Bassnett S. Comparative Literature. A Critical Introduction 4d19e

---~ Introduction: What is Comparative Literature Today?

Sooner or later, anyone who c1aims ro be working in comparative literature has to try and answer the inevitable question: What is it? The simplesr answer is thar comparative literature tnvolves the study of texrs across culrures, thar ir is interdisciplinary and rhat ir is concerned with patterns of connection in literatures across both tIme and space. Most people do nor sean wirh comparative !iterarure, chey end up with it in sorne way or other, rravelling towards it from diHerent poinrs of depanure. Sometimes che Journey begins wirh a desire ro move beyond the boundaries of a single subject area thar might appear to be coo constraining, at orher times a reader may be impelled to follow up what appear to be similarities between texts or aurhors from di{ferem cultural conrexts. And sorne readers may simply be foUowing che view propounded by Matthew Arnold in his Inaugural Lecture at Oxford in 1857 when he said: Everywhere ,here is connection, everywhere there is iIlustrarían. No single evenr, no single literature is adequately compre hended excepr in reladon to other evems, ro other lireratures. 1

Ir could almost be argued thar anyone who has an imerest in books embarks on rhe road rowards whac might be rermed COrnparative literature: reading Chaucer, we come across Boccaecio; we can trace Shakespeare's souree materials chrough Latin, Freneh, Spanish and Iralian; we can srudy the ways in which Romam:icism developed aeross Europe at a similar moment in time, follow the process rhrough whieh Baudelaire's fascinarion with Edgar AlIan Poe enriehed his own writing, consider now many Eng!ish noveiists

1earned from the great nineteenth.centuryRussianwriters (in rra'ns.d' 1arron, of cOut'se), compare how James ]oyce borrowed fromand 10aned ro 1ralo Svevo. When we read Clarice Lispector we are reminded of lean Rhys, who in turn recal1s 'Djuna Barnes and Ana1's Nin. There is no limir to the lisr of examples we cO.ll1d devise. Once ~. . we begin to read we moveacrossfrontie-rs,;mflkÚ{g',ª~~
.'1

)

~

l., •

?

-.

...

~-'.'

-<

called comparative literature, he suggested rhat the proper object of srudy should be literary history: the comparative history of lirerature is history understood in its ttue sense as .2. c01l!plete exp!anacion ,of che literai'y work, en· .comed ínall itsr$!latiqllsb,ips, di$posed in the <;omposite ,whole of universal literary hist-ory (where dse could ir ever .be 'placed?), seen in ¡hose connections andpreparacions chat 'are ic-sraison d~etre.s

Croce's argument wasthat theterm 'comparativeliterature'-was -6bfuscatory, disguising theobvious,that is,the faet thar.the ·true objectóf study was~literaEY histiJry. Considering the pronounce ments on comparative literature madeby scholars such as lv1ax Koch, founder and editor óf the two German comparaúve j-ournals ,,:Zeitsehrift für,u.ergleichende. Lireratur (.1887-1910) and Studien zurvergleichenden Literaturgeschichte( 1901-9 ),Croce claimed he could nor distinguish between literary historypure and simple and comparacive literary history. The term, 'comparative literarUJ¡e' he maintained, had no substance ro it. But other·schola·rs made grandiose claims .for compara·tive litera ture. Charles Mills Gayley, one óf che founders of North Ameriqan comparative.iiterature,,;rQ<;!aimed inrhe same year asCroce's -attack thar the workin-gpremise of che student of comparative literarure was: dicerarure as a gistinct.and integral medium of·choughc, a common instirutibnal expression of"humanity; differentiated, to be sure, by 'che social conditions oí -che individual, by r·acial, historical, cul· ',rural and linguistic influenaes, 'oppornmities, and .restrictions, but, ¡rrespective ofage or.guise,.prompced by the CO{Ilmon needs and aspiracions of man, sprungl~om common faculties, psy'chologkal and, physioLogical,anddb~y;i,qgcommonlaws of mailerial and mode, of rhemdividuaJ and'sociál·~·h-umanity.6

Remarkably similar sentitnenrs to those expressed -in 1974 b Jost, when he claimed that'national literarure' canoo constirute an intelligible-field of srudy beca use of its 'arbirraril ··limited perspective', and thatc--omparative literature: Fr.an~ois

1 ,~~~-~~~~.~-~_._-.,,_._---

:::m::::;:;¡¿:~

,

-

Introduction represents more than an aeademic discipline. Ir is an overall view oE literature, of the world of leners, a humanistie ecology, a literary Weltanschauung, a vision of the cultural universe, inclusive and comprehensive7

/ ~

~!

i'i

.""

Such c1aims go far beyond the methodological and shed sorne light on quite why the debate on comparative literature should have been so bitter. For Jost, like Gayley and others before him, are proposing comparative literature as sorne kind of world rcligion. The underlying suggestion is thar all culmral differences disappear when readers take up great works; an is seen as an instrumentof universal harmony and the comparatist is one who facilitates the spread oi that harmony. Moreover, ·the comparatist-musfpOssess speClal skills; Wellek and Warren in their Theory of Literature, a book that was enormously significant in comparative literature when ir first appeared in 1949, suggest rhat: Comparative Lírerature ... will make high demands on the linguistic proficiencies of our seholars. Ir asks for a widening of perspectives, a suppression oE local and provincial sentíments , nor easy te achieve. 8

, \,

The comparatist is here depicted as sómeone with a vocation, as a kind of international ambassador working in the comparative literatures of united natíons. Por Wellek and \Xlarren go on to srate that 'Literature is one; as arE and humanity are one'. It is an idealistic vÍsion rhat reCUrs in the arrermarh of major internationaJ crises; Goethe could confidenrly (and quite wrongly)assert in 1827 thar 'narional literature means little now',and Wellek and Warren offered the cultural equivalent oE the movement towards a United Narions Assembly thatwas sopowerfully feh in rhe aftermath of the Second World War. The high ideals of such a vision oi comparative literature have not been meto A decade arrer Theory of Literature appeared, Wellek was already talking abour the crisis in comparative literature and even as the subject appeared to be gaining graund in the 1960s and early 1970s, flaws in theidea of universal values and oE literature as one could aIread y be seen. The great waves of critical thought thar swept rhrough one after rhe other fram srructuralism rhrough to post-structuralism, from feminism to deconstruction, from semiology

ro psychoanalysis - shirred attention away from the activity o comparing texts and tracking patterns of influence bernreen writer towards the role oE the reader. And '?-s each new wave broke ove the preceding one, notions of smgle, harmotüous readings wer shattered forever. In rhe 1950s and early 1960s, high-flying graduare students in th West turned ro comparative !iterarme as a radical subject, becaus at thar rime it appeared to be transgressive, moving as ir daimed r do across the boundaries of single literarure srudy. That there wa nO coherenr methodology did nor matrer, nor did it matter thar th debates on whether rhe subject existed or nor stiH continue unabated from the previous cenrury. 'We spend far too much of ou energy ralking ... about Compararive Literature and nor enough o it comparing the literature,' complamed Harry Levin m 1969 urging more practical work and less agonizing about the theory. But Levin 's proposal was already out of dare; by the late 1970s new generaríon of high-flying graduare students in the Wesr ha turned ro Literary Theory, Women's Studies, Semiotics, Film an Media Studies and Cultural Studles as rhe radical subject choice abandoning Comparative Literature ro what were increasingJy see as ainosa urs from a 1i bera] - h umanist prehistory. Yet even as that process was underway in the West, compara ti v literature began ro gain ground in the rest of the world. New programmes in comparative literature began ro emerge in Chma, i Taiwan, in Japan and orher Asian countries, based, however, no on any ideal of universalism but on the ver)' aspect of litera!')' stud that many western comparatists had sought to den)': the specifiCl of nationalliteratures. As Swapan Majumdar futs it: ir is beca use of this predilection fer Narional Literature - much deplored by the Anglo-American critics as a methodology - thar Comparative Literarure has struck roots in the Third World nations and in India in panicular. 10

Ganesh Devy goes further, and suggests that comparativ literature in lndia is directly linked to rhe rise of modern lndia nationalism, noting that comparative !iterature has been 'used r assert the national cultural identity'.11 There is no sense he re o nationalliterature and comparative literature being incompatible

,'1"

?

