nrtffig LUWV wsatsM wm mm rnrnA MfiiiiBiH M THINKING Wm %L LITERATURE «e^L ACROSS £v; CONTINENTS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2020 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/thinkingliteratu00ghos_1 THINKING LITERATURE ACROSS CONTINENTS RANJAN GHOSH J. HILLIS MILLER THINKING LITERATURE ACROSS CONTINENTS Duke University Press • Durham and London • 2016 © 2016 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper °° Typeset in Chaparral Pro by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ghosh, Ranjan, author. | Miller, J. Hillis (Joseph Hillis), [date] author. Title: Thinking literature across continents / Ranjan Ghosh, J. Hillis Miller. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016024761 (print) | LCCN 2016025625 (ebook) ISBN 9780822361541 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 9780822362449 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 9780822373698 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Literature—Cross-cultural studies. | Literature—Study and teaching—Cross-cultural studies. | Culture in literature. | Literature and transnationalism. | Literature—Philosophy. Classification: LCC PN61 .G46 2016 (print) | LCC PN61 (ebook) | DDC 809—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024761 Cover art: Kate Castelli, The Known Universe (detail), 2013. Woodblock on nineteenth-century book cover. Courtesy of the artist. CONTENTS vii Preface J. HILLIS MILLER ix Acknowledgments RANJAN GHOSH xi Acknowledgments J. HILLIS MILLER i Introduction: Thinking across Continents RANJAN GHOSH 9 Introduction Continued: The Idiosyncrasy of the Literary Text J. HILLIS MILLER part l: The Matter and Mattering of Literature 27 Chapter l. Making Sahitya Matter RANJAN GHOSH 45 Chapter 2. Literature Matters Today J. HILLIS MILLER part ll: Poem and Poetry 71 Chapter 3. The Story of a Poem RANJAN GHOSH 93 Chapter 4. Western Theories of Poetry: Reading Wallace Stevens’s “The Motive for Metaph* J. HILLIS MILLER part ill: Literature and the World 111 Chapter 5. More than Global RANJAN GHOSH 134 Chapter 6. Globalization and World Literature J. HILLIS MILLER part IV: Teaching Literature 155 Chapter 7. Reinventing the Teaching Machine: Looking for a Text in an Indian Classroom RANJAN GHOSH 177 Chapter 8. Should We Read or Teach Literature Now? J. HILLIS MILLER part V: Ethics and Literature 207 Chapter 9. The Ethics of Reading Sahitya RANJAN GHOSH 232 Chapter 10. Literature and Ethics: Truth and Lie in Framley Parsonage J. HILLIS MILLER 259 Epilogue RANJAN GHOSH 263 Notes 291 Bibliography 307 Index CONTENTS