The Periodical as a Strategy of Recognition for Small Literatures

This article addresses the topic of the visibility of small literatures in a world literature context. A brief outline of the discourse on smallness allows us to see how this topic has been assessed and handled by small literatures. In a second step, the paper investigates the initiatives taken to promote the circulation of the literary production of small literatures. The focus is on the role of the multilingual periodical with a transnational outlook. The main example, taken from the Luxembourg context, concerns the interculturally conceived bilingual periodical Floréal, published from 1907 to 1908. The article will argue that, despite its ephemeral existence, this periodical counts as one of the earliest attempts to promote Luxembourg literatures in French and German in a world literature context.