The work oE lndian comparatists is characterized by a shift oE perspective. For decades, comparative literature started with Western literature and looked outwards; now whacis happening is thar . the West is beingscrurinized from without. Majumdar points out that what Indian scholars callwestern literature, regardless oE geogr·aphical ptecision, inchld~s thqseliteratures whieh derive from . /Graeeo~'Roman .mattices·via'Chrisrianity, ana'he' Engllsh; French,German, etc. ·as 'sub-nacional "Iireratures'. It is quite cIear that whar he is bringing to compa.r'ative iiterature, in the rerms in ,vhichhe usesit, is'aradicallni.lternative erspectiv'e a:~d aievaluatíon oE the diseourse oE
........

fi"

Developments in comparative literatur$! beyond Europe and North America do indeed cut rhrough and "aeross all kinds of assumptions aboutliteramre thar/have come incteasingly tobeseen as Eurocentrie. Wole Soyinka and a whole rangeof African critics have exposed the pervasive influence of Hegel, whoargued thar African culture was 'weak' in contrast to what he claimed were higher, moredeveloped cultures,and who effecrively deníed Africa a history. James Snead, in an essay attackíngHegel, peints out that: 'The outstanding facr, oHate, twentie:th~century,Europeanculture' is ¡es ongoing reconciliarion with black culrure. The mystery may be char ir'wok so long to discern che elernenrs:of glaq.k culture already chere in latent;form.;'and;to,real:izeAhat;'rhesépá¡'~iiiofl,be1iWeen',the cultures was perhaps allalongnotone of nature, bur one oi forceY

1

1

., ~

r"'-·-----

What wehave today, then, is a very v:aried picture dE comparative literary studies that changes accarding ta where it istakingplace. Afrioan, Indian, Caribbean critics have challelJ.ged the refu~alof a greatdeal ofWestemlire:ntryi'criddsrnto;¡ICceptt,he;fmplicationsóf '

rheir lirerary.and.culrural., paliey. Terry Eagleton has argued th 'literature, in the meaning of 'Che word we have inherited, is a ideology,'14 and he discussess Jhe way in whiéh the emergence English as an aca~emic subject in the'nineteenth,century had qui c1earpolitical imp1i.ear:ions. The establishment oLrhe-subject in t universitie~,-he maintains,followed.thevast social changesbroug about;in:'the;tlJrerm'á:thcifc~hefust World War:

The;Great'<War>"wich íts:ea:rn¡¡ge.ofruling class rhetOJ:ic, put paid·to sorne of the more stridenf10rms of chauvinism on which English -' .-.. ·,had.previously·thí,ived ... English Literature rode to power on the back ·of wartime nationalisrn; hut it- also representeda s.earGh.for ~piritUal solutiqnson the pan of the English ruling dass whose sense ofidentity had been proioundly shaken ... Literatúre would be at'Qnce'solac'e and reaffirmation,a familiar 'ground on which . Englishrnen could régroup both to explore, andto findsome al ternátive't'O,the'ulghtrnare: of'histor:}'. 15

Eagleton's explanation of the rise of 'Englishties ·in with -c aspira·rions o'f many ofthe early comparatists for a subj~ct th would transeend culturalboundatÍ'es and unite the human Ta throughthe civilizingpower oí great licerature. Bllt just as.Engli . . has.itself"em:ered.a·_.qrisis,~wha~~;after,all, is Englishtoday? .Literatu produced wirhin i:he geogr.aphicil boundaries of England? Of t UnitedKlngdom? -Or literarures-written in::English fl'Offi all parts the wodd? And wheredoes thebaundary line'between 'l.iteratu on the-Ofie hand and 'po.pular' or 'mass' culture on the other'ha lie? The-old days when English méa·nttexts fromB.eowu-lfto Virgín Waolf ~re long gone, and thequestion'of what to indude a . 1~:x:dude.f~b¡:n.ªn,English,,~xl~~l:lUs is él. yery vexed one); so also h Comparative'Líteratuteb'een cáHed inro question by theemergen ofalternative schools
rhe Orient was a -word .wl1ich later -acc;rued to ir a wide·.field of tnean:ipgs, associa·tibns and connotations, .and mar these.did·not necessarily refer to the realOrienr but to· the·· neldsurrounding rhe,wotdt6

'¡¡ ~i

,¡

.-'.

.

...,.

'

provides the oasis for essays such as Zhang Long..'\[i's 'The Myrh of the Other: China in me Eyes oE me Wesr' ~ in which ir is argued thar 'for the Wesr, China as a land in the Far East becomes traditionally the image oE the ultimate Orher' Y The challenge posed by nonEuropean critics to the colonizing nations' systematic process of 'inventing' orher cultures has put ideology firmly back on the agenda ofliterary studies. A European or Nonh American literature syllabus could, umil faidy recendy,.concern itself primarily with an established canon of great writers. Bur a sylIabus devised in a non-European culture, particularly in one which underwent a period of colonization by a Wesrern power, has ro rackle completely different íssues. Hence the vexed question of Shakespeare in India, for example, a cano ni cal writer hailed in the nineteemh century as the epitome of English greatness. lndian studems have the problem rherefore of dealing wim Shakespeare nor only as a great figure in European literature, but also as a representative of colonial values: two Shakespeares, in effect, and in conflict with one anorher. One way of tackling this problem is ro treat Shakespeare comparatively, to srudl' the advent of Shakespeare in lndian culturallife and to compare his work with thar of lodilln writers . The growth of national consciousness and awareness of the need to move bel'ond the coloillal legacy has led significamly ro the ! development of comparative literature in many parts of the world, ¡ even as thesubjecremers a periodofcrisis and decay in the West. The , way in which comparative literature is used, in places such as China, Brazil, India or many African nations, is constructive in thar ir is employed toexplore both indigenous traditions and imported (01' imposed) traditions, throwing open the whole;'$~S;~::Rroblem oi the" . canon. There is no sense of crisis in this form of comparative literature, no quibbling abour the froro which ro start comparing, beca use those are aIready laid down. What is being studied is the way in which national culture has been affected by importation, and rhe focus is that national culture. Ganesh Devy's argument that compararive literarme in India coincides with the rise of modern lndian nationalism is important, because it serves . to remind us of the origins of rhe terrn 'Comparative Literature' in Europe, a term thar first appeared in an age of national struggles, when new boundaries were being erected and the whole quesrion of national culture and national identity was under discussion

