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33 - Nation and Literature

from Part III - Intersections: National(ist) Synergies and Tensions with Other Social, Economic, Political, and Cultural Categories, Identities, and Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Theo D’haen
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

Ever since the era of Romanticism, it has been a commonplace to link language and literature to ideas of nationhood. The ideal “nation” is understood to be one that unites all people speaking the same language within a common territory, effectively constituting a nation-state. This principle undergirds most nineteenth- and twentieth-century processes of nation formation in Europe. In some cases, this has led to the breakup of larger territorial units organized along earlier and different principles into smaller units. In other cases, it has led to the unification of territories previously divided. Notwithstanding the principle cited, many of the countries thus constituted have within their borders linguistic minorities. Some European countries have no language of their own, using one or more languages that are claimed, and usually also perceived, as the “national” language of other, bigger countries. In all instances, literature, as the most visible and enduring embodiment of a people’s language, serves as a binding element.

Keywords

national literaturesnationhoodliterary historiographyEuropean literature
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 706 - 726
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Casanova, Pascale, The World Republic of Letters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Grabes, Herbert (ed.), Writing the Early Modern English Nation: The Transformation of National Identity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helgerson, Richard, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Moretti, Franco, Graphs, Maps, Trees (London: Verso, 2005).Google Scholar
Reynolds, Matthew, The Realms of Verse: English Poetry in a Time of Nation-Building (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1979).Google Scholar
Trumpener, Katie, Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vranceanu, Alexandra, and Pagliardini, Angelo (eds.), Rifondare la letteratura nazionale per un pubblico europeo (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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