes the promise, as well as new- historicist privileging of proximate historical the predicaments, of the emergent scholarly field contexts presents difficulties both to comparative of world (general) literature, which would later be work (which has effectively become a pia fraus transformed into the discipline of comparative lit- [“pious fraud”]—to borrow Veselovsky’s expres- erature. In particular, these reflections question sion—at many comparativist departments in the the currently widespread view that the nineteenth- United States) and to serious engagement with century discourse on world literature—and, more literary form. Veselovsky’s approach to literary broadly, nineteenth- century comparativist think- texts—and literary forms—as testimonies to the ing on literature—sprang from and continued longue durée of social and cultural history may pro- Goe the’s fragmentary reflections on Weltliteratur.³ vide a welcome respite from the modern fixation Veselovsky’s remarks, issuing from the German on the hi stoire évé ne men tielle and perhaps an invi- academy of the early 1860s, attest to the vitality tation to engage with historicism itself as a histori- of a paradigm of literary comparatism formulated cal phenomenon. On the other hand, Veselovsky’s on analogy with such established disciplines as gentle polemic with Heymann Steinthal, one of his comparative philology and general (universal) teachers in Berlin, indicates an interest in defining history.4 Veselovsky understands world literature the specificity of literary works as objects sui ge- (всеоб щая литература) as a totality of national ne ris operating in a wider cultural- historical field; literatures that are related historically and mor- this interest, combined with a consistently histori- phologically, not—in Goethe’s fashion—as a trans- cal perspective, would remain characteristic of the national field of cultural exchange and translation. Russian tradition of historical poetics.5 In addition to complicating received views This translation includes two of five reports on world literature, Veselovsky’s early theoretical written by Veselovsky while he was studying at reflections speak directly to what is possibly the Berlin University and published in 1863 and 1864. central problem of literary studies today: its self- It omits some of the sections that describe his definition with respect to the changing configura- course work. The same two reports were chosen tion of fields of knowledge. Veselovsky argues in for inclusion (under the title “From the Reports on favor of an astonishingly broad definition of liter- a Mission Abroad”) in the most authoritative col- ary history, which he equates with cultural history lection of Veselovsky’s work on historical poetics, (Kultur ge schichte ). While clearly at odds with many prepared by Viktor Zhirmunsky in 1940 (Исто ри- 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky 

че ская поэтика). As compared with Zhirmunsky’s Te relevance of comparative (Indo- European) linguis- translation in criticism edition, this translation includes a few additional tics is more fully discussed by Veselovsky in his 1870 lecture “On the Methods and Aims of Literary History paragraphs from the original publication that shed as a Science”; an En glish translation of this lecture was more light on Veselovsky’s intellectual experience published, at Wellek’s instigation, in 1967. It is interesting in Berlin. The original reports were untitled. We to compare that lecture with a programmatic lecture by have also taken the liberty of introducing addi- Charles Chauncey Shackford, delivered at Cornell in 1871 (in the words of his modern editors, “the frst known for- tional paragraph divisions. In preparing the end- mal presentation concerning the discipline of compara- notes, none of which were part of the original tive literature to be given in the United States”). Shackford publication, I made use of Zhirmunsky’s notes to argues that the comparative method, “which is pursued the 1940 edition. In translating всеобщая ли те- in anatomy, in language, in mythology,” presents “the only satisfactory course in which general literature can be ра тура, we have opted for “world literature,” in- pursued” (42). For his part, Veselovsky would repeatedly asmuch as всеобщая (“universal, general”) in this point to the epistemological limits of comparative (Indo- phrase is synonymous with всемирная (“world”).6 European) mythology and of the mythopoetic aesthetics of verbal art associated with fgures like Steinthal and Al- exander Potebnya. In his 1864 student report he is more outspoken than in his critique of Steinthal translated here, as he plainly asserts the inapplicability of “the prin- ciple that unites the history of literature with the history NOTES of language” to postmythical literary cultures (396–97). 1. For the centrality of Veselovsky’s method to the Rus- 5. Te infuence of Steinthal, one of the founding fg- sian critical tradition, see Shaitanov; Kliger and Maslov. ures in modern psychology, on Veselovsky is examined in Other Russian literary scholars whose work is available in Trautmann- Waller, Aux origines 286–88 and “Народная En glish and who, in various ways, engaged with and built ли те ра тура” 27–30. on Veselovsky’s legacy are Lidiia Ginzburg, Olga Freiden- 6. Močalova 308. On the term general literature, see berg, and Mikhail Gasparov. I discuss the reception of Wellek and Warren 17. Ve se lov sky in the twentieth century, including Wellek’s assessment, in a forthcoming article. Zhirmunsky, “А. Н. Ве се лов ский,” and Engelgardt provide introductions to WORKS CITED Vese lov sky’s methodology and overviews of his scholarly work; see also an important overlooked statement by Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “Forms of Time and of the Chrono- Shklov sky (“Александр Веселовский”). Erlich 26–32 and tope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics.” Zhir mun sky, “On the Study,” are succinct summaries of 1937–38. