On Small Literatures and their Location in World Literature: A Case Study on Luxembourgish Literature
On Small Literatures and their Location in World Literature: A Case Study on Luxembourgish Literature

Summary/Abstract: In their definition of world literature, René Wellek and Austin Warren use the metaphor of the great mountain range in order to describe the prominence of those writers that occupy ’the treasure-house of the classics’, meaning those writers that belong to the so-called canon of world literature: “It [world literature] thus has become a synonym for ’masterpieces’, for a selection from literature which has its critical and pedagogic justification but can hardly satisfy the scholar who cannot confine himself to the great peaks if he is to understand the whole mountain ranges […]” (Wellek & Warren [1949] 1973: 49). The metaphor is taken up by the East German poet Durs Grünbein in his essay on the topic: “Zumindest in diesen Breiten ist man sich einig darüber: Es gibt einen Himalaya der Literatur, und seine Höhenzüge sind bestens bekannt. Dieses Weltgebirge wird unstreitig von einer Kammlinie aus Sieben- und Achttausendern dominiert, die dort schon seit Jahrhunderten aufragen“ (Grünbein 2003: 23). Grünbein however does not only use the metaphor in order to comment on the peaks of world literature but, in expanding it further, it serves him to illustrate topographically the hierarchical structure underlying its canon.

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