National literature
As a national literature refers to the totality of the belles lettres of a nation . Non- fiction and specialist literature are not counted as national literature. With the emancipation of the nation states and the appeal to national traditions and values, national literature contributed to the development of national culture and national feeling.
To the subject
The demand for a "national literature" arose in the 18th century to distinguish it from foreign cultural influences. In the “Fragments on the more recent German literature”, Herder called for an independent German literature that should be free from the influences of English and French literature. In the "Treatise on the Origin of Language" he formulated the idea that the folk spirit of a people should be expressed in language and literature.
The concept of national literature emerged in the 19th century , when the word “literature” was also redefined (see the keyword literature in detail ). “Literature in the narrower sense” was now considered to be literature with artful use of language. The realization matured that this “beautiful literature” developed in the national language traditions and should therefore be examined from the philologies of the individual languages. The term world literature , which was first introduced by August Wilhelm Schlegel in 1802, emerged to complement this .
The literature describes the characteristics of the respective national literatures. The effects of the various national literatures to each other is since the 20th century in comparative literature ( Comparative examined).
The word “national literature” is perceived by some today as irritating or historically burdened. Instead of “English national literature ” or “British national literature ”, the term “ English literature ” is usually used when the meaning of “national literature ” is clear enough in the context. English literature in this sense must be distinguished from English-language literature (literature in English, also from other countries).
The emergence of national literature
National literature emerged as a result of the state emancipation of individual nations. For example, one speaks of American literature as the national literature of the United States , which developed in the 19th century from the English literary tradition, or of Austrian literature .
As a result of decolonization , new nation states emerged. The former colonial powers had also acted as literary and mentally influential speakers in the colonies; this influence initially persisted even after decolonization. England and France exerted a significant influence, particularly in Africa and Asia. The influence of Europeans in Africa was broken by the emergence of the négritude in the 20th century and led to a flourishing of the respective national literature (see also African literature ). Spain and Portugal had a particularly formative effect in Latin America; in the meantime, however, national literature of world literary rank has emerged in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and other Latin American countries.
End of the national literature?
In Latin America in particular, however, there is also a trend towards dissolving concepts of national cultural exclusion and spatially defined identity in favor of concepts of coexistence and hybridization of cultures that have a long tradition here: Latin American cultures can be seen since the beginning of proselytizing in the Spanish colonies interpret them as cultures of fusion, transition and movement.
This process was intensified by the numerous exile movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries inside and outside the Spanish-speaking area and the orientation of the Hispanic American and Brazilian symbolists and modernists to French models - in contrast to the former colonial powers Spain and Portugal. However, the apparently international modernism soon experienced a national character again. B. in modernismo brasileiro . Mário de Andrade's work Macunaíma - o herói sem nenhum caráter (German: " Macunaíma - The hero without any character "), which takes up the mythology of the Brazilian indigenous peoples, is considered to be an expression of a national-cultural counter-reaction .
Due to the widespread use of the English language, numerous literatures in the 20th century borrowed forms, styles and themes from British and later mainly from US literature: since the late 1920s in the form of short stories - including Mário de Andrade can serve as a Brazilian example of this ( Brás, Bexiga e Barra Funda , 1928) - since the 1970s through the trend of creative writing , since the 1990s through the post-modern literary destruction of the male white identity, which in the cold War had only been built, as well as through the racial discourse of the 2000s.
After the Second World War, various literary hybridization processes also took place in English and French, and later also in Portuguese-speaking countries. B. also in India. In the development of a transcultural literature, migration played a role . a. from Africa or the Caribbean play a central role. The economic pressure on authors from countries with underdeveloped book markets to publish for the American or European market contributed to this.
In Germany, too, the presence of authors of non-German origin who write in German is growing. Since the 2000s, the new technical media have also acted in the sense of a hybridization of national literatures and the development of transcultural literatures.
literature
- History of the poetic national literature of the Germans by Dr. GG Gervinus. First part. From the first traces of German poetry to the end of the 13th century (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1835).
- Lectures on the history of German national literature by Dr. AFC Vilmar , 2nd edition (Marburg / Leipzig: Elwert'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1847).
- National textures. National literature as a literary concept in Northeast Europe. Edited by Jürgen Joachimsthaler and Hans-Christian Trepte. Lüneburg: Northeast Institute 2009 (= Northeast Archive NF XVI / 2007).
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Duden online uses the reference to a "people" in its definition of the meaning of national literature.
- ↑ Vittoria Borsó: Hybrid Perceptions , in: Frank Heidemann (eds.): New Hybridities. Societies in Transition. Hildesheim 2006.
- ↑ Len Platt, Sara Upstone: Postmodern Literature and Race. Cambridge University Press, 2015.