I

~~~~.-

--_---==-.::-.=o:=-o------=----

throughout Europe and the expanding United States of America. In chaprer 2 we shall be looking more c10sely at the process of developmem of both the term and the subject. Ir is possibJe ro argue thar as we come ro the end of the twemieth centurv, we ha ve entered a new phase in the troubled histor)' of comp~rative literature. That the subject is in crisls in the West is in no doubt, though ir is interesting to speculare on what will happen as the former Eastern European states revise their syllabuses, for they are living through a phase of nationalism that has long since disappeared in the capitalíst Western states. Falling srudem numbers, the uneasiness of many comparatists that is revealed in defensive papers or a reluctance to engage in definitÍon of what exactly their subject consisrs of, the apparent continuarion of the oJd idea of comparative literaturea~ binarystudy, i.e., as the study of two authors or texts~rrom"tWo'aI{ferents'ystems (though the ·-pro51em-üfhow· 'tC;·~d~fiñe··dlffereñt·sYst~~; is"~' éom plexoneand ... ...• ' .,., ........., ..• " .. ".·.".',,".' .. unreso ved), all these facrors reinforce the picture of a subject that 'ha'tTos"ti'l:S"'way, even as courses in Jiterary theory and post-coloillal theory proliferate and publishers' catalogues list books in rhese areas under separa te headings. But equally, ir is aJso apparem thar the subject is expanding and developing in many pans or rhe world where ir is expJicitly linked ro questions of national culture and idemity. Compararive literature as it is being developed outside Europe and the United States is breaking new ground and there is a great deal to be learned from foITowing this development. Whilsr comparative literature in the Third World and the Far Eas changes the agenda for the subject, the crisis in the West continues The new comparative literature is calling into guestion the canon . of greatEuropean masters, and this process coincides with othe challenges - that of feminist triticism, which has questioned th male orientation of cultural history; and that of post-modernis rheory, which revalues the role of the reader and, through the work of writers such as Jacques Derrida and Pierre Bourdieu, has expose the part played by the subterranean forces of institutionalized powe structures, masquerading as centres of universalliberalism. Significantly, however, Western readers are approaching thes challenges without reCQurse to something called 'Comparatlv Literature'. The rush of books on post-colonial !iterarure at rh start of the 1990s reflec:rs a new interest in this hitherto neglecte are a of study. The opening statements oI The Empire Wntes Bac .~.~.~,

r'.""'~."""'.".'.'.'.''''.''

, h . , , ' ..M

__ , , ' · ' •.• , . " " . " " . " •• ,,,

.,~-

,., ....,

""

.

. •.• ,

(subtitled: Theory andPractice ¡n Post-Colonial Literarures) inelude rhe following phrases: 'the rerm "post-colonial" ... ismost appropriate as thecerm far the new cross-cultural criticism which has merged in recent years and for-the diseourse through -which rhis is consrituted.'l1lWhat is this butcompara·tiyeliterarul'e under another name? Another 'J.'apidly,expanding, development in"lkerarysrudies,átld one whiehhas profound implieations far the future ofcamparative literature, is 'transIatíon srudies'. Since the ear!y -usage of this term inthe';mid~'19qOs,·the'sub}ect 'has,·tieveloped-·'to "'sucrr'211"'eXtent (through publishing, conferences, the establishment of. Chairs in universities, :research programmes, etc.)that rbere aremany now who consider it robe a discipline in ies own righr. What-dlstinguishes translatían studies fram translarian as'traditionaliyrhought of,is its derivatíon from rhe polysystems theory developed by ltamar EyanZohar and later by Gideon Toury inTel Aviv. 19 Translatíon studies wiH bediscussed·m rnoredetaillarer' inrh1S book;'but essentiallythe key ro its rapid expansion and suecessful entry into literary studies lies in its emphasis an lirerature as a differentiated and dynamic 'conglomerare of systems', characterized by,internal oppositions and dynamic:.shifrs. This norion of literature asa polysystemsees individuaIliterary syscems as pan oE a multí~faceted whole, thereby changing rhe of rhe debates a'bout 'majority' and :minority' cultures,' a bOll t:grea t' literaturesand ,'margin ulchange. Ev:an 7Z0 har ar·gues; ¡¡ha t,extensi v:e;tr,anslarian actívity takes place when a culture 1S in a periad of rransition: when ir is expanding, when ir needs'renewal, ""hentt is in a pre-revolurionary phase, chen rranslation 'pla,ys a vital, parto In contrasr, when a culture is solidly esrabIished, when ir is in an imperialisr: stage, when it believes itself robe dominant, ,then ·transl.arion isless ·important. .This·view,:explains 'why, ,in simple

f:

cerros, the emergenr European narions in rhe early nineteenth cenrury, those engaged in srruggles against the Austro-Hungarian o Otroman Empires, translared so ,enrhusiastically, andwhy transIa doninto English began ro dee'rease as the British Empire extended its grasp ever furrher. Late,r, as English became the language o .international diplomacy in ,the twentieth century (lmd also the dominant world commercíal language), t-here was littleneed to translate, ·hence rhe relative peverry oi rwenríeth-century transb tíons inco English. compare.d with. the proliferarionof translations in· many orber 'languages.When rransIarion is neither required nor wanted,ittendsto become a low statusactivity, poorly paid and disregardeél, and the implica¡:ions of rhis process haye come increasing!y to bestudied by people working in che field ofrransla .!1onstudies, wliich effectivelyoffers a new wa'f of leoking at cul-rura history, taking into accounr both rhe implications or soc1o::.hjstorica changes thar affect literaryproduction in diHerent cultures and the linguistic strucruring of a text as ir istransported a.cross language boundaries. It may well be, as is suggesred in chaprer 7 be1ow., tha we need ro reassess 'rhe rcile oftranslation srudies vis-a -vis compara tive literature, forwhilsrcomparative literature inrhe \Vest seems ro be losing ground, even as ir beco mes more nebufous and 'loosely definea,' so rr-anslation stutlies is undergoing the opposite process Just as ir became neeessary fer linguistics to,rethink i~s relationship withSemiotics; sothetÍlne is approathing for compararive literature to rethink.its re1:;tioflsnip w.ithT ransIatíon Studies. Semiotics was a first regarded as a sub"category of linguistics, antlonly later did ,i beco me ciear ,that the
effect oí this perpetual exchange upon the individual nationalities: how, for example, the long-isolated nonhern spirit finally allowed irself to be penetrated by the spirit of the south; what the magnetic attraction was of for England and England for Franee; how each division of Europe has at one time dominated its sister sta tes and at another time subrnitted to rhem; what has been the influence of theological , anisric Iraiy, energetic , Catho[¡c Spain, Protestam EngIand; how the warm shades of the south have become mi..xed with !he profound analysis of Shakespeare; how rhe Roman and ltalian spirit ha ve embellished and adorned the Catholic faith of Milton; and finally, the attraction, the sympathies, the constam vibratíon of al! these living, loving, exalted, melaneholy and refleeted thoughts- sorne spontaneously and others because of study - al! submítting ro influénces which they accept like gifts and all in turn emittmg new unforeseeable influences in the fururetl

1 How Comparative Literature Carne into Being !

First Appearance of the Term

'"

/'