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. By Ve se lov sky’s works and method in En glish. Further bibli- Bakhtin. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson ography on Ve se lov sky and a list of translations of his work and Hol quist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. 84–258. Print. can be found at Historical Poetics: An Online Resource. ——— . Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. 1929, 1963. Ed. 2. Te articles were originally published in the jour- and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: U of Min- nal of the Russian Imperial Ministry of Education, Жур- nesota P, 1984. Print. нал министерства народного просвещения 117 (Feb. Berczik, Árpád. “Zur Entwicklung des Begriffs „Welt- 1863, sec. 2, 152–60) and 119 (Sept. 1863, sec. 2, 440–48), lite ra tur“ und Anfänge der vergleichenden Literatur- under the rubric “Selections from the Reports of Tose geschichte.” Acta Germanica et Romanica 2 (1967): Sent Abroad in Preparation for Professorship.” 2–33. Print. 3. Te assumption of the paramount importance of Birus, Hendrik. “Goethes Idee der Weltliteratur: Eine Goethe’s notion of world literature for refections on lit- histo ri sche Vergegenwärtigung.” Weltliteratur Heute: erary comparison in the second half of the nineteenth Konzepte und Perspektiven. Ed. Manfred Schmeling. century underlies, e.g., Birus; Hoesel- Uhlig; and Pizer. Würz burg: Königshausen, 1995. 5–28. Print. For a more balanced assessment, see Berczik 15–18. In Engel'gardt, Boris M. Александр Николаевич Ве се лов- fact, even the German term Weltliteratur in the nine- ский. Petrograd: Kolos, 1924. Print. teenth and twentieth centuries most ofen had generic Erlich, Viktor. Russian Formalism: History—Doctrine. meanings such as “the totality of literatures of the world” 3rd ed. Te Hague: Mouton, 1969. Print. and “the best of literatures of the world,” neither of which Historical Poetics: An Online Resource. Hist. Poetics was intended by Goethe (Lamping 98–113). Working Group, 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2013. 4. Te new comparative disciplines provided the ob- Hoesel- Uhlig, Stefan. “Changing Fields: Te Directions vious model for transnational discussion of literature. of Goethe’s Weltliteratur.” Debating World Literature.  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

Ed. Christopher Prendergast. London: Verso, 2004. ——— . Teory of Prose. Trans. Benjamin Sher. Normal: 26–53. Print. Dal key Archive, 1991. Print. Kliger, Ilya, and Boris Maslov. “Introducing Histori- Trautmann- Waller, Céline. Aux origines d’une science al le- cal Poetics: History, Experience, Form.” Persistent mande de la culture: Linguistique et psychologie des peu- Forms: Explorations in Historical Poetics. Ed. Kliger ples chez Heymann Steinthal. Paris: CNRS, 2006. Print. and Maslov. Fordham UP, forthcoming. ———. “Народная литература, коллективный автор и Lamping, Dieter. Die Idee der Weltliteratur: Ein Konzept со ци аль ные характеристики повествовательных Goe thes und seine Karriere. Stuttgart: Kröner, 2010. форм: немецко-русский переход от психологии Print. к формализму и структурализму.” Европейский Maslov, Boris. “Comparative Literature and Revolution; кон текст русского формализма. Moscow: IMLI or, Te Many Arts of (Mis)Reading Alexander Ve se- RAN, 2009. 20–40. Print.

criticism criticism in translation lovsky.” Compar(a)ison: An International Journal of Veselovskij, Alexandr N. Историческая поэтика. Ed. Comparative Literature, forthcoming. Vik tor M. Žirmunskij. Leningrad: Xudožestvennaja Močalova, Viktoria V., ed. А. Н. Веселовский. Исто ри- literatura, 1940. Print. чес кая поэтика. Moscow: Vysšaija škola, 1989. Print. ———. “Извлечения из отчетов лиц, отправленных за Pizer, John. “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Origins гра ницу для приготовления к профессорскому and Relevance of Weltliteratur.” Te Routledge Com- зва нию.” Журнал министерства народного прос- panion to World Literature. Ed. Teo D’haen, David ве ще ния 121.2 (1864): 395–401. Print. Damrosch, and Djelal Kadir. Milton Park: Routledge, ———. “On the Methods and Aims of Literary History as 2012. 3–11. Print. a Science.” Trans. Harry Weber. Yearbook of Compar- Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. 1928. Trans. ative and General Literature 16 (1967): 33–42. Print. Laurence Scott. Austin: U of Texas P, 1968. Print. Wellek, René. A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950: Shackford, Charles C. “Comparative Literature.” 1876. Te Later Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale UP, Comparative Literature: Te Early Years: An Anthol- 1965. Print. ogy of Essays. Ed. Hans- Joachim Schulz and Phil- Wellek, René, and Austin Warren. Teory of Literature. lip H. Rhein. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, New York: Harcourt, 1956. Print. 1973. 42–51. Print. Žirmunskij, Viktor M. “А. Н. Веселовский и сравни - Shaitanov, Igor. “Aleksandr Veselovskii’s Historical Poet- тель ное литературоведение.” 1940. Сравнительное ics: Genre in Historical Poetics.” New Literary History ли те ра ту ро ве де ние. Восток и запад. Leningrad: 32.2 (2001): 429–43. Print. Nauka, 1979. 84–136. Print. Šklovskij, V. “Александр Веселовский – историк и тео- ———. “On the Study of Comparative Literature.” Oxford ре тик.” Октябрь 12 (1947): 174–82. Print. Slavonic Papers 13 (1967): 1–13. Print.

Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [Karl Friedrich] Merleker (in Königsberg), and [Franz von] Löher (in Munich) have not made a name for themselves as scholars. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE HISTORY OF WORLD On the other hand, the history of particu- literature has yet to be granted citizenship in lar literatures is being actively studied, mostly Germany, at least in the sense in which there in relation to the history of the language or to exist the departments of world history, of the reading of this or that text. In this regard general philology, and so on. One need only German scholars are far ahead of what is be- glance at the curricula of German universi- ing done or has been accomplished by other ties in the current year to be convinced of scholars. [Friedrich] Diez, [Adolf] Ebert, this: [Karl] Höck (in Göttingen), [Franz Lud- [Karl] Bartsch, [Ludwig] Blanc, [Ni co laus] wig Anton] Schweiger (also in Göttingen), De lius, [Adelbert von] Keller, and [Wil helm] 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky 

Wackernagel are the leaders in Romance possibility, given the current paucity of basic translation in criticism studies (I have only named those who hold data. Te author of “an overview of Russian chairs at universities, and I have not men- religious literature” even considered it “an un- tioned Ferdinand Wolf). Tis semester, Ebert wise undertaking.”1 We are surprised when in is lecturing on the history of Italian literature, 1862 in that scholarly Germany which reads [Frie drich] Zarncke, in Leipzig, on the history and teaches all the Semitic dialects we hear of German literature before the Reformation; almost the same words. “All histories of (Ger- [Karl] Müllenhoff lectured last summer on man) literature,” says [Emil] Weller (Annalen the history of German literature before the der poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen thirteenth century. I do not go into great de- im XVI und XVII Jahrh. [vol. 1, p. v–vi]), “all tail because that would lead us too far afeld. histories of German literature were hitherto The fact is that in Germany, where there is fragmentary; that is, they spoke of what their both world history and general philology, the authors had found ready to hand in one or an- department of world literature does not exist. other library, or of what had previously been We suppose the existence of world lit- discussed. An essay by [Karl] Goedeke, the erature possible, if only in the sense of world best of its kind, says nothing about the trea- history. World history is not the history of sures of the libraries of Vienna, Munich, Dres- humanity—of some shared idea of being hu- den, Ulm, Augsburg, Würzburg, Nuremberg, man that manifests itself in various authors and Switzerland . . . Our annals comprise two that one calls nationalities. Rather, world his- thousand more poems than Goedeke’s essay, tory is a history of nationalities that abstract and that is only in the frst three sections.” thought has collected under one idea of hu- We note that the historian of literature manity. What is common to them is that they must at the same time be a publisher and an all develop according to one and the same archaeologist, and be at work in both con- physical and moral laws, insofar as there are veyance and construction. To say nothing in fact connections between them in war and of people devoted solely to publishing: what in peace through borrowing and conquest. have the Grimms not published? Teir edito- What they also share is a striving toward the rial work on German fairy tales and on the improvement of everyday life that one calls songs in the Edda has a genealogical connec- progress. Yet with regard to the various kinds tion with their German mythology. Such an of general ideas and forms manifesting them- absence of the first condition of any devel- selves in the history of humanity, there exist oped economic production, the division of as many doctrines as there are congregations. labor, directly indicates that production is at World history remains all the same a general a low level of development. We speak of po- history of nationalities; we will not be mis- litical economy as a new science but one that taken if we construe the history of world lit- is already defned, having its future and its erature as the general history of literatures. path set clearly before it. We also speak of the Now it is clear why such a history does science of folk psychology as one that prom- not exist. The immensity of material would ises much, though it lives by a single journal.2 intimidate the most resourceful intellect; Of world literature we say nothing, just as we philological preparation alone would take say nothing of mathematics, music, and other dozens of years. We need only think of the liberal arts that have been dispiriting human- task of collecting and publishing material ity since the time of Martianus Capella. And, that is far from gathered and brought to light. indeed, it is only pia fraus, wishful thinking: Denigrating Russian scholarship, we consider world literary history as a feld of scholarship a factual history of Russian literature an im- does not yet exist; it remains to be created.  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

Indeed, what is the history of world lit- tory of poetry out of the history of literature erature? What is the history of literature at all? defend themselves with a justification that Literature is what is written down [пись мен- is not at all poetic but is borrowed from an- ность]—but this excludes popular epic, songs, other camp: poetry is the color of national and the abundance of unwritten works, which, life, that indistinct realm where the charac- being unwritten, neither drown nor burn but ter of the nation is interminably and inte- only grow old organically and likewise become grally expressed along with its purposes, its extinct. Literature is letters [словесность]. deeply ingrained aspirations, and its original Tis defnition frightens the scholar who pro- identity. Tis justifcation destroys itself and

