 Professor of comparative literature in University of Warwick

and authority on translation studies and comparative literature

 Major works
 Translation studies, 1980
 Comparative literature, 1993
 Exchanging , 2002
 Fellow at the Royal Society of literature
 This essay is the introduction to her comparative
literature: a critical introduction

Content of the essay

 The essay tries to answer what is comparative literature ,

 it involves the study of text across cultures
 it is interdisciplinary
 it is concerned with patterns of connection in literature
across both time and space
 Any interested reader ends up with comparative literature.
 people do not start with comparative literature but reach
there from different starting points.
 The author quotes Arnold from his inaugural lecture at
Oxford in 1857
 “everywhere there is connection everywhere there is
illustration, no single event, no single literature
adequately comprehended except in relation to other
events, to other literature.”
 Author presents a list of examples for influences and
connections among orders and works.
 Chaucer reminds Boccassio
 Shakespeare’s sources are seen in Latin, French, Spanish
and Italian
 Development of romanticism across Europe.
 Bauldlaire’s fascination with Edgar Allenpoe.
 Learnings of English novelists from Russian authors.
 Mention some debating topics from beginning of the 19th
century to the day.
  What is the object of study in comparative literature?
 How can comparison be the object of anything?
 Is comparative literature a discipline?
 This is the crisis of comparative literature as Rene
Welleck defined.

Opinions and claims for and against comparative literature.

 Benedetto Croce – in 1903- comparative literature was a non

subject.
 Dismissed the suggestion it might be seen as a discipline.
 He studied the definition of comparative literature as
vicissitudes and alterations of themes and literary ideas
across literatures.
 Then concluded that there is no study more arid than
researches of this sort.
 The proper object of study should be literary history.
 To him, the term comparative literature was obfuscating –
not clear -which is disguised one, because the true object
of study is literary history in real.
 He claimed, he could not distinguish between the two –
comparative literature and literary history.
 So no substance to the term comparative literature.
 Charles Mills Gayle- one of the founders of North American
comparative literature, he said working promise of a student in
comparative literature is,

“Literature as a distinct and integral medium of thought….

differentiated by the social conditions… prompted by common need
and aspirations of man…”

 Franois Jost, in 1947

 National literature cannot constitute an intelligible field
of study because of its arbitrarily limited perspectives.
  Comparative literature is an overall view of literature of
the world of letters… a vision of cultural universe,
inclusive and comprehensive.
 Josh, Gayle and others are proposing comparative literature as
some kind of world literature.
 All cultural differences disappear when readers take up
great works as instruments of Universal harmony.
 Comparists facilitate that harmony.
 Wellek and Warren suggest in in theory of literature, 1949
 Comparative literature asks for a widening of
perspectives, a suppression of local and provincial
sentiments, not easy to achieve.
 Comparatist is here an international ambassador working
in the comparative literature of United Nations.
Literature is one as art and humanity is one.
Wellek and Warren
 Goethe said “national literature means little now” in 1827 but
Wellek and Warren offered the cultural equivalence of the
same, which was powerful after world war second.
 This single, harmonious reading vision of comparative literature
is yet to be met.
 the subject appeared to be gaining ground in 1960 and 70.
 But it was shattered forever by the waves of critical thoughts
that swept through one after the other,
 Structuralism to post structuralism
 Feminism to deconstruction
 Semiology  to psychoanalysis.
 High flying graduate students in the western turned to
comparative literature as a radical subject during 1950s and
60s.
 lack of coherent methodology did not matter
 but by the late 1970 new generation high-flying graduate
students in the West turned to literary theory.
 Women studies, semiotics, Film and Media studies,
cultural studies
 New programs in comparative literature emerged in China
Japan Taiwan other Asian countries.
 Based on the specificity of national literatures, not on any ideal
of universalism.
 According to Swapan Majumdar,
 “it is because of this predilection for National literature –
much deplored by the Anglo American critics as a
methodology – that comparative literature has struck
roots in the Third world nations and in India particular.”
 Ganesh Devi suggest that,
 comparative literature in India is directly linked to the
rise of modern Indian nationalism.
 Though the nationalism and comparative literature go
incompatible in the deep sense.
 To Majumdar, Indians consider literature derived from Greeco-
Roman matrices via Christianity as European without
geographical precision.
 English, French, German etc. are subnational literatures.
 He suggests comparative literature as a radically
alternative perspective and a re-evaluation of the
discourse of ‘national’ literatures.