There is general agreement that comparative literature acquired irs name from a series of French anrhologies used for rhe teaching of literature, published in 1816 and enrirled Cours de littérature comparée. In an essay discussing rhe origins of the term, René Wellek notes thar this ride was 'unused and unexplained'¡ but he also shows how the eems ro have crept into use through the 1820s and 18305 in . He suggesrs thar the German version of the term, 'vergIeichende Literaturgeschichte', fir~t appeared in a book by Moriz Carriere in 1854, while the earliesr English usage is attributed to Matthew Arnold, who referred ro 'compararive literatures' in the plural in a letter of 1848.2 Regardlessof whether named individuals can be credited with having inrroduced the rerm into their own languages, iris clear thar sorne concept oí 'comparative literature' which .involved a considerarion of more than one literature was in circularion in Europe in the early years oE the nineteenrh century. The term seems ro have derived from a methodologicalprocess applicabIe to rhe scíences, in which comparing (or conrrasting) served as a means oí confirming a hypothesis. In hisinaugural1ecture attheAthénéein 1835, entitled Littérature étrangére comparée (Foreign Literature Compared), Philaréte ChasJes endeavouredto denne theobject of study in the following : Ler us calculare the influence of thoughr upon thoughr, the manner in which the people are mutually changed, what each of them has given, and what ea eh of them has receíved; ler us calculare al50 rhe

~

A key word in that text is 'influence', and indeed the study influences has aJways occupied an irnpartant place in Compar tive Literarure. ChasJes a1so refers to the 'spirit' of a nation or o people, and suggests that it is possibJe to trace how that spirit m have influenc:ed another writer in another culture. He pallltS idealístic picture of internationalllterary harmon)', suggestmg th stereorypes ma)' have sorne basis in hisrorical realiry but insisting the rnutualiry of influences and connections.

Culture and Nationalism

But Chasles' idealistíc picture of internatíonal cooperaríon, influences being brought, like gifts frorn one culture to another, anly half the story. There was another, complerely differem nari of cultural exchange. Byron was aware of this alternative perspe rive as early as 1819, when in the Preface to his Prophecy of Dan he commenred that:

The ltalians with pardonable nationality, are panicularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation - their !iterature, and in the present bitterness of the classie rornantic war, are but ill-disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding sorne fault with his ultramomane presurnption. 4

Whar Byron couid see, of course, was thedoserelationship between national identity and cultural inheritance,and he was shrewd enough to recognize rhar a nation( or series of srnall states, as Italy then was) engaged in struggles for independence }ealousLy guarded its literar)" heritage against all corners. Thenne line-between influence perceived as borrow~ng and influence;perceived as apPl'oprirttlon-ortheftwas very muéh a mí:Htero'E'perspectlve. In an essay discussingthe role played by translated literature in che Czech literary- revival of the first halE of the nineteenth century, V!adimír Macuta-Stresses'the politicsoftranSlation,_-sínce'trartsladon has always-played such a key role in patterns ofinfluen~e.5-He­ cites Josef Jungmann, revolutionary scholar and patriot, who daimed in 1846 thar 'in the language is Our nationality'. Jungrnann saw transIatíon as a -significant part o'f tne development of the mew Czech literarure, and argued thar the point of origin of aren was less importanr than whar happened ro rhat textinthe process oE cransl-ation.-In ]ungmannls viSTan, 'transkItion- rntb':Czeéhwas;a process oÍ enhancemenr, a means of extendi-ng the range oE the language and of the emergem lirerature. Clearly for 11 cultut;e searching for its roors or for a culture struggling-for its independence from forelgn occuparion, che question of influences was a heavilycharged one and by no means innocent. In general rerms, ir is possible ro see the-late eighteenth and early ",nineteenth"centuriesasa tlmeor ¡mrnense,iliterary'turmoü-throughout Europe, asissues oE nationality increasingly-appeared liriRed to cultural developmems. Nations engaged in a struggle for independence were also el1gaged JO a srrug-glefor cultural1:oot~, for a national culrure and for a ,past_ The need to establish antecedents~-becarne viral; emergent nations had to establish a tradition and a canon, and probably the most extraordinary example of the searchfor roots-is '1:he.case-of the,- feH:gt:d mediawll,:man uscripts'discovered \·-byNacla v Hanka. In 1817-18, Hanka and" his col1eagues announced their discovery of unique manuscripts in Old Czech from rhe ninth, teneh andthirteenth .cenruries, e:videl1ce thar pcoved -aondusivdy char there had been agolden age of C;z;ech poetry ata time when the rest Qf Europe was still srrugg1ing with the deca-yed epic formo Later, it was revealed rhar rhe-manuscriprs were fraud_ulenr, but by then suéh a powerfulimpulse had beengiven to Czech literature that ,this exposure barely mattered. AIrer centunes of repression, Czech had been seenro be'a maiorEuropeanlanguage, with:aresent;attd"a

J'

:l!

,¡

past. Between 1822 and 1827 three volurnes of SIavonic Nadonal Songs were published, the first part of Frantisek Paiacky's five volumeHistory of Bohemia appeared in 1836, and in the same year ¡(arel Macha, thegreatest -poet of the CzechRomantic revival, published his major poem, May. Tbe.case ofthdorged medieval manusc-ripts that soassisted the Czé2h~National re-vivaHs'-ptobabl Yche most e:ltt1'eme ex~mple of the desperate desire ro establish cultural roots as part--of an ongoing ,Cl.Hmral-and policicalsrruggle. Bur the.tendencyto .look ba¿k toa glodous'hidden pastwas-shared by peoples throughouf Europe. The period-from the mid-eighteenth century onwards saw an intense interest in the publication oHolk songs, and 'poetry ,and fairy tales. Percy'sReliques of Andent English Poetry appeared in 1765, Johannes Ewald, rhe:great Danish poet, published a 'significant coUection based on ancient sagas and medieval ballads in 1771, Herdds StimmenderVolker in Lieder carne out in 1778, Jakob 'atrd:WílhélrnGárnm"s 'Fai1"'j Tales -appeared in 1812-13 and Eiias Lonnrot's versionof the finnish national epic, the Kalevala, appeared in 1849. This -fascinarion with thepast, ·matched by develop-ments in literaryhistory, philology, archaeology and polítical historywa:s liriked .ro the general European 'queStlbn of definitions of natiohhood. ROl:1sseau talked a;bout the colfecrive person:alityof 'the peopie', and as Timothy Brennam points;úut: In , Herder -rransfm:med Rousseau's :,peo.ple' into the .Volk. The significance of :chis latter concept is its shifr from Rousseau'sErilighten-ment emphasis on civic virtue 10 awoollier ___ Romantic insistence on primordial' and ineluctaole roots of nationhood as a distmgutShing feature from -orber communiciesEach people was -now set off by che 'natural' characterístics of 6 ,,'language,.and"rbe.incangible,"qua!iry,of a,spedfic Voiksgeist.

me

The idea of aculu.ural'heritage thatsprang from.'the people, from the ,"~genuine', 'authentic', voicesof:che coll.ecrive upen which thenation was based, was a.ve¡:yp0werful one in Ehe age of revolutions chat $we.pt Europe. -Not aH _emergentnarionsinv~ntéd their own ,nonexistentmedieva}literarure, but ids signmcant mata keytextwhich caughtthe pubiic imagination righr across Europe .ahd 'was:transla ted into a huge rangeóflanguages was alsoa forgery - James 'Maherson's Fingal;which,'appeared- ¡n 1762.

---------~.-~------

~------"

The Impact of Ossian

,j

, \

,;;.,

