Comparative literature

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Comparative literature

Plan

Introduction

Early work

French school

German school

American school

Current developments

Comparative literature (sometimes abbreviated "Comp. lit.") is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or nation groups. It is most frequently practiced with works of different languages. At the same time comparative literature may also be performed on works of the same language if the works originate from different nations or cultures among which that language is spoken. Also different types of art may be compared, for example, a relationship of film to literature.

Students and instructors in the field are usually called "comparatists". They have traditionally been proficient in several languages. They are also acquainted with the literary traditions, literary criticism, and major literary texts of those languages. Some of the newer sub-fields are more influenced by critical theory and literary theory. They stress theoretical acumen and the ability to consider different types of art concurrently, over high linguistic competence.

The interdisciplinary nature of the field means that comparatists typically exhibit some acquaintance with translation studies, sociology, critical theory, cultural studies, religious studies, and history. This eclecticism gives some reasons to critics to say that Comparative Literature is insufficiently well-defined. They also consider that comparatists too easily fall into dilettantism, because the scope of their work is, of necessity, broad. The terms "Comparative Literature" and "World Literature" are often used to designate a similar course of study and scholarship. Comparative Literature is the more widely used term in the United States.

Comparative literature is an interdisciplinary field. Its practitioners study literature across national borders, across time periods, across languages, across genres, across boundaries between literature and the other arts (music, painting, dance, film, etc.), across disciplines (literature and psychology, philosophy, science, history, architecture, sociology, politics, etc.).

Defined most broadly, comparative literature is the study of "literature without borders." Scholarship in Comparative Literature include, for example, studying literacy and social status in the Americas, studying medieval epic and romance, studying the links of literature to folklore and mythology, studying colonial and postcolonial writings in different parts of the world. The aim is to find answers to the fundamental questions about definitions of literature itself. Scholars in Comparative Literature share a desire to study literature beyond national boundaries. They also share an interest in languages so that they can read foreign texts in their original form. Many comparatists also share the desire to integrate literary experience with other cultural phenomena such as historical change, philosophical concepts, and social movements.

The discipline of Comparative Literature has scholarly associations such as the ICLA: International Comparative Literature Association. Comparative literature associations exist in many countries, for example BCLA: British Comparative Literature Association or ACLA: American Comparative Literature Association. There are many learned journals that publish scholarship in Comparative Literature, for example, "Selected Comparative Literature and Comparative Humanities Journals" and a lot of books.

Early work

Work considered foundational to the discipline of Comparative Literature include Transylvanian Hungarian Hugo Meltzl de Lomnitz's scholarship. and Irish-New Zealand scholar H.M. Posnett's Comparative Literature (1886).

However, antecedents can be found in the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his vision of "world literature" (Weltliteratur). Russian Formalists credited Alexander Veselovsky with laying the groundwork for the discipline. Viktor Zhirmunsky, for instance, referred to Veselovsky as "the most remarkable representative of comparative literary study in Russian and European scholarship of the nineteenth century". During the late 19th century, comparatists such as Fyodor Buslaev were chiefly concerned with deducing the purported Zeitgeist or "spirit of the times". They assumed "spirit of the times" to be embodied in the literary output of each nation. Many comparative works from this period would be judged chauvinistic, Eurocentric, or even racist by present-day standards. However, the intention of most scholars during this period was to increase the understanding of other cultures, not to assert superiority over them.

French School

From the early part of the 20th century until WWII, the field was characterised by a notably empiricist and positivist approach. This approach was termed the "French School". In it scholars examined works forensically, that is, they were looking for evidence of "origins" and "influences" between works from different nations. Thus a scholar might attempt to trace how a particular literary idea or motif traveled between nations over time. In the French School of Comparative Literature, the study of influences and mentalities dominates. Today, the French School practices the nation-state approach of the discipline. It also promotes the approach of a "European Comparative Literature."

