All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature by José Vergara (review)

Abstract

published in Polish in 2021 and was originally intended for a Polish readership. Finally, yet another missed opportunity is the lack of more serious engagement with theories of world literature beyond their rather cursory treatment in the volume’s introduction. Some Polish works have already featured in world literature scholarship, something which is not adequately reflected in any of the volume’s chapters. For instance, I would expect to see at least a mention (or, more ambitiously, a critique) of Franco Moretti’s seminal paper on the development of the modern novel, which uses Ignacy Krasicki’s Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (1776) as a case in point. It would also be helpful to see a fresh stance on Frederic Jameson’s study of Bolesław Prus’s The Doll (in Moretti’s The Novel II, Princeton, NJ, 2007), or Pascale Casanova’s discussion of Gombrowicz’s national identity in The World Republic of Letters (trans. Malcolm deBevoise, Cambridge, MA, 2004). Polish literature may not enjoy the most prominent place on the map of world literature; however, it is exactly in this type of companion where its position should be assessed, re-evaluated and consolidated in a more critical and broad-minded way.