Maherson claimed thar his poem was a rranslation of a Gaelic epic by rhe ancient Irish bard, Ossian (Ols(n)). Fingal was such a success rhat Maherson went on to 'transIate' orher epics. He had already produced, in 1760, a collection of poetry purponed to have been collected in the Highlands of Seotland, bur his versíon of Ossian sured everything else he produced. Frederic Lolliée described Ossian later, in A Short History of Comparative Literature from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1906), as 'a northern Dante, as great and majestie, and no less supernatural than the Dante of Florenee, more sensitive than he and more human than the singer of rhe !liad,'7 The poems of Ossian, forgeries thoughrhey'Vv~ere';'proved to be sensationally popular. The subjeet marrer eombined romance, heroism, s of mythicallands an.d savage lyrieism probably derÍved from folk versions of the extant Ossianie poems, and Maherson must have had.a good knowledge ofaneient Gaelic poetr}' in the first instance in order to be able to produce his forgeries. Scholars have endlessly diseussed both the impact of Maherson's work in differenr literar)' systems, such as rhe Freneh, the Italian, rhe Polish or the Czeeh, and speculared on reasons for the success of tbe Ossian poems. Certainly, ir is significant that Maherson remains a ser text on tbe curriculum of English depanments in many parts of the world today, ranking alongside Byron as an aurhor of fundamental imponance in the late eighteenth and early nineteentb centuries. In contrast, he is unknown to tbe vastmajorityof studenrs oE Englishliterature, and in the English-speaking wodd heappears ar bestvery.oceasionally as a footnote. This teUs usagrear deal about the impact ·oí tbis particular writer upon different tliterary scenes)' and once again it is impossibleto divorce thefortunes of Maherson from the polítical reality of his age. DI. ]ohnsonaccused him of forgery from the olltser, but ir is nor on of his forgeries tbat he is not taught in Britain, just as the fact of his forgeries has norhing to do with bis place in the ltalian or Polish canons of English Literature respective]y. Ratber, Maherson's suecess (and lack of it) can be traced to tbe role played by his rexts in the debate on national culture and national identity that was being so hotly discussed throughour Europe. In Britain, where Scorrish and Irish nationalism were both feared and despised, tbere was a vested interest in den}'ing tbe possibiliry of a great bardic past to those

cultures. In other nations seeking ro establish their identit)' ther was a powerful drive towards rediscovering the past felt by man scholars, writers and ordinary people and in this, combined with th drive ,to translate the best of other nations' literature, there aIs seems to have been an urge to satisfy a hunger for culture.

~.

The Imperial Perspective

The picture changes radically, when we rurn to consider the way m which Europe was projecring itself on rhe rest of the world. Th American revolurion of 1776 had ser rhe native Enghsh of th coJonists off along a new road, and in the early nineteenrh centur the revolutions in Latm America were to follow a similar process o rupture with Spain. The vexed question as ro whether an author lik Ann Bnrdstreet could be considered American (because she lived an wrote in New England for most of her life) or English (beca use be poems were published in England, tbere not bemg facilities availabl in the colonies) could finally be resolved. American literarure ma have taken English writers as models, but American wnters wer developing separately, in of means of production as well a subject marter and formo Likewise, through the nineteemh centur we find Latin American writers endeavouríng to create an epie fit fo a new continent, still caught up in the eoils of publíshing policy censorship, stylisric constraims and a host of orber legacies from Spain and Portugal, but nevertheless seemg revolurionary struggl as linked to the emergenee of new literatures. Literary developments in the New World reflected a new orde In complete contrast is the arritude of a colonial power ro th literature produced by peoples under its domination,and probabl the most extreme example of tbis philistine vis ion is the (in)famou comment by M.acaulay, who, in 1835, stated that: 1 have never found one among them (Oriemalists) who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole narive literature of India and Arabia. 1 have certainly never mer with any Orientalist who venrured to maintain thar the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared ro that of the great European nations. 8

7'

\\

and the lndian subcontinent srrikes us roday as both racist and absurd, yet the underlying assumptions cf Macaulay'sposition were widely shared. Edward Fitzgerakl, whose translation oi rhe Rubáiyát of Ornar Khayyám became one of the great dassic poérns of the nineteemh century also ha-d_a low opiníon of Oriental litera.tu:re_ 'Ir isan amusement tome,' fhe -wrorero:hisc:f.r:ientltGowéU'on March 20, 1857, 'to take what liberties 1 likewith these Persians, who, (as I think) are nor Poets ,enough to frighten one fromsuch ,ex¡;:ursions, and who,r{lal1yo;clo,;want:,aAUttle~, to\sha:p~thert1;'9 Be/ief in the superioriry ofeheir Own culture, was a part of the politics of imperialismo The rhetoric which dismlssed African or Asian peoples as 'primitive' or'chlldlike'alsodismissed their art forms in variou.s ways. Oral culture was_generally regarded as,being of lowerstarus, so the exisrence ata tradition of oral epics, for example, was eonsidered insignifieant. At the same time, because Df the importance of thewritcen'epioinrhe,European tradiEÍon,"those cultures which had no epic and whichsaw the lyrie as the highest form of poetry were alsodowngraded. Hemer and the Greeks, the pla ys of Shakespeare, the poetry of Spenser- and Milton; these were ~hetexrs against which other works were rneasured and found wanting. Once again, the crux of the problem was one of perception. The Shakespeare that was 4aken ca. India,.was,:a writer,whowas depicted asbeing the embodimenr of English virtueand vir:tuosity. Shakespeare the grear master, Shakespeare the supreme English writer, Shakespeare the epítome ofEnglishnesswas whar~ame.to be exported. The existenceoJ an alternarivepieture,rhe revolutionary poet whose plays abour the deposirion cf unjust rulerswere staged aeross Europe in citíes seerhingwich revo!utionary energy, was not permi·ssable. Andwi.th theewqtt,ation-ofthe~idea1ized.Shakespeare carne all the evíls of colonialism, whichled Jawaharla:l Nehru ca draw an ironie contrast berween what he called 'the two Englands': Whichof" rheser:woEnglandscame ro "rndi~?'TheEngland'of Shakespeare and Milton, of noble speech andwriring and brave deed, ot polirical revolution and the srruggle.for 'freedom,"'Of science and tedmical progress, or the England oErhe saváge penal code and brutal behaviour, oE enrrenched feudalism and reaction?For 'Cher-e were two Englands, just as inevery country mere are 'these two aspecrs· oE. nationaLc.haracter:cand,civiliz.ation. 1O

fe-

superia'riry of their own culture and a vision of.rhe world tha involvedstrict hie-rarchies based on class, race and colour were also engaging iu compari.son. The problem wasthat they inevica'bly compared negatively.Some literatures were wortb·less than others sorne were unique ir!' having universal impbrtance.a,nd qthers couid be Histegai'aedas primicive or'banaL The question.ofthe universa value of an author or a work was fundamental to this .colenialis viewpoint, fQ!;Ít:enabled claims to be made tharset works-aparr from áll:othel"considerations, arguing rhat a, wrlter such,asShakespeare -for example, was "on ahigherplane than almost .anyone dse. Th hasis for c1aims -of universality tended, as-they stiHdo, to argue fo sOV1e kind oi common transcultural shaI"ing oi emotianal experi enee, a:nd disregarded the vicissitudes ofliterary history. So th factrhat 'Ben ]ónson.was consídered to be a -greater writer than Shakespeareby hiscontemporaries-and by subsequent generation fef'wellover·'acentury arrer his dea~hwas ignored.By the tim Shakespeare was being exported to India and theother eolonies i the.mid.,nineteenth century, his compatriots regarded his universa greatness as a marter offaer, not speeulation, and .che process o discover-ing Shakespeare thar had goneon through the eighteenth .cehrury -was disregarded cOV1pletely. .Cultural colonialism was also a form of eomparative literature, i -rhar ,writers were, impo:rtedby the colonizing group and nativ writers were evaluateclnegatívely in comparison.Ofcoursesuc pract,ices were :never .described as com,pafativeliterature, for com paratists through che nineteenth'éenturykeptinsisting that compari son took,placeon a'ho.rizóntal axis,that is,_between equals. On result of-this perspective was thadrom the beginning,comparativ literature schólarstended ro work only with European writers The:pre:valence of thisattitude is attested "by che fact that ir ha stiHnot disappeared in the minds (and syllahuses},of many contem porary é:OI\1paratisrs. In 1967, for example,.C. L. Wr,enngave th PresidentiaL<\ddl'ess ofrhe Modem Hl,lmanities:Researeh Associa tion in Chicago.( and rhen ,again in Londontwo-weeks iater) entide' The idea of Cómpar4tive 'Ute-rature, in which-he suggested ~ha't: Clearly fundamentaldifferenGesin 'parteros oE thinkingamong peoples must impose-relatively,n-arrow limirs. Al1 Africanlang.uage, ,for --example, is inc::ompacihle wirh .a European orte foLr ap-