criticism criticism in translation posed it; having sensed its enormous capacity, leads directly from poetry to life. Indeed, to he hastens to hide from it, like Ilya Murom- understand the color of life—that is, poetry— ets, who slammed the lid on the mighty Svy- we must, I think, begin with the study of life atogor.3 Letters? All sorts of things would ft itself; to smell the soil, we must stand on it. under this defnition: the history of scholar- The history of Provençal poetry cannot ship, of poetry, of theological questions, of be limited to the biographies of troubadours economic systems, of philosophical constructs. or to the sirventes of Bertran de Born and the Te range is enormous. But defnitions are not moralizing songs of Giraut de Borneyl. Biog- made to suit a single person, and scholarship raphies of the troubadours lead to [the topics still less so—and is there any reason why it is of] chivalry, castle life, and the predicament necessary to exclude even the history of schol- of women in the Middle Ages. Against the arship from the history of letters? In the frst clear background of the Crusades, the sig- volume of [Heinrich] von Sybel’s journal, a nifcance of the love song will be more lucidly few thoughts were expressed apropos what re- revealed. Similarly, the sirventes compel us to mains to be done in German historical science; discuss the Albigenses and their nonpoetic the history of scholarship was set as a desid- literature. I believe that neither the Proven- eratum to future researchers.4 I see no reason çal Elucidarius nor the didactic treatise about why this proposal could not have been made hunting birds or the instructions of the jon- in any literary- historical journal. Some might gleur should be excluded from observation.5 point out to me that the history of scholarship All this also belongs to the history of litera- is an independent feld of knowledge, that the ture, though it does not have the pretense to history of philosophy is also an autonomous be called poetry. To separate such works [from feld of study, as is the history of the church. the history of literature] would be as inappro- But what then is the history of literature? priate as if someone conceived of limiting the We thus imperceptibly turn to the widely study of Dante to a poetic economy of Te Di- received defnition of the history of literature vine Comedy and ceding historical allusions, that restricts it to a small circle of belles lettres medieval cosmogony, and theological debates and to poetry in a broad sense. Tis defnition in paradise to the specialists. Specialized re- is quite narrow, however inclusive the notion search is not thereby ruled out, nor is the his- of poetry. Why exactly is the history of litera- tory of scholarship as a separate feld of study. ture assigned to the domain of the refined, Having established a notion of liter- and within what limits? I do not think that ary history as the history of belles lettres, any contemporary person would privilege Professor [Stepan] Shevyrev himself was com - questions of aesthetics or the development of pelled to expand his defnition when it came to poetic ideas. Te time of manuals on rhetoric the facts. His history of Russian letters is least and poetics is irretrievably past. Even those of all a history of poetry. If hagiographies and gentlemen who would wish to create the his- sermons predominate therein, this is only par- 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky  tially explained by his predilection for one or life, archaeology, literature, philosophy, and translation in criticism the other of these two moral- didactic genres; all sorts of other things. What if all academia indeed, it could not have been otherwise, and roused itself and set of on a campaign against it seems to us that the correct proportions Kulturgeschichte, each discipline claiming its have been observed. “Yaroslav’s silver” was, of proper part? The whole of Kulturgeschichte course, out of place.6 If [Emil] Ruth’s history of would then be disassembled part by part, and Italian poetry, consisting of two thick volumes, nothing would remain. Te historical section contains numerous details about novelists and would be transferred to history, the philo- writers of novellas while saying almost noth- sophical, to philosophy. Cultural history is ing about Machiavelli (except as the author of ein Unding [“nonsense”]. Instead, there is the Te Mandrake), it is a history not of literature history of history, the history of philosophy, but of poetry, as the author himself called it.7 of literature, and so on. If we asked the author The history of Italian poetry without Biedermann what the history of literature is, Machiavelli, without Giordano Bruno? Such we do not know whether he could provide an a lack is not compensated for by historical in- answer to this difcult question. If he could troductions, geographic or political orienta- not, we might suggest our own: the history of tions, or chapters about everyday life, which literature is precisely the history of culture. for some time now have been in vogue and Now it is clear why the history of world are appended in the back of the book hap- literature did not find for itself a permanent hazardly, without any intrinsic connection department in German universities. If entire to its content. Such appendices are of no aid; books are devoted to the particles μέν and δέ they explain nothing. Tey only add an extra and to the Basque verb for to be, and if people measure of discomfort and distress to future dedicate their entire lives to the study of Dante literary scholars. As long as the historical and or the Breton cycle of legends, the history of the everyday aspect remains nothing but an ap- literary life of a nation also demands an entire pendix or an accessory, a Beiwerk, of literary life’s work. To fully understand and appreciate inquiry, the history of literature will remain what constitutes a nation’s identity—its dis- as it has been up until now: a bibliographic tinctiveness—one must become one with the guide, an aesthetic excursus, a treatise on nation; one must live one’s way into it, become itinerant stories, or a political sermon. Until acclimated to it, and—if one is not born in its then, literary history cannot exist. mi lieu—adopt its peculiarities and its habits. We turn again to von Sybel’s journal, We cannot get away with generalizations here. which is of particular interest to us for the Conclusions about the integrity of development, views on the discipline of history expressed about the general character of the life of a na- in it by leaders in German historiography and tion—if it exists—should be the result of a long for the hopes they placed on the future devel- series of microscopic tests rather than serve as opment of this historiography. In one of the the point of departure; otherwise, the danger of frst volumes, in a short report on [Karl] Bie- taking one’s own view as fact lies in wait. dermann’s book, an unknown critic voiced The more cohesive national life may his doubts concerning the feasibility of the sometimes appear to be, the more careful and field of cultural history, Kulturgeschichte.8 painstaking one’s investigation should be, lest Biedermann’s book serves as his example: an appearance of external orderly develop- despite the author’s talent, has he succeeded ment be mistaken for an internal connection in delivering anything coherent or organic? of phenomena. Te facts of life are connected Nothing of coherence resulted, only a little by a mutual dependence: economic conditions bit of everything: political history, everyday call forth a particular historical formation,  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

