Déplacements, décentrages : le roman en transit

Abstract

This article proposes the notions of displacement and decentering, in order to explore the possibilities presented by understanding the novel as a transnational genre, that is, a genre which, despite being rooted in specific contexts, has traversed or surpassed national frontiers, blurring territorial limits since its emergence in the early eighteenth century up until the first decades of the twentieth century. With the aim of problematizing the concept of world literature, this article argues the ongoing need to mobilize the categories of centre and periphery in examining the nineteenth-century Brazilian novel, in which the tension between local matters and the European model forms an integral element, lying at the heart of its most relevant creations.

Keywords

• genre of the novel
• world literature
• 19th century Brazilian novel
• nation-state
• localism
• universalism