This essay explores the idea of a world poetics through the lens of system theory. I propose three hypotheses that relate to Wang Ning's call for a world poetics: 1) world literature is coterminous with world poetics as guidelines for "making" world literature; 2) world literature is brought about by rendering the vast majority of literature invisible, whether the distinction is drawn geographically, generically, chronologically, or otherwise; and 3) world literature is third-order observing of literature, and that observing is its (...) poetics. These theses are explained, exemplified, and applied to Wang's ideas in the course of my piece. (shrink)

_"Clarissa" on the Continent _defines and explores two strategies of literary translation—creative vs. preservative and strong vs. weak—as they transform one of the most influential English novels. Thomas Beebee compares the two opposing strategies as they influence the French translation of _Clarissa_ by the novelist Antione François de Prévost and the German translation by the Göttingen Orientalist Johann David Michaelis, and in doing so he demonstrates that each translator found authority for his procedure within the text itself. Each translation is (...) also examined in light of Richardson's other writings and placed in its literary and cultural context. This study uses translations in order to interpret _Clarissa_, to show how the basis for the novel's reception on the Continent was laid, and to explore the differences and interactions among three literary and cultural systems of the eighteenth century. The close examination of these two important translations enable the formulation of not only a theory of creative vs. preservative translation but also the interconnections between literary theory and translation theory. Beebee also looks at later translations of _Clarissa_ as products of literary and historical change and at Prévostian strategies of the novel. (shrink)