and together they determine one or another provide aid to those who seek to orient them- kind of literary activity. It is not possible to selves in a mass of facts, and indicate the piv- separate one from the other. Te complete unit otal points on which a later, more felicitous and is like a circulatory system in which each small more specialized inquiry could be based. Such vein that lurks at the edges of the living body an encyclopedic review should not, of course, has a direct genealogical connection with the exclude original research. If this review does heart even though what lies within the heart not forge new paths, then, when possible, it remains unknown, whether it is poetry or should verify those traveled by Western schol- prose, and whether it is indeed only poetry arship so that one is not led blindly by the men-

criticism criticism in translation that accounts for the color of national life. tor’s words and repeat lessons learned long ago. The best histories of literature have Such is, in my opinion, the task of departments been written by scholars who made a name of world literature in Russian universities: in- for themselves in Europe with works on po- stead of specialized research and a distrust of litical history: [Georg Gottfried] Gervinus, manuals and secondhand knowledge, it is the [Friedrich Christoph] Schlosser, [Leopold transmission of the results of Western scholar- von] Ranke (whose Zur Geschichte der Ita- ship, critically verifed and elucidated. lieni schen Poesie retains its signifcance). We This is how I understood my task, and conclude that the reverse is also true: a good in Berlin I have selected several specialized historian of literature should at the same time courses. [. . .] Berlin, 9–18 December 1862 be a historian of everyday life. Tell me how a nation lived, and I will tell you how it wrote: In the historical- philological sciences, a rev- the best literary historians have earnestly ap- olution is now under way such as there has plied themselves to Kulturgeschichte. I will not been since perhaps the time of the great mention only [Karl] Weinhold. Emerson’s renewal of knowledge of the classics. Revo- phrase—that each of us experiences the en- lutions are always linked to an unexpected tire boundless history of humanity from the expansion of one’s field of vision in both a comfort of our own microcosm—remains a moral and a physical sense. This is all the mere phrase, admittedly beautiful and in the more true the further we are from the be- highest degree humanistic. Should we possess ginning of history, when human beings were an all- too- expansive heart, it may well fnish more tightly connected with nature and their with an aneurysm. Fair enough if one is able development had not yet created its own laws, to experience within oneself the life of a single sanctified by tradition—when the masses nation. Te history of literature, as I under- were more malleable and their development stand it, can exist only as a specialized feld. smoother. Te closer we are to our own mo- It is another question whether practicing ment in time, the more clearly the system of literary history in this manner is possible for social laws appears in opposition to the laws us in Russia. It seems to me that it is not. Our of purely physiological life, which everywhere scholarship is still at the primitive level of econ- constitutes the lining of this system. But this omy: a single pair of hands must accomplish lining is deeply embedded, having passed much work that in more advanced conditions through the whole series of transmissions; of life is distributed among many laborers. it had time to mold itself into customs and Even if there were a desire to specialize, where laws [формулироваться в обычай и закон], would one focus one’s eforts or attention when such that the forms of these customs and laws there is nothing yet in existence and nothing are already developing further. Tis is what to choose from? When possible, we must sup- we call progress or organic development. On ply literary history with more prolegomena, the other side there is organic decline, which 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky  takes place in perfect accord with the rules of knight- errant stabs another through with his translation in criticism society and history, just as a doctor lets a sick lance so that one could hang a coat on its pro- patient die according to the rules of his art. truding tip, “qui s’en fust pris bien garde” [“if Revolution occurs when into this quiet one did it very carefully”]?9 development, which springs from its own Tose same Crusades were the frst to el- principles, there intrudes a host of new prin- evate the signifcance of towns and the middle ciples and facts that must then be reckoned class back home while the knights were earn- with. Whichever side gains the advantage in ing their honor in Palestine. On their return, the struggle between the new and the old, the they encountered an entire literature—which result will always be a trade- off—neither a they themselves had brought from the East— victory nor a defeat. This is one of the fruit- of fabliaux, short stories of the middle- class ful results of Hegel’s philosophy on which the apologues, and novellas. There is no doubt Tübingen school built its history of Christi- that most of these stories already existed in the anity. New vistas open in the distance, ofen West before the Crusades, brought from the accompanied by a spatial widening of the hori- common Asiatic homeland. But they lacked zon as if the expansion of purview were closely the impetus to develop into the immense liter- connected with a wider familiarity with the ary corpus in which chivalrous literature grad- outside world. In this way the paths to the East ually drowned. The impetus came from the that were opened during the Crusades laid a East—the same place where chivalry attained broader foundation for medieval culture, el- its lofy ideals of struggle and of self- sacrifce. evating the ideal of the knight