The growing theoretical discussions around the notion of World Literature in the past two decades ensue from the limitations of Comparative Literature and efforts to redefine the principles of literary criticism. It is part of an effort to include non-Western literatures and to write a history of world literature. The translation of Pascale Casanova’s La Republique mondiale des lettres has introduced part of these discussions into Persian. In this paper, I sketch a theoretical frame for World Literature, discuss the three axes of Casanova’s model (the republic, the centrality of Paris, and the nation-state ideology), and explain why the history of Persian literature does not fit into such definitions and why accepting this model would lead to epistemological changes that write off a great deal of Persian literature from world literary history. Then, in this connection, I discuss power relations, translation, and the implicit colonialism involved in it.        

Keywords: World Literature, Pascale Casanova, Translation, Colonialism

Full-Text [PDF 290 kb]   (4361 Downloads)