Can Sri Lankan literature go global?

The concept of 'Weltliteratur' (World Literature) was introduced in 1827 by Johan Wolfgang von Goethe who is a German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, philosopher, and one of the influential personalities in Western literature. Goethe referred to the term 'Weltliteratur' in connection with the then emerging literatures from other languages such as Sanskrit and Arabian in translations. The term 'Weltliteratur' has also been used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto (1848) to illustrate the "cosmopolitan character" of bourgeois literary production.

"World literature as a dimension of Comparative Literature has been in existence as a "Gemeingut der Menschheit" (common property of mankind) since ancient civilization in "everywhere and in all periods in hundreds and hundreds of people" [emerging "überall und zu allen Zeiten in Hunderten und aber Hunderten von Menschen", Johann Wolfgang Goethe to Johann Peter Eckermann, 31 January 1827].

However, the German term 'Weltliteratur' and the heightened awareness of literary exchanges and relations across national borders have their roots in so called cosmopolitan aspirations of major literary figures as well as literary critics during the Age of Goethe as stated in the literary encyclopedia in defining the term 'world literature'.

World Literature

It is pertinent here to examine major remarks by Goethe on the spacious concept of World Literature. Goethe on numerous occasions expressed his views on world literature and his vision on the subject. In his journal Propylen, Goethe writes:

"It is to be hoped that people will soon be convinced that there is no such thing as patriotic art or patriotic science. Both belong, like all good things, to the whole world, and can be fostered only by untrammelled intercourse among all contemporaries, continually bearing in mind what we have inherited from the past" (quoted in Fritz Strich. Goethe and World Literature. (Trans. By C. A. M. Sym. London: Routledge, 1949. 35).

Goethe's secretary and disciple, Johann Peter Eckermann, records one of his remarks to a young Englishman: "It is part of the nature of the German to respect everything foreign for its own sake and to adapt himself to foreign idiosyncrasies. This and the great suppleness of our language make German translations particularly accurate and satisfying" (from Johann Peter Eckermann. Conversations with Goethe. 1835; quoted in Strich 1949: 27).

After calling attention to two French reviews of a play (Alexander Duval's Le Tasse: Drame historique en cinq actes) that was adapted from his own play Torquato Tasso (1790), Goethe tells his readers about his journal Kunst und Altertum (Art and Antiquity) that he is not just drawing attention to the reception of his own work in these reviews: "I have something higher in mind, which I want to indicate provisionally. Everywhere one hears and reads about the progress of the human race, about the further prospects for world and human relationships. However, that maybe on the whole, which it is not my office to investigate and more closely determine, I nevertheless would personally like to make my friends aware that I am convinced a universal world literature is in the process of being constituted, in which an honourable role is reserved for us Germans. All nations are paying attention to us; they praise and criticize, accept and reject, imitate and distort, understand or misunderstand us and open or close their hearts to our concerns. We must accept this with equanimity because it is of great value to us" (from Goethe. Essays on Art and Literature. Ed. John Gearey. Goethe's Collected Works, Vol. 3. New York: Suhrkamp, 1986. 225).Goethe and Weltliteratur 24(1827 Jan. 27)

In a letter to his friend, Adolph Friedrich Carl Streckfuss, Goethe writes: "I am convinced that a world literature is in process of formation, that the nations are in favour of it and for this reason make friendly overtures. The German can and should be most active in this respect; he has a fine part to play in this great mutual approach" (quoted in Strich 1949: 349).

Goethe on poetry

With regard to poetry, Goethe writes: "I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men . . . We Germans are very likely to fall too easily into this pedantic conceit, when we do not look beyond the narrow circle that surrounds us. I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach. But, while we thus value what is foreign, we must not bind ourselves to some particular thing, and regard it as a model.

We must not give this value to the Chinese, or the Serbian, or Calderon, or the Nibelungen; but, if we really want a pattern, we must always return to the ancient Greeks, in whose works the beauty of mankind is constantly represented. All the rest we must look at only historically; appropriating to ourselves what is good, so far as it goes" (Eckermann. Conversations with Goethe. 1835; quoted in David Damrosch. What Is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003. 1, 12; with one sentence taken from Mads Thomsen. Mapping World Literature. New York: Continuum, 2008. 11).

In a letter to Count Stolberg, Goethe writes: "Poetry is cosmopolitan and the more interesting the more it shows its nationality" (Goethe. Essays on Art and Literature. Ed. John Gearey. Goethe's Collected Works, Vol. 3. New York: Suhrkamp, 1986. 227)."

One of the major remarks of Goethe about the emerging world literature is that the dominant feature of world literature is that it diminished national and regional boundaries of literature.

World literature should be considered as common property of mankind rather than an individual product of a given nation albeit some of the literary productions may carry an ethnic in character. For instance, literary productions such as " Kite Runner", "Anil's Ghost" "Life of Pi", " God of Small Things" "Midnight's Children", and " White Tiger" may relate individual experiences within the context of a specific nation state or a culture or within an ethnic community, however, they belonging to world literature. For, they are being appreciated, criticised and digested by an international readership. World literary productions are being made in International Standard English so as they be universally accessible.

Sri Lankan and world literature

One of the major impediments of Sri Lankan literature, both in English and in translation, becoming part and parcel of world literature is that they have not been produced in International Standard English. Notable exceptions are the literary production by Sri Lankan expatriate writers in English such as Michael Ondaatje and Yasmin Goonaratne and some of the Sri Lankan writers in English. These literary productions are, among other things, is marked for their excellent styles of prose, novel use of idioms making them truly part and parcel of world literature.

However, most of the Sri Lankan literary productions both in English and translations are of little or no literary values. They remain, by and large, anecdotal monologues, fake rhetoric in the form of humour often generated by the authors themself and amateurish writings which the respective authors claim to be post-modern in structure. Undoubtedly such literary productions of inferior quality and half-backed trans-distortions would not reach international literary market let alone becoming part and parcel of world literature.

The failure of Sri Lankan literature in reaching the status of world literature does not often lie in the conglomerate of experiences but in the poor literary quality of the productions.

If Sri Lankan literary productions are to become part and parcel of world literature, it is sine qua non that they are in written Standard International English with rich content which can be universally appreciated.