proaches in Compararive Literarure study. Even Sanskrit, though itself an Indo-European Janguage aiong with irs lndian ramificarions, presents a partern of thought which renders any son of literal rransIaríon oE very limited value. 11

He goes on to say that a comparative study of Paradise Lost and the Ramayana, for example, can only discuss parallels and differences in subject marter and treatment at the expense of the poetry, and suggests thar this is inevitable beca use of the different nature of Sanskrit thought and feeling. The onJy proper object of study for compararists, he argues, is 'European languages, medieval or modern'.

.1 '.

The Paradox of Early Comparative Literature

'., ~!,

.j¡ 'H '1,

:¡

,·t

1¡

The rerro 'comparative literature' appeared in an age of transirion. In Europe, as nations struggled for independenee - from the Otroman Empire, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from Franee, from Russia - and new nation sta res carne imo being, narional identiry (wharever rhar was) was inextricably bound up with national culture (however that was defined). Later comparatists may have chosen to ignore rhe heared political context in whích rhe first staternenrs about eompararive literature were made, but ir is striking to note rhar even whilsr ideas of universalliterary roots were being discussed, aJong with ideas a bout rhe spirit or sou] oE a narion, comparisons were being made that involved evaluating one culture higher than another. ' is the most sensitiveof allcountries ... what Europe is to the world, F!ance is ro Europe./.saidPhilarere Chasles in his 1835 speech to the Athénée,addingalso that he had 'complete contempt fornarrow-mindedandblind patriorism',u This double vision enabled hini tomake daims for the unbiased narure of comparative literature, whilst simultaneousJy proclaiming French superiority. Lord Macaulay's attitude when he consigned Indian and Arabian literatures to the scrapheap was not unlike Chasles', for he too had an absolute be1ief in the superioriry of his own culture. Both were products of the Europe oftheir time, recognizing the inter-relatedness of European literary systems and what Chasles termed 'the part of other nations in the grand civilizing movernent', bur perceiving that

which carne from outside Europe as alieno Even Goethe's remarks about 'world literature' need to be seen in context, for aIthough he eventually turned his attention to the literatures of continents beyond Europe, his coinage of the term 'Weltiiteratur' related to his views on Europe and in particular ro his desire for an end to war. What becomes apparent when we ¡ook at the origins of comparative literature is that the term predated the subject. People used the phrase 'comparative literature' without having clear ideas abour what it was. With the advantages of retrospection, we can see tha 'comparative' was ser against 'national', and that whilst rhe srudy o 'national' literatures risked accusations of partisanship, the study of 'comparative' literarure carried with it a sense of transcendence - 01 the,narr-owry n~~€:malistic; lnother word~, the rerm was used loosely but was associated with the desire forlpeace in Europe and far harmony between nations. Central to this ¡ªeahsm was also rhe belief thar comparison couId be undertaken on a mutual basis. So Chasles in 1835 and Abel Franc;ois Villemain in 1829 hailed the value of srudying parterns of mfluence, Iistmg rhe names of grea writers from a vanety of different countries. Comparatlve literary srucly, according to Chasles, was to be before anyrhing else, a 'pleasure trip', involving a look at great figures from the sixteenth century onwards. Communication, cominglmg, shanng were key words in this view of comparative literature, which depolincized wriring and aspired rowards universal concord. Comparative litera ture seems ro have emerged as an antidote to nationalism, even though its rooes went deep ¡ntO national cultures. Chasles and Villemain could discuss the greatness of past writers wlrh urbaniry and scholarly distinction, but they were primariIy Frenehmen and tneir interest focused on the 'gift-giving' process of literary in fluences between and its neighbours. Likewise, the enormou interest throughout Europe in the early ninereenth century for Byron and Shakespeare, as evidenced by the proliferation of transIa tions o rheir works, was nor so mueh due to an interesr in England and English culture, but rather due ro rhe use thar could be made o twO writers who could be read as prototypical revolutionanes The idea that there was mutualiry in comparison was a myth, yet i was a myth as profoundly believed as the rnyth of universal transeultural greatness. Given the ambiguities surrounding rhe origins of the term, ir i hardly surprising that comparatíve ¡iterarure scholars from th

"'ti,

... ..:...,.,

¡ ~"'~-

~~

:'~

,¡

j"

\

mld-nineteenrh century onwards should ha ve been almost obsessively concerned with defining their subject. Ulrieh Weisstein says that eirher Jean-Jacques Ampere, author of Histoire de la littérature franr;aiseau moyen age comparée:aux littératures étrangeres (1841) or AbelFran<;ois Villemain, author oE Tableau de 'la littérature au moyen age en , en Italie, en Espagne -et-en Angleterre(2 vols, 1830) 'mustbe.regardedas rhe trueJatheroJasysten¡.atically eonceived Comparative Literature.in - or anywhere, forthat matter'.13 Coneeiving sysr:ematieallysomeihing that ~ad comeinto . beingso, looselY'wasnoeasyc matter .WhatVillemain ande Am pere did was to write what could be describedas histories of literatures, showing patterns of eonneetion and irifluence.lt was, not un!ll lacer in the eentury that Chairs oE Compararive literature were esrablished, andthe 'subjeet acquired .academic status. The flFst Chair was set up in Lyonin 1897and subsequently other Cha-irs appeared in Franee. French comparativeliterature dominated rhe fidd"wlth other.European c0umries'ffiuch slower:in'<establishing Chairs. In the Umted Scates, however, Charles Chauncey ShackweU taught a course In ~general or comparativeliterature' at CorneE from 1871 onwards, and Charles Mills Gayley taughr compararive lirerary cácicism ar che UniversltTof Michigan from 1887, while che flrsr Chairin the subject \Vas established at Harvardin 1890. Indeed, It is Ínche last two decades of rhe nineceenrh century thar 'Comparan ve' Literacure began to be esrabEshed internationaUy"for in addition co che subject being taughe in institutions 6f higher educarían in Europe and che Uníted Staces"Hutcheson -Ma€aúley POSflett, Professor of Classics and ,Eng1ish Literature~t Universit-y College, Auckland, New-~ealand, published a full-Iength srudy of the subjeét, entided Comparative Liter~turein 1886, andtwo journals were founded in Europe. The.first, sec upin 1879by,Hugo .Meltzl.de.,Lomnir-z,:il.,German,speakingscholar:fromCluj.in.,w.hat is now Rumania, was a multilingualpublication, entitled Acta comparationislittera7'um u.niversar.um. This -w.asfullowed by. two ,periodicals ·.edited by: ,che GermanscholárMax'iKúch, Zeitschrift fürvergleichende L.iteraturgeschichte (1-887-.1910) and Studienzur vergleichenden Literaturgesch.ich'te (1901-1909). Throughoutthe,nineteenrh century; use of che rerm 'compararive Licerature' wasflexíble. SelE-s¡;y!ed comparatists followed theprinciple outlined by.Humpty Dumpty, who pointsout co Alice thar 'when;heuses.aword;!ir:meansjusr'whaflchoose,ino''ffieanneirher

¡: "".

_'Jt"