 Developments in comparative literature beyond Europe and

North America cut all Eurocentric notions of literature.
 Author mentions concepts of Hegel that,
 African culture is weak
 Africa has not a history
 Mentions James Sneed’s criticism on Hegel that,
 Late 20th century European culture reconciles with
black culture.
 Became late to realise that separation between
cultures was all along not one of nature but one of
force.
 A very varied picture of comparative literature is seen today.
  Changes are according to where it is taking place to
accept the implications of their literary and cultural
policy.
 According to Terry Eagleton, emergence of English as an
academic subject in the 19th century had quite clear political
implications.
 He explains it with the changes brought after the First
World War
 War-time nationalism
 More strident forms of chauvinism following carnage
of ruling class rhetoric.
 Eagleton’s explanation ties with aspirations of early
comparatists.
 For a subject that would transcends cultural boundaries
and unite the human race through the civilising power of
great literature.
 Comparative literature has been called into questions by the
emergence of alternative schools of thoughts.
 The author explains it with examples of orientalism by
Edward Said etc.
 which gave new vocabulary and turned discussions to
cultural ‘other’.
 Different issues tackled by a European syllabus and a colonized
nation’s syllabus.
 European could be concerned with an established Canon of
great writers.
 For a colonised nation an author is not only a great writer but
an author from a nation in conflict with one another.
 he gives example of Shakespeare for Indian students.
 one way of tackling this problem is to syudy Shakespeare
comparatively, advent of Shakespeare is Indian cultural
life etc.
 National consciousness and Awareness of the need to move
beyond colonial legacy lead to development of comparative
literature in many parts of the world.
 Comparative literature is used in a constructive way of
exploring both indigenous and imported traditions.
  Nations like China Brazil India and many African States’
focus was national culture, the way how it was affected
by importation.
 Ganesh Devi mentions the coincidence of emergence of
comparative literature in India and Europe with rise of
nationalism in both the parts.
 Comparative literature is facing a troubled situation in the
west, for
 falling student numbers
 uneasiness or reluctance of scholars in defining the area
of study exactly.
 continuation of the old idea of comparative literature as
binary study.
 study of two authors or two text
 but the subject is expanding and developing in many parts
linked to questions of national culture and identity.
 New comparative literature questions the Canon of great
European masters.
 other theories are too.
 For example, feminism – questions male orientation of
cultural history.
 post modernist theory – revalue the role of the
reader, role of institutionalized power structures
 Western readers too approach this challenge,
 but without recourse to something called comparative
literature.
 mentions example of the work ‘The Empire writes back; theory
and practice in colonial literatures’
 its opening statement says, “the term ‘post-colonial’ is
most appropriate as the term for the new cross cultural
criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the
discourse through which this is constituted.”
 what is this, comparative literature under another
name.

Translation studies and comparative literature

 It has profound implications for the future of comparative
literature.
 Since the early usage of the term in 1978, translation studies
developed to such an extent that there are many now who
consider it to be a discipline in its own right.
 This development distinguishes translation studies from poly
system theory by Ivan Zohar and Tori.
 it sees literature as a poly-system.
 individual literature as part of multi-faceted whole.
 debate about majority and minority cultures changes into
great literature and marginal literature.
 But translation studies posit the radical proposition that
translation is not a marginal activity but has been and
continues to be a major shaping Force for change in the history
of culture.
 To Even and Zohar, extensive translation activity takes place
when a culture is in a period of transition.
 when a culture is expanding need renewal in a pre-
revolutionary face
 When a culture is solidly established, believe itself to be
dominant, in an Imperial stage, translation is less important.
 Justify with example of English.
 Emergent European Nation in early 19th century, were in
struggle against Austro-Hungarian or Ottomen empires,
translated more.
 British Empire grasped ever further, language of
international diplomacy, language of world commerce,
 Translation begin to decrease compared to proliferation
of translation to other languages.
 Now the time is approaching for comparative literature to
rethink the relation with translation studies.
 Like semiotics which was considered as a branch of
linguistics, but it becomes wider than linguistics now.
 Comparative literature always claimed translation as a
sub category..
 but now comparative literature appears less like a
discipline more like a branch.
 Then the un-resolved debate on acceptance and identity
of comparative literature could be definitely shelved.