[Assignment]
There has been a major push in the past few decades towards diversity in the literary canon, which was for a long while dominated by similar voices with similar origins. This push toward diversity has taken many forms: the integration of more female voices; the inclusion of more writers of color, regardless of their origin; and the inclusion of works of literature from non-Western cultures that have for too long been ignored. This last point has become known by the name multiculturalism, and though there is agreement throughout the academic community that this addition of previously un-acknowledged voices is a positive step, the way these voices are introduced into the cannon has been a point of some contention. Often, though the voices of different cultures are now being acknowledged and taught in the classroom, they are still being viewed through the lens of a Western literary sensibility. The main debate over the increased multiculturalism in the academic classroom is whether these voices are truly being introduced into the dialogue in a way that does justice to the cultures they came from, making the canon more of a dialogue and exchange of cultural understanding, or whether these works are simply being annexed in a colonialist way into the Westernized framework the literary canon has operated under for centuries.
Multiculturalism is not a new concept in the modern age. In the early 19th century, the German philosopher and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote on the idea of Weltliteratur, or world literature, and how it related to his own home nation’s literary works. In Goethe’s envisioning, world literature would be marked by an open dialogue and exchange between nations, which he viewed as not necessarily being divided along geographical borders but instead as cultural and linguistic communities. This idea of world literature represents the ideal of the concept of multiculturalism, or at least how its proponents imagine it will play out in the classroom: that reading the work of other cultures will allow for an exchange of ideas that makes each culture’s own interior life richer as a result. The key in this vision is that literature becomes a dynamic rather than a static entity, constantly in flux and informed by the work of other, disparate cultures. The end goal, then, is not in absorbing the works of other cultures themselves, but rather then process of the exchange—in other words, not to make all the works of all cultures uniform, but to gain “mutual understanding and tolerance between nations, through the revelation of universal humanity across particular differences” (Cheah 28). The differences between the cultures are still valued as independent entities, and in fact separated, in that their exchange allows the literature of both cultures to remain fluid.
Though world literature was starting to be recognized as important during the 19th century when Goethe was writing, its importance and prevalence has only increased with the passing of time. In the modern age of globalization, it is more important than ever. Recognizing the familiar in the literature of very different people and cultures—whether they’re different because of their time period, geography, or both—allows the modern student of literature to better understand the overall human condition. Noting the points at which the literatures of different cultures diverge, whether that’s in the stylistic choices made by the author or the details of the setting and characters in which the story takes place, theoretically allows the student to celebrate the diversity of the modern world while still recognizing that all people share the same basic desires, needs, and characteristics at their core. Pheng Cheah notes that this turn toward multiculturalism is necessary to allow the citizens of a nation to become truly cosmopolitan, a process that he describes as taking place in three steps: to sunder the self-identification with the limits of previous personal perspectives; to imagine the universal community of all existing humans; and to place oneself within this world, “subordinating one’s egoistic interest to that of the whole” (Cheah 27). In the era of globalization where it is possible to communicate with someone on the other side of the world in real time, it is more necessary than ever to transcend the boundaries of one’s own culture and be able to both respect and transcend the differences inherent in cultural exchange. Studying a truly diverse and multicultural literary canon is a great step toward this end.
Using this positive approach to world literature and multiculturalism is especially helpful in the reading and analysis of ancient non-Western texts, such as Farid ud-Din Attar’s Conference of the Birds. Attar was a Persian poet and follower of esoteric Sufiism (a doctrine followed by mystics of the Islamic faith) who wrote in the 12th century AD (Davis 9). Attar was himself a student of many cultures, having traveled extensively through North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, following the established troubadour tradition of the time. Conference of the Birds is a cycle of poems that explores many of the central ideas of Sufi mysticism in an allegorical fashion designed to be both interesting and comprehensible to those outside the faith. Reading it through a modern, Western lens reveals many similarities between the poem cycle and other better-known works from the literary canon. In his introduction to a modern translation of the poem, Dick Davis notes the formal similarities between Conference of the Birds and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which both are a collection of vignettes and anecdotes told over the course of a religious pilgrimage. The multi-layered allegory at play in Conference of the Birds is also similar to Western works that deal with religion, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, which also used an imaginative allegorical setting to discuss the prominent religious philosophies of his time, or John Milton’s 17th-century work Paradise Lost, that gives the typically dry religious writings of his era a more interesting façade that compels readers to engage with the story (Davis 15). Though the religion in question is different—Sufiism as opposed to Christianity—these authors took the same approach to conveying their message; noting these similarities allows the modern Western reader to gain a new appreciation for the work of Attar, informing his dynamic view of culture and literature as a whole.
