Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

CHAPTER 1 What is World Literature? Four Answers

1.1 Answer 1: WL is a Collection of Works that are Intrinsically Literary and Intrinsically of a High Enough Quality to Warrant WL Status

1.2 Answer 2: WL is a Way of Reading and Circulating Texts Across Cultural and Linguistic Boundaries

1.3 Answer 3: WL is a Constellation of Imaginative Structures that Remain in Flux, but that Do Have a Certain Structural Stability

1.4 Answer 4: WL is an Icotic Construct that is Periperformative in Nature

CHAPTER 2 Metrics of World Literature

2.1 Finnish Writers

2.2 Writers Whose Fathers Were Tailors

2.3 Novels Published in 1870

2.4 Translations and Adaptations

2.5 Critical Works

2.6 Critiques

CHAPTER 3 Majoritizing Kivi: Towards NL Hypercanonization

3.1 Background

3.2 Anti-Majoritization: Ahlqvist’s Attack on Kivi 1

3.3 Stage 1 Majoritization: Moralization of Kivi 2

3.4 Charting Lines of Influence from Kivi 3, Kivi 4, and Kivi 5

3.5 Majoritarian Kivi 2–5 as WL NL

CHAPTER 4 Transmajoritizing Kivi: Towards (Failed) WL Hypercanonization

4.1 Translation and Majority

4.2 Transmajoritizing SV: The Early Decades (Swedish and German) and Beyond

4.3 Transmajoritizing SV in English: Matson (1929) and Impola (1991)

4.4 Transmajoritizing SV for the World

CHAPTER 5 Transminoritizing Kivi: Towards WL Countercanonization

5.1 Minoritarian Jouissance of the Other

5.2 The Kivi -1 Tradition of “Minor” Finnish Literature

5.3 Transminoritizing Kivi -1’s Humor

5.4 Conclusion

Appendix 1 The Evidence

Section 1. Playful Words

Section 2. Alliterative Sequences

Section 3. Longer Alliterative Sequences

Section 4. Alliterative Sequences in Kilpi’s Prechapter to Alastalon Salissa

Section 5. Alliterative Sequences in Aapo’s Pale Maiden Story

Appendix 2 The Finnish Background

Section 1. Kivi’s Father as the Bastard Son of an Aristocrat

Section 2. A Brief Bio of Alexander Sipelgas

Section 3. A Brief History of “Red Valpo” and Friedrich Ege (and Hella Wuolijoki)

Section 4. Koskenniemi’s Cautious Defense of Ahlqvist

Section 5. The Nortamo Society

Section 6. Tarkiainen and Koskenniemi on the Act V Reconciliation Scene in NS

Section 7. Jyrki Nummi’s Academic Bona Fides

Section 8. Comparison of “Ikävyys” in Finnish, Swedish, and English

Section 9. Hanna Suutela on the Implicit Minoritarian Critiques in OS

Section 10. Kalle Holmberg’s Account of his Stage Adaptation of SV in 1972

Section 11. Vappu Lamminmäki’s Patriotic/Moralistic Attack on Meri and Saarikoski

Appendix 3 An English Translation of Kihlaus(1866) as The Troth-Plight

Bibliography

Index