A Study Of Franco Moretti's Theory Of World Literature

Under the influence of various “post” contexts,some scholars have put forward their own thinking about world literature relying on post-Marxism,post-structuralism,post-modernism and other theories.The Italian American scholar Franco Moretti is one of them.He proposed the use of Distance Reading to solve the “problem” of world literature.He believes that world literature regards the eighteenth century as a watershed,the former being the mosaic of separate “local literature”,the latter being a unified and unequal world literary system,and the world literature is swinging between the two.The world literature has the “central-half-edge” transmission format.The content and form of literature are strongly influenced by the central region.Although Moretti's starting point is to jump out of the scope of Western European studies,combining mathematics,biology,economics,and other disciplinary methods with literary research,trying to obtain accurate and fair conclusions.but its theory has a “Eurocentrism” color.An in-depth study of Moretti's world literary theory will help broaden the research horizons of the domestic world literary theory,and it will also contribute to the construction of a world literary outlook with Chinese characteristics.This article is divided into five parts to discuss Franco Moretti's world literary theory.The introduction expounded the necessity and possibility of studying Moretti's world literary theory,combed the research status of Moretti at home and abroad,and analyzed the limitations of the current research.In the second part,on the basis of introducing Moretti's life,I combed his ideological sources of the world literary theory: deeply influenced by the new positivism Marxism of Galvano della Volpe,learning from Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel.The World-system and the View of History,Drawing on the “Tree” Model in Darwinian Evolution.Therefore,based on Fredric R.Jameson's law of literary development,he proposed his three-dimensional model of world literature development and constructed a world literary system of trees and waves,diffusion and fusion.The third part is the analysis of Moretti's research method for solving the “problem” of world literature—Distant Reading.Moretti attaches great importance to genre/form and technique,and stays away from the text.He believes that it is possible to study literature again.Such analysis and synthesis are his main research methods for world literature.He advocated moving away from academic classics and demanding more attention to the world's more works.Although he believes that studying world literature requires Distance Reading,he also believes that Close Reading has its rationality.The fourth part is the analysis of the main content of Moretti's world literary theory.In the eighteenth century,he believes that there are two distinct world literatures.There are models of Tree and Wave in literary history;early fictions have changed from consistency to diversity,and with the gradual connection of world geography,fiction It is also unified in proliferation.The focus of Moretti's world literary theory is obviously on the latter.World literature as a united and unequal world literary system has a center,a half edge,and an edge.In the world communication of the novel,the content and the main frame remain unchanged,and the rhetoric is only the form.The marginal forms and plots have a certain role in the action of the center,but most of them are still passively accepted.The fifth part is the assessment of Moretti's world literary theory.His world literary theory is based on the previous literary theory.It is an overall reflection on world literature and is also a representative of Marxist thinking on world literature.Although there is still a disagreement on whether his novels are reasonable for illustration and whether the world literary system can be established.However,his theory still has positive reference value for the Chinese academic community.