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KCI 등재
Modern Asian Poets under Western Gaze: Bei Dao and Yosano Akiko in World Literature
( Jiyon Byun )
영어영문학21 31권 1호 121-143(23pages)
UCI I410-ECN-0102-2018-800-004291613

Although anthologies from Norton, Longman and Bedford have begun to encompass literatures from other countries and cultures under the category of world literature, they are often criticized for their Eurocentric perspective in introducing, describing, and selecting the works in their anthologies. In this paper, I will examine the ongoing discourse on world literature, and attempt to place Asian literature, especially modern East Asian poetry in this context by looking into two anthologies. I am mainly focusing on the poetry in The Longman Anthology of World Literature (2009) and The Norton Anthology of World Literature (2012) in order to examine how they explain world history and represent East Asian poets, and finally to question the validity of that representation. Both of the anthologies guide the readers through the modern history of the world in a rather Eurocentric way, largely focusing on modernism and its movements along with two world wars. It is not surprising therefore, when modern Asian poetry is either missing or unfitting to the theme under which it is explained. The Norton especially does not include any East Asian poets in its modern poetry section, and its editors might be the reason why. Although The Longman includes two East Asian poets, Bei Dao from China and Yosano Akiko from Japan, they are squeezed into the context of modernism and war narrative not for their writing style but for their political and cultural positions. While the anthology is often acknowledged as a marketing product, it also plays significant role in guiding the students academically, reflecting and contributing to the discourse on world literature. Such characteristics of the anthology necessitate editors and anthologists to mediate and interact more with unfamiliar non-Western scholars and authors in order to avoid Eurocentrism and include literatures outside of Europe and America without the risk of misrepresentation or negligence over distinctive poetics.

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