to the Templar Since the second half of the thirteenth century, Knights and the Holy Grail. It is worth com- literature takes on an increasingly middle- paring the representations of William of Gel- class, didactic character. Te place of the ro- lone in the chanson de geste of the eleventh mance is now occupied by the novella, legend, and twelfh centuries with, for example, Tasso’s exhortation; verse makes the transition to Godfrey of Bouillon, a fgure that marks the prose. Even the knights of the romances of this highest realization of the ideal of the knight in time bear the Flemish stamp: they set out on the Breton circle, albeit a one- sided one. Devo- the road not headfrst but afer arranging their tees of epic naïveté and of a primitive simplic- domestic afairs and securing enough money ity in morals prefer, of course, the Aquitaine for the journey. Tis remained true through- hero. Tis is a matter of personal taste. Here out the fourteenth and ffeenth centuries; we even comparison is not possible because com- are speaking of Germany in particular. parisons can only be performed between like At this point again new vistas open toward variables; to compare the past of a nation with the East and the West. Greek scholars come its present and thus arrive at a condemnatory from the East; Europeans set out to the West verdict amounts to nothing, as does a compari- in search of the New World. We are aware of son between the potential for development and the magnitude of the consequences that this its realization. Certainly no one would dispute expansion of the conceptual and geographic that in the later chivalrous romances, the scope horizon had for both the moral and the mate- of moral principles—whatever they may be—is rial development in our part of the globe. Te incomparably greater than in so- called heroic fruitful efects of both were felt in the sixteenth epic. So what is more interesting in the end: century. We are almost ready to accept that a life fully lived and experienced [прожитая history—or what we usually refer to as his- жизнь] along with its hard-won results, what- tory—moves forward only with the aid of such ever they are, or the absence of any life—a unexpected catalysts, whose necessity does life of instincts and animal strength, where a not lie in the sequential, isolated development  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

of the organism. In other words, all of history cal and psychological entity that is, of course, consists in Vermittelung der Gegensätze [“nego- subject to the infuence of the surrounding en- tiation between opposites”] because any history vironment yet is in possession of enough mate- consists in struggle. Isolate a nation, remove it rial within itself to evolve of its own accord. from the throes of struggle, and then attempt The new science of linguistics will con- to write its history—if there will be a history. tribute the most to the advancement of such an Until then we do not believe in the possibility of immanent approach to history, at least in some a physical construction of historical phenom- of its aspects. Tis is yet another of the felici- ena. History is not physiology. If it develops ac- tous results of the expansion of the conceptual

criticism criticism in translation cording to exclusively physiological principles, and spatial horizon of which we have so ofen it ceases to be history. [Henry Tomas] Buckle spoken. Te En glish have conquered India; En- attempted to create for European historical life glish scholarship conquered Indian scholar- what is feasible only for the Eskimos or Hot- ship. Sir William Jones was the frst to discover tentots, and even then only until they encoun- that Sanskrit is cognate with Greek, Latin, and ter the frst foreigner. Te frst foreigner alone most living European languages. Te discov- would disturb the physiological peace of their ery, while itself seeming of little importance, life; an exchange with alien thought raised led to the classic work of [Franz] Bopp and on diferent soil and amid diferent concepts a complete renovation of philological stud- would infringe on the proper course of their ies. Sanskrit was integrated into the Prussian own thoughts. To defne the laws of these colli- university education system thanks to the the sions is of course impossible, at least for us. Ev- efforts of Wilhelm von Humboldt and [Karl erything is limited to such general truths as the von] Altenstein and nowadays is represented enslavement of the lower civilizations by the in almost all German universities; professorial higher, the compromise between the struggling chairs for Sanskrit have spread even to Amer- principles, and so on. It is still not the time for ica, and with them, the study of comparative the science of history, for the physiological sci- grammar. Te En glish have already produced a ence of history. And will it ever be? popular manual for the use of students.10 In recent times, historical- philological It has been noted above what an enor- studies have indeed been given a more scien- mous influence new gains in linguistics can tifc basis than in the past. Te rapid progress have on the scholarly methods of the disci- that they have made on entering this new solid pline of history. Not without reason, earlier ground promises extensive results in the fu- this year [Adolf] Stenzler proclaimed com- ture. It would be audacious to claim that these parative grammar a part of the comparative results will reverberate in all of historical sci- history of culture. (“Ich betrachte daher die ence, yet even now Buckle would be able to take vergleichende Grammatik nur als einen Zweig advantage of some of them for the frst chapters der vergleichenden Kulturgeschichte des gan- of his history of civilization as demonstrated by zen Volksstammes.”)11 Not to mention the the work of [Adalbert] Kuhn, [Adolphe] Pictet, fact that with its aid, dark corners of the his- and others with respect to the description of torical world that archaeology dared not touch primitive culture. Instead, we receive a rather have been illuminated: comparative grammar meager list of infuences on the human, such called forth the science of comparative my- as those produced by climate, nutrition, and thology. Its influence has also spread to the similar natural conditions. In a word, history study of German epics and novellas proper. is being constructed above—and in spite of— Previously, when we considered the similar- the human, while its construction should start ity between two narratives, it was fashionable with humanity itself, viewed as a physiologi- to speak of borrowing, whereas now we have 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky 

