The Plastizität of Visva Sāhitya

Abstract

Abstract This chapter gives a completely new reading of Tagore’s idea of the world of literature, world literature, and the principle of the comparative. Ghosh introduces his ideas of plasticity and plastic theory to open up a fresh area of intervention in Tagore’s engagement with comparative/world literature. Also, plasticity questions the local and the global bind in literary understanding and the chapter argues for an understanding that extends Tagorean thinking in this area and gives it a new meaning. The chapter argues how visva sāhitya becomes plastic sahitya in the sense of littérature-monde, as being a high entropy event and having its own immanence. The plasticization of world literature creates corresponding worlds in visva of sahitya and visva sahitya. The chapter also exemplifies Ghosh’s exposition of trans-worlding.