영ㆍ미 문학 선집의 변화와 “최근영문학”을 가르치는 한 가지 방법

Changes in the Anthologies of English and American Literatures and a Way of Teaching "Contemporary English Literature"

This paper traces changing aspects of the anthologies of English and American literatures and problematizes their post modern "principles of inclusion" in the context of "globalizing literary studies." The seventh edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature(2000) questioned the previous notions of "English literature" by including non-British writers and consequently redefining it as "Literature written in English"; the first edition of The Heath Anthology of American Literature(1990) questioned the previous, limited notions of Americanness of American literature by including pre-1620s literatures such as Native Americans' and accentuating "multiculturalism" per se as its organizing principle in the making of "American Literature," The editors of the two representative anthologies revised their editorial attitudes and literary canons according to the so-called weakening of monological national paradigm as applied to literary history, the expansion of literary canons beyond national boundaries, or the globalization of English or American studies, Their postmodern strategies including the voice of the Other have their own merits in such issues as gender and race; however, the same strategies also result in the erasure of local differences and the integration of the Other into "a geopolitical system that inevitably erodes their ability to shape their own destinies," That is, in the revised or expanded literary anthologies, the literary and historical differences of the newly included Commonwealth or Third-World texts may be transformed into neutralized or exchangeable signs in an a-historical vacuum or such an overarching sign as "English Literature" or "American Literature." The latter part of this paper illustrates this tendency by introducing an experimental course titled "Contemporary English Literature," in which we studied the rupture, say, between the Chinua Achebe in the context of "English Literature" and the Achebe in the twentieth-century African or Nigerian contexts.