Two Authors’ Opinions on Literature
Two Authors’ Opinions on Literature
In the article, Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism, the author expresses his views on the third-world literature and through analyzing the characteristics of the literature of that world we can also understand some culture of third-world.
He thinks that in the culture of western countries, individualism is separated with society. However, in the third-world literature, individual destiny is always included into the mass culture. That is to say; the third-world literature is always represented in the form of political and national allegory. The style of the third-world literature is a contrast with that of the first-world publications. To some extent, those two genres are fighting with each other. So if we would like to study the third-world literature, we have to study first-world literature from the third-world perspective. He also holds the idea that the culture of the third-world is not independent. It has a close relationship with the culture of the first-world, so it decides that the intellectuals of the third-world are also political fighters.
Although he wants to stand on the side of white people to object the thought of white people-centered theory, he still speaks for the white people and support the theory of white people-centered theory. This is also the rival between Marxism and Freudianism. His opinion to the third-world literature is limited. His expression to the third-world is a lack of historical perspectives. Although he is sympathetic about the nationalism, it cannot deny the fact that it is the assumption of the white-centered logic. It is because third-world itself has a long traditional history and it cannot be changed by colonization or poverty. But his opinion is still, to some extent, propels the development of human history. China being a country in the third-world needs to pay attention to this matter and it really cares about our daily life.
By reading the introduction of Pecora’s article, I acknowledged some conceptions about nations and states.
In the author’s opinion, he insists that the use of the word “democracy” is much older than that of the word “nation-state.” The language has a close relationship with the government. Ethnicity is a word that can be used to describe different situations. The nation being as a political term since the mid-eighteenth century. Some big war events such as French Revolution all cause-related with this. It is hard to estimate whether reformation is a significant transformation of the Europe or not. The change brings about the attention to the importance of the domestic language. If we want to understand the history of the nation, it is essential to study the ancient Israel and Greece. Between the ancient Hebrews & reformation, it is critical for the humanists to increase the loyalty of national idea. In the ancient Greece & Rome, they make an excellent contribution to the literature for the later generations. By appreciating their works, the later generation acquires a vast amount of knowledge and skills. Anthology is an ironic enterprise by its nature. Nowadays, the anthology is more or less likely to this kind of type. It has been studied that the nation-state & nationalism are rising in the Europe & its colonies. But it is not mean that all of the non-western nationalisms adopt the European model even though many have done that.
By reading his article, I know that if we would like to study the modern literature, we need to get back to the ancient times, such as Israel and Greece. The literature of those times helps us better know how the essay develops with time. We can certainly learn new things from those books, and it can illuminate our future life.