German School

Like the French School, German Comparative Literature has its origins in the late 19th century. After World War II, the discipline developed to a large extent owing to one scholar in particular, Peter Szondi (1929-1971). He was a Hungarian who taught at the Free University Berlin. Szondi's work in Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (German for "General and Comparative Literary Studies") included the genre of drama, lyric (in particular hermetic) poetry, and hermeneutics. Szondi' invited international guest speakers to Berlin and gave his introductions to their talks. Szondi welcomed, among others, Jacques Derrida (before he attained worldwide recognition), Pierre Bourdieu and Lucien Goldman from France, Paul de Man from Zьrich, Gershom Sholem from Jerusalem, Theodor W. Adorno from Frankfurt, Hans Robert Jauss from the then young University of Konstanz, and from the US Renй Wellek (Harvard), Geoffrey Hartman and Peter Demetz (Yale), along with the liberal publicist Lionel Trilling.

These visiting scholars form a programmatic network and a methodological canon. They epitomise Szondi's conception of comparative literature. German comparatists working in East Germany, however, were not invited, nor were recognised colleagues from France or the Netherlands. Szondi was oriented towards the West and the new allies of West Germany and paid little attention to comparatists in Eastern Europe. Yet his conception of a transnational (and transatlantic) comparative literature was very much influenced by East European literary theorists of the Russian and Prague schools of structuralism. Renй Wellek, too, derived many of his concepts from their works. These concepts continue to have profound implications for comparative literary theory today. A manual published by the University of Munich lists 31 departments which offer a diploma in comparative literature in Germany. This situation is undergoing rapid change, however, since many universities are adapting to the new requirements of the recently introduced Bachelor and Master of Arts. German comparative literature is being squeezed by the traditional philologies on the one hand and more vocational programmes of study on the other. They seek to offer students the practical knowledge they need for the working world (e.g., 'Applied Literature').

American (USA) School

Postwar American scholars, were collectively termed the "American School". Reacting to the French School they sought to return the field to matters more directly concerned with literary criticism. Their aim was to de-emphasize the detective work and detailed historical research that the French School had demanded. The American School was more closely aligned with the original internationalist visions of Goethe and Posnett. Arguably it reflected the postwar desire for international cooperation. The American School scholars were looking for examples of universal human "truths". They were based on the literary archetypes that appeared throughout literatures from all times and places.

Prior to the advent of the American School, the scope of Comparative Literature in the West was typically limited to the literatures of Western Europe and Anglo-America. Predominantly it was literature in English, German and French literature. Occasional forays were made into Italian literature (primarily for Dante) and Spanish literature (primarily for Cervantes). One monument to the approach of this period is Erich Auerbach's book Mimesis. It is a survey of techniques of realism in texts whose origins span several continents and three thousand years.

The approach of the American School would be familiar to current practitioners of Cultural Studies. It is even claimed by some to be the forerunner of the Cultural Studies boom in universities during the 1970s and 1980s. The field today is highly diverse. For example, comparatists routinely study Chinese literature, Arabic literature and the literatures of most other major world languages and regions as well as English and continental European literatures.

Current developments

There is a movement among comparatists in the US and elsewhere to re-focus the discipline away from the nation-based approach towards a cross-cultural approach. A cross-cultural approach t pays no heed to national borders. Works of this nature include Alamgir Hashmi's The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Death of a Discipline, David Damrosch's What is World Literature?, Steven Tцtцsy de Zepetnek's concept of "comparative cultural studies", and Pascale Casanova's The World Republic of Letters.

It remains to be seen whether this approach will prove successful. After all Comparative Literature had its roots in nation-based thinking and much of the literature under study still concerns issues of the nation-state. Comparative Literature already represents a wider study than the single-language nation-state approach. Given developments in the studies of globalization and interculturalism, it may be well suited to move away from the paradigm of the nation-state. In the West Comparative Literature is experiencing institutional constriction. At the same time there are signs that in many parts of the world the discipline is thriving, especially in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. Current trends in Transnational studies also reflect the growing importance of post-colonial literary figures such as Giannina Braschi, J. M. Coetzee, Maryse Condй, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, Wole Soyinka. Размещено на Аllbest.ru