On the other side of the debate on multiculturalism and world literature in the classroom are those who see the practice as not a celebration of the underlying humanity of all cultures but rather as an imperialist annexation of other cultural traditions by the Western world. As many scholars have pointed out, even Goethe’s idealist view of world literature is inevitably colored by a colonialist ideology. Pheng Cheah describes his view as “patently hierarchical and Euro-centric,” noting his insistence on the implacable mastery of the writings of ancient Greece (31). The typical approach to world literature in the classroom has similar flaws. By pinpointing certain works from cultures outside the Western tradition and simply adopting them into the traditional syllabus and canon they are inevitably read and analyzed using the same lens that’s utilized for the reading of Western works. This superimposes a Western aesthetic on the works rather than giving the literature its own cultural space and acknowledging the perhaps very different beliefs, references, and cultural assumptions that went into the writing of the literature. In a sense, then, the Western scholar is not truly appreciating the unique artistry of these multicultural works but is appropriating them and westernizing them, ultimately doing a disservice to the work itself.
When discussing modern literature, the onset of globalism and multiculturalism can also have a detrimental effect on the work being produced. In How to Read World Literature, David Damrosch explores the ways writers adapt to the importance of multiculturalism in modern literary scholarship. He notes the popularity of Serbian writer Milorad Pavic’s 1984 novel Dictionary of the Khazars, whose world-wide acceptance into the canon was thanks in large part to the new emphasis on multiculturalism in literature (Damrosch 107). He also notes, however, that this work only became popular because of its similarities to the works of British Indian author Salman Rushdie, who had been the previous multicultural literary darling—and who, himself, mainly rose to prominence because his work was seen as the next logical step from Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s breed of magical realism. These multicultural works, then, do not truly represent an array of different voices from different cultural backgrounds, but instead a re-iteration of the same basic voice; the multicultural reader is neither challenged nor expected to open his mind to a new world view, but still feels as though he is being “worldly” by reading the works of authors from various nations.
What’s worse, writers in non-Western cultures are then given a narrow window of “acceptable” style, content, and form to be considered for global popularity, and “may find it hard to resist going with the global flow, producing work that fits foreign stereotypes of what an ‘authentic’ Indian or Czech novel should be” (Damrosch 107). The ultimate result of this is that the insistence upon multiculturalism—theoretically an embracing and celebration of the differences between nations and cultures—ends up instead eliminating many of the things that make these cultures unique, forcing a Western ideology onto the art they create if the authors of the work hope to become widely popular and recognized. The insistence upon a multicultural literary canon, and the shrinking of the world through industrialization and globalization, eliminates the very diversity it claims to uphold as a value.
Though older works like Conference of the Birds already exist and are therefore not subject to this cultural shift, the reading and interpretation of them still suffers from this Westernization inherent in the colonialist multicultural mindset. Most western readers are not familiar with the tenets of Sufiism that form the underlying message of the allegory carried through the poem, nor are they familiar with the conflict between Orthodox Islam and mystical Sufiism (especially the ecstatic Sufiism Attar was most concerned with exploring in his work). Western readers are far more likely to have a basically Christian background, as this is the faith that informs the values of most Western cultures. They will inevitably read the work through that lens, westernizing it by default. Even though the educated reader will not be unduly offended when Attar refers to Christians as “infidels” at various points throughout the poem, they will nonetheless lack sufficient background in Islam to appreciate the subtleties and cultural critiques at play in Conference of the Birds.
When it comes to multiculturalism in the literary canon, the truth is there is no right answer to this issue. To ignore the works of other cultures would be a crime, limiting the voices that are heard in the classroom and depriving students of a significant amount of quality, worthwhile literature. On the other hand, reading and analyzing those works using the same framework that’s brought to Western literature does a disservice to the work itself and the culture that produced it. Finding the shared points of humanity and the similarities between works from different cultures is certainly a benefit of multiculturalism, and it does allow the canon to become more dynamic, giving more voices a chance to be heard in an academic context. That being said, the framework used for analysis of these works needs to be updated if the modern worldly reader is to fully appreciate the works included from cultures that aren’t their own. Guarding against cultural appropriation in the multicultural landscape is a continuing task—one that will only become more important as globalization brings ever new cultures and ideas into the world consciousness.
Works cited
Attar, Farid ud-Din. The Conference of the Birds. Transl. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis. London: Penguin Classics, 1984. Print.
Cheah, Pheng. “What is a world? On world literature as world-making activity.” Daedalus 137.3 (2008): 26-38. Print.
Damrosch, David. How to Read World Literature. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Davis, Dick. “Introduction.” The Conference of the Birds. London: Penguin Classics, 1984. Print.