become accustomed to referring to our com- tion recently taken by the science of language. translation in criticism mon Asian fatherland, whence we brought lan- We see how gradually the science of language guage and our common customs and beliefs. passes from abstract questions regarding the Perhaps these references go too far, misused beginning of language to such vital questions under the influence of an exclusive love for as the beginning of myth, of custom, and of national literature [народная литература]. a nation’s character and psychology. An in- Borrowing, you see, is ofensive; inheritance troduction to literary history taught by [Hey- is not ofensive, although inheritance is also mann] Steinthal this semester also belongs to borrowing—especially if handed to us from the disciplines that acquire new meaning and such distant progenitors as our forefathers of a clearer signifcance through the infuence of the Iranian highlands. Accordingly, the jackal a philosophical- linguistic perspective. When in Hitopadesa, who fell into a tub of blue paint, Steinthal asks himself about the beginning of and the story of the Reinhard fox stained in art and fnds it in religion, the answer takes on gold are adduced as derivations from a single a meaning completely different from that of common prototype of the legend. “Our Ger- platitudes on the origin of drama in the festi- man scholars,” says Gervinus on this occasion, vals of Dionysus, the religious origins of Greek sculpture, and so on. Te well- known empiri- helped create a new science of linguistics. Te cal diference between poetry and other repre- kinship between modern languages every- sentational arts—namely, that poetry depicts where indicated to them an ancient source. actions while sculpture and painting depict This was natural, since languages can be states—attains a deeper meaning when com- changed beyond recognition but cannot be pared with the diferences between symbol and completely rejected. Legends and works of myth, word and sentence. Te word is a sym- poetry are a different matter. The Crusades bol; the sentence and the phrase are myths. drowned almost all memory of the time of the Ottonians. In our fatherland, the Great According to Steinthal, the word originates Migration of peoples destroyed grand memo- from the sentence, while the symbol originates ries of the past; amid these great devastations from myth; poetry should have therefore ap- of antiquity,12 amid God knows how many peared earlier than other arts. Myth must have thousands of years of transmigrations, a fable existed in poetry so that representational arts about a fox painted in gold and blue was pre- could depict the myth symbolically. served! Te fact that so much was preserved in In this way myth, language, and art meet language is already surprising; we cannot pre- in a higher unity and explain one another. sume the same about an unstable saga. It seems What has hitherto remained obscure in foot- to us that even in language, too little attention notes and addenda will now be introduced is paid to the fact that the same sense of ob- into the actual text. Te study of the fne arts servation, directed at the same objects, could should undergo radical change along with the fnd—on its own accord—similar expressions antiquated doctrine that professes the iden- for inner impressions. And these it probably ofen found. If one is to derive all the similari- tity of that which is beautiful, true, and good. ties in history from such supposed prehistoric As can be seen from the foregoing discus- sources, there would be no law of inner devel- sion, Steinthal’s “introduction” is character- opment, and not a single nation or individual ized by an aesthetic- critical approach, posing could take a single step without borrowing.13 general questions regarding beauty, form, and the differences between various arts. A his- As we have said, the path for those search- torical survey of notions of literary history ing for this “law of inner development” has from the ancient Greeks to Schlegel and Ger- been blazed by the new philosophical direc- vi nus by itself took Steinthal several lectures  Envisioning World Literature in 1863: From the Reports on a Mission Abroad [ PMLA

to complete. In my frst report I was able to of everyday conversation. Whether scholarly express my opinion on the study of literary language is elegant or not, it will nevertheless history. A task was set before us: to trace the remain eine Notsprache, even without all its history of cultural formation [образование] specialized terms and erudite turns of phrase, without limiting it to mere Geschichte der if only because it is fundamentally condi- Dich tung [“history of poetry”] and accom- tioned by the content of research and the logi- modating within it the history of philosophical development of thought. If thought is not cal constructs and religious ideals. Te task, included in the exposition of the history of lit- which many feel is beyond their abilities, lies erature, then no matter how far its presenta-

criticism criticism in translation within the power of scholarship. Steinthal un- tion surpasses ordinary academic Notsprache derstands the matter completely diferently. (as does, for example, the language of [Her- For him, the history of literature is a wholly mann] Lotze in his Microcosm), it will not en- aesthetic discipline: “eine ästhetische Disci- ter the history of literature except perhaps as plin; die Literaturgeschichte ist nur die Ge- a special chapter—“Of Good Style.” schichte der eigentlichen Kunstdarstellungen We will leave it to others to decide: did auf dem Gebiete der Literatur.”14 Which works Steinthal outline the boundaries of literary constitute the object of literary history? “Sol- history too narrowly? For our part, we ex- che Werke, deren ganzes Wesen vollständig plain matters as follows. Tere is a rubric by auf der Form beruht.”15 Historiography, ora- the name of literary history: its boundaries are tory, philosophy—these enter the domain of unclear, expanding from time to time to adopt literary history only insofar as they are distin- elements that have become specialized felds. It guished by their refned form. On this basis was necessary to draw boundaries—to defne Tu cydi des and Plato fnd themselves a place how far the history of literature was allowed next to Homer and Sophocles; Kant and Fichte to go and where foreign proprietorship be- remain behind closed doors—or else are ftted gan. Te alien territories are political history, into an addendum. the history