HEGEMONY/POWER

The definition of hegemony is the political, economic, ideological or cultural power exerted by a dominant group over other groups, regardless of the explicit consent of the latter. This is not to get confused with brute power or dominance, but is better defined as emphasizing how control is achieved through consensus or force.

The theme of hegemony/power was seen in Moretti's essay "Conjectures on World Literature." He would state that world literature, even though is one global system, is an unequal one. He wants to show that there is in fact a hierarchy of literature which brings about power and domination. Power is seen to be symbolic capital. Automatically when one thinks world literature one would think world domination.

In Said's essay "Secular Interpretation, the Geographical Element, and the Methodology of Imperialism" he takes Moretti's argument a step further by claiming literature to be eurocentric. "to speak of comparative literature therefore was to speak of the interaction of world literatures with one another, but the field was epistemologically organized as a sort of hierarchy, with Europe and its Latin Christian literatures at its center top." he is clearly stating that western styles of wring has become the pinnacle of world literature, with all the other styles of literature circling around it. English has begun to gobble up more and more languages globally.