Conversation

Abstract Quotations are an essential part of what has been described as the circulatory character of world literature. As soon as a passage from a book is quoted, “that line will be quoted east and west”, as Emerson says. (Emerson 100) The present essay attempts to construct a poetics of quotation based on the notion that quotations have a dialogical character manifesting itself in a process of cultural interchange, which is here called conversation. The analytical part of the essay investigates diverse manifestations of quotations from Confucius to Einstein, the polyphony of voices circling round quotations in narrative and dramatic texts, the popularization of quotation in modern genres and media from light fiction to cartoons and science fiction, the relation between quotation and meme and the phenomenon that authors of world literature quote other authors of world literature.