of philosophy, of religion, of the Of course, here we must take into account hard sciences. As a result, what remains as the national peculiarities: Germans pay more at- share portioned to literary history is only so- tention to content than to form; for them, called belles lettres; [literary history] becomes what is most important is the extraction of an aesthetic discipline: the history of refned thought in whatever form it is expressed. As a works of verbal art, or historical aesthetics. result, no scholars on earth write as poorly as Tis is what one calls the legitimization and the Germans. Te French are another matter; the efort to make sense [осмысление] of that they respect proper style and therefore write which exists. Without a doubt, the history of well, and they continue even today to read literature can and should exist in this sense, Bossuet, whereas scarcely anyone in our time replacing the stale theories of the beautiful would tackle Herder, who in fact wrote well. and the lofy with which we have thus far been As it is not clear what distinguishes scholars compelled to occupy ourselves. who write well from those who write poorly, And in the hands of Steinthal it would so the criterion for who will be admitted to liter- remain. Still, his talent is necessary; we are ary history and who will not is likewise ob- afraid that in different hands the history of scure. And what is the basis of admittance? literature, taken in this direction, would al- Steinthal calls scholarly language “eine wis- ways be theoretical or prove untrue to itself. senschafliche Notsprache” [“a scholarly lan- Forgoing the desire to study exclusively poetic guage of expediency”], just as there exists works, literary history will be compelled to the language of business and the language explain them by resorting to the peculiarities 128.2 ] A. N. Veselovsky  of their political and religious development. 2. Zeitschrif für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwis- translation in criticism Gervinus’s Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung sen schaft, ed. Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal (1860–90). ofers much more than one could possibly ex- 3. Veselovsky refers to an episode in a widespread pect from its title. Instead of leaving a caution- northern Russian lay on Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets, in ary loophole for ourselves, we would do better which Svyatogor lies down in a gigantic cofn the two en- to acknowledge that the boundaries of liter- counter on their travels and the younger богатырь (“epic hero”), Ilya Muromets, proves unable to remove the cof- ary history must sometimes be defned much fn’s lid. At the time, the text of the lay had appeared in more widely than as an exclusive selection of print only once, in Песни, cобранные П. Н. Рыб ни ко- belles lettres. While we seek to make sense of вым (vol. 1; Moscow, 1861; 41–42), in an unusual variant the existing rubric, it is possible, I believe, to in which Ilya declines to perform the imposition of the lid. Te lay also circulated orally; see Konstantin Aksa- ofer a new, alternative rubric. We have ofered kov’s testimony in Песни, собранные П. В. Киреевским [such an alternative]: the history of cultural (vol. 1; Moscow, 1860; xxx–xxxi). formation [образование], of culture, and of 4. Historische Zeitschrif (1859–). social thought insofar as it is expressed in po- 5. Veselovsky appears to refer to De arte venandi cum etry, science, and life. Te hard sciences will avibus , by Frederick II, and to the genre of Occitan didactic poem (ensenhamen), which some troubadour poets be included, of course, only with their results; addressed to the jongleur. in any case, they have generally begun to in- 6. Stepan Petrovich Shevyrev (1806–64) was Ve se lov sky’s fuence culture only in recent times. teacher at Saint Petersburg University and one of the pio- I am the first to admit that this task is neers of the study of medieval Russian literature. In his His- tory of Russian Letters, Shevyrev mentions that among the not easy. One needs an abundance of knowl- works and artifacts surviving from the period of the Kievan edge and the time to acquire it—not the two grand prince Yaroslav (d. 1054) is a “coin in his name with years assigned to us by the decree of the Min- the inscription Ярославле серебро” (lecture 6, История istry [of Education]. One sometimes loses рус с кой словесности [vol. 1; Moscow, 1846; pt. 1; 11]). heart when faced with the mass of material 7. Emil Ruth, Geschichte der italienischen Poesie (Leip zig, 1844–47). that one hopes to master to be adequate even 8. Karl Biedermann, Deutschlands geistige, sitt li- minimally to the task that one has set before che und gesellige Zustände im 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, oneself. For this, specialization is often re- 1858). Te review, signed “K.,” appeared in Historische quired, but instead one must hasten and read Zeitschri f 1.1 (1859): 260–61. 9. Veselovsky paraphrases an episode from Le cou- as many books as possible. Tis explains why ron ne ment de Louis (12th cent.), narrating the exploits of you sometimes fnd yourself scattered, attend- William of Gellone. Te quotation is on line 917. ing many lectures that distract you from more 10. En glish in the original. productive studies at home. Currently, I am 11. “I therefore regard comparative grammar only as studying Old French at home, whereas at the a branch of the comparative history of the culture of the entire national stock [of the Indo-Europeans]” (Über die university I am taking psychology with Jür- Wich tig keit des Sanskrit- Studiums und seine Stellung an gen Bona Meyer and two courses with [Karl] un se ren Universitäten [Breslau, 1863; 14]). Müllenhof: one on German historical gram- 12. Gervinus: “des Alten.” The text of Veselovsky’s mar and another on Walther von der Vogel- original publication reproduced in later editions has стра ны (“of the country”), most likely corrupted from weide in relation to German metrics. [. . .] ста ри ны (“of antiquity”) in the process of typesetting. Berlin, summer 1863 13. Georg Gervinus, Geschichte der deutschen Dich- tung (vol. 1; Leipzig, 1853; 131). 14. “Literary history is only the history of artistic representations proper, [investigated] in the domain of literature.” Te source of Veselovsky’s quotations from EDITOR’S NOTES Stein thal has not been identifed; they may derive from Ve se lov sky’s lecture notes. 1. Filaret, archbishop of Chernigov, Обзор русской 15. “Such works whose entire being is fully dependent ду хов ной литературы (Kharkov, 1859–61). on form.”