The Close and the Concrete: Aesthetic Formalism in Context

Gaskill, Nicholas

doi:10.1353/nlh.2016.0027

Cited by 24 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

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“…Cayley seems to connect but also contrast this view with the ability of the 26 letters to produce any text in English so that, in effect, each letter contains the whole not just of all language that has been produced but of all language that could conceivably be produced—what Roland Barthes termed “the infinity of language” (Barthes, , 6). We have here two common but competing visions of form: form as system that underlies a myriad of different texts and form as the singular arrangement of a given text (Gaskill, , 505). In the print version of the first in his Indra's Net series of works, Under It All (1993), Cayley emphasizes this tension between singular version and system by printing each copy with a different example of the textual permutations produced by his poem‐program.…”

Section: An Infinitude Of Lionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The elephant in the room

Edmond

2018

Orbis Litterarum

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We often think about the challenge of translating literature in terms of form and content. Should one attempt to preserve the semantic content of, say, a Chinese poem in English translation, or should one attempt to replicate such formal devices as rhyme and rhythm? This form‐content way of thinking leads most accounts of global modernism and world literature to neglect the importance of literary theory. The failure to address the uses, translations, and adaptations of theory constitutes a blind spot in attempts to read modern and contemporary literature closely or distantly on a local or a global scale. I illustrate theory's crucial role in world literature through the work of two influential contemporary poet–translators: Chinese poet Bei Dao's 北島 use of Russian Formalist theory; and Anglo‐Canadian digital poet John Cayley's deployment of aesthetic theory derived from Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism. Both Bei Dao and Cayley adapt and develop theories that undermine the form/content and local/foreign dichotomies that still plague discussions of translation and comparative and world literature. Their examples suggest that in developing our own theories of world literature we should not simply recognize but also learn from the role of theory in literature's global circulation.

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Section: An Infinitude Of Lionsmentioning

confidence: 99%