Papers on poetics and semiotics

PAPERS ON POETICS AND SEMIOTICS 8

Itamar Even-Zohar

PAPERS IN HISTORICAL POETICS

The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics Tel Aviv University

PAPERS ON POETICS AND SEMIOTICS Edited by B. Hrushovski and I. Even-Zohar ‫המכון הישראלי לפואטיקה וסמיוטיקה ע"ש פורטר‬ ‫עבודות בפואטיקה ובסמיוטיקה‬ ‫סידרת חיבורים בעריכת ב. הרושובסקי וא. אבן-זהר‬ 8 ‫איתמר אבן-זהר‬ ‫עבודות בפואטיקה היסטורית‬

No. 8

© 1978 Itamar Even-Zohar Printed in Israel University Publishing Projects 28 Hanatziv Street, Tel Aviv

The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics Tel Aviv University P.O.B. 39085 ISRAEL

Itamar Even-Zohar

PAPERS IN HISTORICAL POETICS

Tel Aviv, 1978

6 CONTENTS
Forward …………………………………………………………………………… 7

I
The Function of the Literary Polysystem in the History of Literature…… 11 The Relations between Primary and Secondary Systems in the Literary Polysystem ……………………………………………………………… 14 The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem…… 21 The Polysystem Hypothesis Revisited……………………………………….. 28

II
On Systemic Universals in Cultural History ………………………………… 39 Universals of Literary Contacts ……………………………………………….. 45 Interference in Dependent Literary Polysystems ……………………………. 54

III
Russian and Hebrew: The Case of a Dependent Polysystem……………….. 63 Israeli Hebrew Literature: A Historical Model……………………………….. 75 Biboliography…………………………………………………………………….. 95

7
Foreword
This book consists of articles and papers written between 1970 and 1977, dealing with various aspects of literary history mostly from the point of view of historical poetics. Literature is herin conceived of as a stratified whole, a polysystem, whose major opposition is assumed to be that of “high,” or “canonized,” versus “low,” or “non-canonized,” systems. The repertoire of components (items, models) possessed by the polysystem behaves according to certain principles. The main principle governing this behavior is assumed to be the opposition between