Canon or World Literature? : on Polish reception of Scandinavian literature

Nieaktywny nr DOI: 10.54797/tfl.v54i3-4.51442. Bibliogr. s. 82-85

The article discusses the consecration of foreign literature in a national context. Studying the presence of Scandinavian literature in two kinds of ennobling Polish source material - classics lists, published in five encyclopedias (1959, 1962, 1970, 1974, 1995), and the classics series Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library, started 1919 and still running) - it observes that some of the consecrating mechanisms, for instance politization and the tendency to open up canon, are common to the consecration of both national literature and foreign works. In most respects, however, the consecration of foreign texts clearly diverges from the canonization of national literature: it is based on porous principles, it lacks strong institutional foundation, it largely rests on aesthetic judgements formulated within core cultures, it privileges contemporary authors, it is marked by remarkable lability, it emphasizes universal ideas, it is fascinated by the Otherness. The consecration of Scandinavian works in the analyzed Polish source material, the article concludes, corresponds relatively weakly to the power-oriented notion of canonization, normally applied to national canon formations, and can be better described by the notion of world literature, as defined within the German comparative tradition.