JÉRÔME DAVID The FourGenealogies of “World Literature” TranslationbyMaryClaypool What canwelearnfrom ahistorical semantics, a Begriffsgeschichte of “world literature?” First, that it is necessary to return to thetexts in whichGoetheevoked Weltliteratur—but also that it is necessary to take intoaccount the wayinwhich these textshavebeeninterpretedand translated sinceGoethe.The period thatseparates us fromGoethe’sWeimarhas indeedseenthe notion of “world literature” take on innu- merable meanings thatithardlyhad at theend of the 1820s:social,ideological, or intellectualmeanings that havebeenadded to it duetoits subsequentinscription in revolutionary,scholarly or university contexts unknownatthe timeofits first for- mulation.1 Historicalsemantics cannot be reduced to an exegesis of textsGoethe lefton thequestion.2 Historical semantics then contributetosituating the contemporary debates in the longuedurée of critical thought, of citizen education, of aesthetic reflections.They thus bringtolight thediverse ramifications of the notion of “world literature,” andtheir par- ticular temporalities. This reminds us that there is notalinear, cumulativehistoryof what one calls “world literature”since Goethe—nodefinitive Great Narrativetohope for—, but rathercompetinggenealogies whose patient examination reveals persisting anachronies or heterochronies. These historical semantics reveal, at leastaccording to me,four different genealogies of thenotionof“world literature.”Iproposetofirst sketch thedevelopment of each genealogy up to the 1990s. Then Iwillturntothe contemporary controversies in order to study,this time,not what remains of each of thesegenealogies in the recent works on “world literature,”but how various combinations of thesefour genealogies in some way draw themoststrikingtheoretical proposals of the past ten to fifteen years in different 1 Ideveloped some elements of this historyin: Jérôme David, Spectres de Goethe. Les métamorphoses de la “littératuremondiale” [“Specters of Goethe: TheMetamorphoses of ‘World Literature’”] (Paris: Les Prairies ordinaires,2011).Inthispaper Iwould liketodraw severalcon- clusions from it. 2 This is also, for the most part, John Pizer’s pointofview,cf. John DavidPizer, TheIdea of World Literature: History and PedagogicalPractice (Baton Rouge:Louisiana State University Press, 2006). DOI 10.1515/9783050064956.13, © 2018 Jérôme David, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 14 Jérôme David directions—so different, in fact, that themisunderstandingsinthe debates are more nu- merous at this point than real exchanges.Iwill conclude by raising some of the points thatIthink should, despite everything, be discussed today—because they underlie the currentcontroversies withoutbeing clearly stated, or because they are tacitly agreed upon andworth re-examining. The Philological Genealogy The first of these genealogies, knownasphilological,isformed in therelationships Goetheenvisionedbetween“world literature” andtranslation.Asweknow, theterm Weltliteratur appears for the first time, in the Goethian lexicon, over the course of a conversationwith Eckermann.3 Goethe,inJanuary 1827 reads aChinesenovel, Les Deux Cousines (The Two Fair Cousins: AChineseNovel)translatedintoFrenchby Abel Rémusat, andhe, too, is in the process of translating Serbian poems,for which he has just received a French version, intoGerman forhis journal Kunst undAltertum.Itis at that moment that he has an intuitionabout what “world literature” couldbe: aliterary conversationbetweenall nations, from whicheachone wouldemerge culturally greater, that is to say more universal. Using this term Weltliteratur is inseparable fromapractice of translation(as areader andasatranslator). This practice also is linked to Goethe’s reflections on thebenefits andthe risksoftranslation:what exactly can we retainofliterature when we transfer a poem or anovel fromone languagetoanother?Isnot this language obstaclealsoanop- portunity,inthe sensethatitchallenges thetranslatortobroaden or loosen his ownlan- guage to thepointofbeing abletowelcome, with theleast amount of damage possible, awork written in aforeign language?These questions were not solelyGoethe’s, since he sharedthemnotablywithNovalis andthe Schlegelbrothers.4 Nevertheless, they are decisiveinthe birthofthe notion of “worldliterature.” The philological genealogy of the notion is derived fromthis anxiouspreoccupation with what theliterary works mean,fromthe initialconcern of respectingthe authentic meaning of thetexts,their words as much as their spirit.Itisaccompaniedbyavery close attentiontolanguage, or languages; it measures the aesthetic experienceofthe lit- erary works according to a linguistic experience. “World literature,” in this genealogy,has thediversity of languages as a philological background; it engages an imaginary of themoreorlessdifficult passage of texts from one languagetoanother, fromone nationtoanother, fromone culture to another, from 3 Fritz Strich established in the 1940s the almost exhaustive catalog of the uses of the word “Weltliteratur”byGoethe;cf. Fritz Strich, Goetheund die Weltliteratur (Bern: Francke, 1946). 