Abū Shādī, Tagore, and the Problem of World Literature at the Hinge of Afroeurasia

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" Abū Shādī, Tagore, and the Problem of World Literature at the Hinge of Afroeurasia "
Shaden M. Tageldin

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1075838
Doc. No	:	LA119467
Call No	:	‭10.1163/24056480-00403004‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Shaden M. Tageldin
Title & Author	:	Abū Shādī, Tagore, and the Problem of World Literature at the Hinge of Afroeurasia [Article]\ Shaden M. Tageldin
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Journal of World Literature
Date	:	2019
Volume/ Issue Number	:	4/3
Page No	:	350–373
Abstract	:	This essay traces the problem of world literature in key writings by the Egyptian scientist and littérateur Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī. Abū Shādī’s early nod to world literature (1908–1909) intimates the challenge of making literary particularity heard in the homogenizing harmonies of a world dominated by English. That problem persists in his account of a 1926 meeting with the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore and in an essay of 1928 inspired by that meeting: one of the first manifestos of al-adab al-ʿālamī (world literature) in Arabic, predating the 1936 appearance of al-adab al-muqāran (comparative literature). While Abū Shādī lauds Tagore’s refusal to compare literatures East and West and insistence on the spiritual unity of all literatures, his struggles to articulate a world in which harmony is not an alibi for hierarchy suggest that neither comparative literature nor its would-be leveler – world literature – can shed the haunting specter of inequality. This essay traces the problem of world literature in key writings by the Egyptian scientist and littérateur Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī. Abū Shādī’s early nod to world literature (1908–1909) intimates the challenge of making literary particularity heard in the homogenizing harmonies of a world dominated by English. That problem persists in his account of a 1926 meeting with the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore and in an essay of 1928 inspired by that meeting: one of the first manifestos of al-adab al-ʿālamī (world literature) in Arabic, predating the 1936 appearance of al-adab al-muqāran (comparative literature). While Abū Shādī lauds Tagore’s refusal to compare literatures East and West and insistence on the spiritual unity of all literatures, his struggles to articulate a world in which harmony is not an alibi for hierarchy suggest that neither comparative literature nor its would-be leveler – world literature – can shed the haunting specter of inequality.
Descriptor	:	Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī
Descriptor	:	al-adab al-ʿālamī
Descriptor	:	comparative literature
Descriptor	:	Rabindranath Tagore
Descriptor	:	world literature
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/24056480-00403004‬