The Polysystem Theory 1970 s Itamar Even-Zohar

The Polysystem Theory 1970 s Itamar Even-Zohar

Literary system is a polysystem

• Polysystem - aggregate (totality) of literary systems (including everything from “high” or “canonized” forms such as poetry to “low” or “non -canonized” forms (e. g. popular fiction) in a given culture.

SHUTTLEWORTH AND COWIE: The polysystem is conceived as a heterogeneous, hierarchized conglomerate (or system) of systems which interact to bring about an ongoing, dynamic process of evolution within the polysystem as a whole.

HOW IT STARTED

Russian Formalists Juriy Tynjanov “On the Evolution of Literature”: “Literature is a system correlating with the other extra-literary systems”

Itamar Even-Zohar “Papers in Historical Poetics” • Literary system consists of canonized (“major”) and non-canonized (“cheap”) systems, each divided in its turn into sub-systems (“genres”) • Children’s literature should not be considered a part of non-canonized literature

• These systems maintain hierarchical relations • It is necessary to include translated literature in the Polysystem

• Some of the systems maintain central (primary) and the others maintain peripheral (secondary) position. • The position of translated literature is not stable, it is a variable one • Translated literature is also a system. Therefore different sections of this system may belong either to canonized or to noncanonized systems

Translated literature maintains primary position: • when a polysystem has not yet been crystallized, that is to say, when a literature is “young, ” in the process of being established; • when a literature is either “peripheral” or “weak, ” or both; and • when there are turning points, crises, or literary vacuums in a literature.

List of Literature • Even-Zohar, I. (1978/2004) ‘The position of translated literature within the literary polysystem’, in L. Venuti (ed. ) (2004), pp. 199– 204. • Even-Zohar, I. Papers in Historical Poetics. – Tel Aviv : University Publishing Projects, 1978. – 92 p. • Baker M. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. – New York, 2001. - 691 p.