~~~ =="--,,-,,,,,c=..~~

__ , ."._., __.._

more nor less', though they certainly did 'not foilow his secon p-rinciple, whieh was that whenever he useda word a lot he alway paid it e:x:tra. The .rerm 'comparative literarure' drifted into use i .severaHanguages, meaning wbarever anyone chose itto mean. Early-French studies, such.as che warks-by Ampereand Villemai noted ábove, focused ol). ~the MiddJe Ages, on that,'moment in -th "deve16pment'úfEutopean -cuLtural systems when linguistic bound aries w-ere 'only looselydrawn and national 'boundaries were no _,deflned aul1; wli'en rhere was free traffic-between scholars·and poet 'Dante/hailed
.::.:.

::

~-

Comparative -Literature compáses che mutual relations between Greek and Latín ·lieerature, rtIe debe of modero Jiterature (since rhe :Middle Ages) ro ancie.r1t literature, and, finally, the link s connecting . thevarious modern literatures. The lacter field of inveStigaríon, whi¿h is che most extensi.ve and complex of the three, is the one which,Gon,¡,parative Li~eramre, in che sense in w:hich ir is generally ünderStbOd, cakes for its province.14

Van .:r~~ghem's arguments againsuhe-s1:udy of.the Middle Age reversed the ea'rlier view,thal the pe.riod offered a unique -oppo tunity Eorcomparatists because of the lackof clearly defi,ne boundaries between 'nanoQ,s. He proposed instead thar moder literatures werebest suiced to comparative analysis, and he als suggested that the comparison should take placebetween tw el€mentsonly.Anythingbeyond thacwas notme properprevinceo compararive literarure. Itwa·s, in his'view, something elsealtogethe

What happened in r..~e century betVIreen the publicaríon oE Villemain's two voiume srudy of rhe Middle Agesin 1830 and Van Tieghem'snarrow deflnition in 1931 continuesto affect our understanding of comparative literature today, and ir is worrh trying to trace rhe shifts in attitude towards comp~ative literatme thar led to Van Tieghem's bold but very limitíng book, in which he ser oral culture, folklore and pre-Renaissance literature outside the boundaries oE his comparative literarure and formulated the norÍon of binary studies that has served tbe subject so i11 for so long.

~;-

in originating 'a new conception of literature and literary history', arguing that Herder's work on poetry and folksong 'opened up one of the mosr fertile and extensive areas of compararive literary history'. Koch saw transiaríon as a fundamental area of comparative enquiry, and set German literature and irs history as the 'point of departure and the centre of the efforts which the Zeztschrift intends to aid'. Folklore, he maintains, has become a discipline in its own right, but nevertheless the compararive srudy of folksong and poetry is seen as fundamental to compararive literature. J6 We can compare this view to Van Tieghem, who had very definíte views on why folklore should be exciuded from comparative literature:

Attempts at Definition ----·-iItI---------··

Readers today, considering and as the twin giants of the European Economic Community, couid be forgiven for overlooking the very different stare of affairs that prevailed in the nineteenth century. Moving on beyond both the Revolution and the rise and faH of Napoleon, by the mid-nineteenth century was a wealthy power wirh colonies throughour the world, a strong industrial base and a belief in the superiority oi its language, instirutions and culture. , on rhe other hand, was an assortment of lmle states, united by language but striving towards a polítical centre ano in search of a soul. Since, as has be en suggesred aboye, comparative liter~ture was linked to nationalism from rhe srart, it IS hardly surprising thar as a subject ir should have developed so differently in and . The French perspective, which appears as oriented more rowards the study of cultural transfer, always with as eirhergiver or receiver, was concerned with denning and tracing 'national characteristics'. As Ferdinand Brunetiere said in 1900: the history of Comparative Literature will shaÍ-pen in each one of us, French or English, or German, the understandiFlg of the most nationa] characterÍstics of OUT great writers. We estabiish ourselves onl)' in opposing; we are denned only by comparing ourse!ves ro others; and we do not know ourselves when we know on])' ourselves. IS The German perspective, however, was somewhat different. In the introduction to his new journal, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Literaturgeschichte, Max Koch praised the achievements of Herder

This (the fair)'-tale, myth, legend etc.) i5 folklore and nor literary history; for the latter is the hisrory of the human mind viewed through the an of writing. In rhis subdivision of rhemarology, however, one considers onl)' the subjecr matter, its age from one counrry tO another, and its modifications. AH plays no pan in these anonymous tradltions wnose narure itis ro remain impersonal. 17

Ir is perbaps nor tOO slmp\¡stlC tO see the keyword in thlS age as 'mind', and to refleet that French comparatlve !iterarure tended more towards the study of the products of the human mind, whereas German comparatists were more concerned with the 'roots' or 'spirit' of a natíon. This difference in terminology and in empbasis was due to the differem cultural traditions and differem polítical and economic developmem patterns of and in the níneteenth century.lhose differences became exacerbated in the twentieth century, as Freneh comparatists sought to restrict the use of the term and pín it down) while German comparatists (or some German comparatists) became increasingly chauvinistic. As Ulrich Weisstein puts ir, referring to the situarion in Hitler's inthe 1930s: 'How could Comparative Literature flounsh in a country inwhich the plays of Shakespeare, Moliere and Eugene O'Neill were banned from the stage, and where the novels oí the great French and Russian wrirers were no ¡onger accessible?'lS The journal esiáblished in 1877 by Hugo Meltzl de Lomnitz takes a differem position, and presents a different case for Comparatlve Literature. De Lomnitz argued in his editorial starement thar the discipline of comparative llterature was not yet established, and rhar the task of his journal was to assisr with the process of establishing

it. He ser out three principIe tasks: a revaluaríon oElíterary history, whích he described as having been relegated to the status of 'the handmaiden' oE political history or philology; a revaluation oE translationas an art; and.a belief in multilingualism. He attacked the chauvinÍsm oE comparative literature ,based on narfowly dén.ned ideas of nationalism: ir cannorbe denied thar che so-called 'wodd·literature' is-generally misunderstood. Forco.day, ever:y ..nation demam:kits own 'wodd lirerature' withollrquiteéknowing what is meartt byit.'Bynow, every narion considers ¡rself, for one good reascn or another, superior ro al1 orher narions, and chis hypothesis, wo{ked outinto a complete rheory of suffisance, is even'the basis oE so much Df modern pedagogy which roday practically everywhere strives tobe 'national' ,19 De Lomnitz's views ·strikeus roday as bochenlightenedand .farreaching. He correcdy predicred. rhesignificance of translationin the developmenr oE comparativditerature and argued convincingly for lirerary history ro have an existence in its own right and nat as a back-up for some ather subject. His concern f0r multHingualism meant char he rook akeen interest in minoriry -Ianguages and ¡iteratures, and ane oE che Eounding principies oE his jour:aal was a belief thauhe p rel="nofollow">oIiticalimportanceorlack ofit ota natianshouid nor intrude upon the comparative study oE literatures. Hence a comparison between aSlovene and a French wrirermight be undertaken on -its own cerms, with no 'suggesrion that the latter might be worrh mote rhan the former simpiy on of thestarus oE French literarure in the Euwpean tradition. But de Lomnitz's journal hadlittle impact on the developmentoE .eomparative"literatureourside Easrern:Eurape.17heFrench crnode! tended 'ro dominate,thoughsome of the Frenth work was·so extreme that we can only look at ir with astQnishmentroday. ,Lol1íee:sSho7:t,Histor::y, ,which Weisst-e¡údismi~sed,ásobsoleR.even when it came out in 1903,.doesneverthe1essreflect a particularway of structuring literary history, based on a profoundlychauvinistic viewpoint. Consider, far example, Lolliée's of -Eog:!ish literat)lre at the close of che eighceenth century, me yearschat sa w che publicaríon of-works. thar have come ro be·looked upon as dassictexts:

l'

.¡-

In England,at rhe end oE che eighreenrhcenrury, politicalagitation was roo rampant for the peaceful cultivation of letters amidst the demands of war and public events. Literature, at such .times, becomes almost, if 11.0t whoUy, polítical ... imaginative literature dedined. Hisrory and orat€lryheld the first place; poetry was neg¡ected;7et che centuty gained in practical activity what ,it lost -in poetícidealism. 2o