4 Cf. AntoineBerman, TheExperienceofthe Foreign: Cultureand Translation in Romantic Germany [first editioninFrench, 1984], trans.S.Heyvaert (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992). The Four Genealogiesof“World Literature” 15 one “civilization” to another. “World literature,”from this pointofview, helps with gettingone’s bearings in theTower of Babel. This philological genealogy of “world literature”was introduced in the UnitedStates at theend of the19th century thanks to HutchesonMacaulay Posnett.5 We find it again, and more significantly,inRichard Moulton’s work publishedin1911 World Literature andits Place in General Culture6. In it,Moulton defends the idea that civilization has a legacy of foundationaltexts including theBible,and worksbyHomer,Euripides, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante,and Goethe. Mustone readthesetexts in their originallanguage or in English?Since it is a question of “general culture,” of populareducation, that is, at thebeginning of the 20th century, theanswer is unequivocally clearfor Moulton: each readermustbeableto access these foundationaltexts in theEnglish translation,becausethislanguage was at the time, for many Americans, theonlyone they spoke. Thus, “world literature” imme- diatelyimpliesareflection on translation. Moulton’s case, however, is remarkable because thephilologicalattention he applies to the original versions of the works seems at first glance to be almostnon-existent⎯ for strictly pragmatic reasons relatedtothe limited languageabilities of the target audi- ence.And yet, Moulton justifiesthisstance by using arguments in whichweobserve a very sharp awareness of thelinguistic issues⎯in other words, avery philological con- cern. It is because he thoughtabout what translatinginvolves that Moultoncan chal- lenge,from theinside,asitwere, thephilologicalmisgivings of the fetishism of the originallanguage. “Moulton’s argument,” as it couldbecalled,isthe following: what we lose by readingHomer in Englishisnot the literature perse, but theancient Greek;orrather, what we lose is the very minimal part of theancient Greek whose ethos the translator is unabletoreproduce by subtly workingthe English language.7 ForMoulton, as we can see, either thereflections on “world literature”willcometotermswith translations, at the risk of losing only asmall partofwhat characterizes the spirit of aparticular lan- guage (ancientGreek), or they will be condemned to beingunavoidably localized, whichistosay not worldly at all, since they rely on languageskills that are always limited. Thereseemstobeaparadoxhere:Moulton rids himself of theproblem of trans- lation,but he does so with philological arguments. And his“argument” leads himto conceive of literature independent of language. We willdiscover thepedagogical conse- quences of thisargument abit later. 5 Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, Comparative Literature (London:KenganPaul, Trench & Co., 1886), Book IV [“World-Literature”], pp. 233−336. 6 Richard G. Moulton, World Literature and itsPlace in General Culture (NewYork: The Macmillan Company,1911);cf. Sarah Lawall, “Introduction, RichardMoulton:Literatureand Cultural Studies in 1911,” Yearbook of Comparativeand General Literature,39(1990−91), pp. 7−15. 7 Moulton, WorldLiterature and itsPlaceinGeneral Culture,pp. 3−4. 16 Jérôme David We oweanother striking development in this philological genealogy of “world lit- erature”toone of the greatest Romanists of the20th century,ErichAuerbach. In an article published in 1952,Auerbachdefended theideathat“our philological home is the earth,[it] can no longer be thenation.”8 This articlehas an evocativetitle: “Philologieder Weltliteratur.”9 What is it about? For Auerbach,itisamatter of entrusting “world philologists,”ashecalls them,with the task of remindingtheir contemporaries of the diversity andthe historical depthoftheir linguisticand culturalroots. Philology is an anamnetic task, and“worldliterature,” the banner of the “world philologists” whowoulddedicate themselves to thecauseinthe field of literary studies. Auerbach is teaching at Yaleatthe time;heknowshehas heartdisease; he would die five years later.Hedoes not speakasaresearcher, but from the positionofaprofessor concerned with passingonhis intellectualconvictionstohis students.“Philology of world literature,” in this sense,istocome. And we knowthat Auerbach’s lessonwould be heard in the