Towards a Historical Atlas of World Literature

  • Franco Moretti École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland — Stanford University, United States
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i6.9495
Keywords: Historical Atlas of World Literature, literary geography, literary history, European novel

Abstract

In contrast to historiographical automatism, the essay reports a pilot study conducted in Fall 1992 by a team of doctoral students from the Columbia University aimed at building an Historical Atlas of World Literature. The study tries to consider space as a variable, an ingredient of literary history: the analysis of the geographic location of works leads to an evaluation of their historical and morphological consequences. The diagrams were based upon numerous variables: place of publication, national novel or translations and sub-genres etc. The historical geographic maps related to the Rise of the European novel show that we cannot speak of a homogenous development of the novel in Europe. A series of different morphological and chronological indicators all contribute together in supporting the existence of different spatial systems for the diffusion of the novel in Europe.In general, the article shows how the literary geography perfectly embraces the literary history and how it can lead to unexpected conclusions, one of the most important being the data concerning the nature of the fictional space, which is freed from axiology, due to the symbolic neutrality that links it closely to the development of the national novel.

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Author Biography

Franco Moretti, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland — Stanford University, United States

Franco Moretti is emeritus professor at Stanford University where he was The Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professor in the Humanities. At Stanford University he founded and directed the Center for the Study of the Novel and the Stanford Literary Lab. From 2018 he teaches at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. His publications include Letteratura e ideologie negli anni Trenta inglesi (1976), SignsTaken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms (1983), the collection of essays ima e l’arpia (1986), Il romanzo di formazione (1986), Segni e stili del moderno (1987), Opere mondo. Saggio sulla forma epica dal Faust a Cent’anni di solitudine (1994 and 2003, translated as Modernepic: the World-System from Goethe to Garcia Marquez), Atlante del romanzo europeo 1800-1900 (1997, translated as Atlas of the Europeannovel), La letteratura vista da lontano (2005), Graphs, maps, trees: abstractmodels for a literaryhistory (2005), La letteratura in laboratorio (edited by G. Episcopo, 2019). For Einaudi, he edited Il romanzo (5 vols.; 2001-2003).

Published
2022-11-28
How to Cite
MorettiF. (2022). Towards a Historical Atlas of World Literature. SigMa - Rivista Di Letterature Comparate, Teatro E Arti Dello Spettacolo, (6), 401-411. https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i6.9495
Issue
No 6 (2022): Like a Prayer. Forms of the Religiousness and the Sacred in Contemporary Writings and Arts (1990-2020)
Section
Dalla Biblioteca Malatesta

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