Having made this statement, Lolliée h'as tO compensare with .a Jo0tIlote for the names he has 1eft out. He'therefore adds that 'it is interesting to note thatbetween 17-89 and 1814, among a score of 'romancewriters of sorne reknown, faurteen were women,·three of whorn wonEur.opean reputation, ,namely, AnnRadcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, andJane Austen, but especially the·two former.' It seems more likely, co,nsidering examples such'aSlhe'ab.ove, that Loll-iée's work was.largely disregarded by larercomparatists because af his ignoraoceof literary history, rather than on acc;ount ofhis mechodoiogy. His book is a good example of the shortcomings of a a panicular kind of cornparative litera cure, in which wooll-yidealism combines with chauvinistic narionalism and rhe wholeis compounded by a grossly over-ambitious project (the history of all literatures) .ane! the wríter's own (considerable) lacunae, Paul Van Tiegnem was ·undoubtably reacting against compararive literature of the Lolliée variery, bur. in trying to 'formulate precise boundaries far comparative litera cure hecreated a .new set of problems. He endeavoured tú solve the .problem of che term by 'setting up distinctions between 'comparative' Hterature, 'general' literatureand 'world' literature. In-his view,comparative literature shoüld invoive the srué!Ybftwo elements(étul:tes bi-naiies.), whilst generalliterature should involve che study of sever:al literatur.es. This distinctlon did nor, help at,all and on!y addedto the confusion, for as René Wellek notes; ir .is impossibie ro draw atine between Comparative Literature and generalliterarure,' between, say, the 'int1uence .cf Walcer,Scott in ami che riseof thehist.orica:1n.ovel. Besides, che c.ertn 'general ·liter.ature' lends itseif ro confusion;, ichasqeen understood to mean literaq :rheor.y, 'poecics, fue principies :of literature. 21 Weilek also poines out tha-tco.mparative literature in,therestrict:ed sense oEbinar-y relarions 'canoot. make a meaningEul discipline',

',i

B '

I

'0'';''

.. \

. . ~:i~

because it would involve dearing with fragments and couId ha ve no rnethodology of its own. In the chapter entided 'General, Comparative, and Nationallirerature' in a book co-written with Austín Warren (Theory ofLiterature, 1963), RenéWellek returns again to the attack, this time suggesting thar one of the resuIts of the narrow binary approach has been a decline in interest in comparative litera ture in recent years. Certainly the French em phasis on binary studies of Van Tieghem, Fernand Baldensperger and the other French scholars involved in the creatíon of the Revue de littérature comtJarée in 1921 conditioned several generations oí comparatists. O~ce the problem had been how ro determine what might not be theprovince of comparative literature; now exclusion zones were set up accordrng to carefully formulated crireria. Comparative lirerar)' srud)' could take place between two languages, so a srud)' involving French and German aurhors wouId be acceptable. What WQuId be unacceptabIe, however, would be a study berween rwo writers working in EngIish, regardJess of whetherone was Canadian and the orher Kenyan. Nor would a swdy of Beowulf and Paradise Lost be acceptabIe, because although the former is in Anglo-Saxon, technically Anglo-Saxon is an early variant of modern English, so pan of the same literary system. Van Tieghem took pains ro son out which francophone Belgian or Swiss writers might be included (rhe ones who tended ro gravitate rowards. Paris), and then excluded those who preferred ro remain in their homelands. Comparative literature should study the impact of works by named individuals, henee it was allthor-centred, and oral literature, anonymous literature and colleetive or folk literature were outlawed. An enormous amoun! of timeand energy was expendedon trying to determine what theboundary lines. should be - when was a dialeet really a language ?When did a nation become a naríon - when it had a literature of its own,or when it had a political frontier? When did folk-literature become 'proper' author-based literature? These and a range oí other related questions bedevilled comparatists for decades, with French scholars reacting strongly for or againsr the restrictions and formulating sets of alternatives. It is possible to see almost al! French comparative Iiterature from the 19 30s onwards as coloured by the études binaires principIe, by the need sorne felr to defend it and the impulse which led scholars such as Jean-Marie Carré, Marius Fran\=ois Guyard and René Etiemble to try and move beyond it.

The notian of languages as the fundamental distinction that enabled comparison to take place was probably the most widely accepted principIe of all, and as late as the mid-1970s when 1 was appointed ro set up Comparative Literature at Warwick, 1 had clear instructions at first nor to it English-American comparative proj,ects and to insist on all students having at leasr LWO languages The linguistic distinction as the basis for comparative literature folJowing the French approach, had become widespread. The faHac)' of thar approach is plain ro see. Language and culture are inexrricably bound together, and a view that sees linguistic boundaries as the principIe line ro draw for establrsh±ngthe basis o comparatiye study is bound to fail. The binary approach never did work; alI it succeeded in doing was to restrict the projects com parative literature scholars were allowed ro undertake, crearmg obstacles where none had existed previously and deliberate!y choos ing to ignore orher, larger issues. Even someone like Ulrich Welsstein author of one of the great classic books on comparative literarure o our time, is caught up in the coi1s of binary srudy and the language problem, so thar whilst he can bring himself to it thar there probably is a case for alJowing comparative study between English and American literature, since both cultures have 'gone their own ways, at Ieasr since the early nineteenth cenrury', he cannor bring himself to it another kind of distinction: 'Ir would be .. questionable to separa te, for the sake of a misguided methodologica purism, Irish from English literature; for by'such a sleight-of-hand writers like $wift, Yeats and Shaw would be artistically uprooted to the sake of anonliterary principle.'22 That Irish writers may have been included in the English canon in rhe first place through non-literaryprinciples does not seem ro hav occurred to Weisstein. HeJcould just about it to differenc between American and English literatures, but that was as far as h could go. T o proceed further would be tO return to the vexed questions oflanguage, national culture and identiry, thar ill-defined swampland from which Comparative Literature had first emerged in post-Waterloo and which subsequent scholars had kep trying ro forger. In his essay, 'The Crisis of Comparative Lirerature', based on th talk he gave in 1959, René Wellek made a strong attack on what h saw as obsolete methodology and partisan nationalism. He warne thar comparative lirerature had sril] not established itseH properly a

a subject on any senous basis, and thar it was continuing to wrestle with probJems thar had long since ceased tO have any relevance. He laid the blame on rhe French school: Al] these flounderings are on]y possible because Van Tieghem, his precursors and followers conceive of literary srudy in of nineteenth century posinvistJc facruabsm, as a study of sources and influences ... They have accumulated an enormous mass of parallels, slmilanties and somenmes ldentlties, but they have rarely asked what rhese relarionships are supposed to show excepr possibly the fact of one wnrer's knowledge and reading of another writer. 23

Q

~ '<íl .:;

'\'1 \~

René Wellek was writing over a quarrer of a century ago, but his essay can be read tOda)' as prophetic. When he accused Van Tieghem and the French group of restricting the scope of comparative llterarure, of fosrenng a blmkered approach thar led nowhere except !ilW a series of blind alleys, each bearing rhe names of rwo possibly obscure writers working in two differenr languages, he pOlnred out thar such an approach could have obvious consequences. In facr, what happened was thar subsequent generatlons of younger scholars rurned away from a subjecr rhar appeared to be antJquate¿ and lrrelevant, and, as has already been suggested in the Inrroductlon, [he number of ¡iterary theorencians has expanded whilsr [he number of comparatists has contracted. There is no place in the post-modermsr world for a subject rhar continues ro quibble abom whether Yeats should be considered Irish or English and wherher a srudy on the impact of Ibsen on modernist drama can be properly termed 'comparative' or 'general' literature. The rime has come, as René Wellek and Harry Levin were saying long ago, to abandon rhe old, unnecessary disrinctions and ro see them for whar they were, as the products of a particular age and a particular cultural conrext. In rhe next chaprer, we shall consider an alrernanve perspectlve on compararive literature, a1so nor withour )ts failmgs, but which can at Jeast be conrrasted wirh rhe binary approach - rhe developmenr of comparative ¡iterarure ourside Europe.

1\ """",~j _,o ~ ~~o.~~~. __ •__ ~ ... ~ =~"-=-:~.-:"-::;~_=.

__~~_~.~~_~~_-_=-=~.=~'6~