Comparative Literature

1. Comparative Literature Module 1

2. Max Müller – a German scholar of comparative language, religion, and mythology: • All higher knowledge is gained by comparison and rests on comparison

3. The word 'comparative' originates  from the Latin ”comparare” and is  defined in Oxford English Dictionary as:  'involving comparison between two or more subjects or branches of science'.

4. Comparison (in Broader Sense) the literary process which enables us to perceive similarity and difference.

5. In the strict sense of the term comparison means paying the similar quality and quantity of attention to a discreet number of objects in order to determine their similarities and differences with regards to possession, lack of possession or degree of possession of a particular quality.

6. Literature: • 1. written material such as poetry, novels, essays, etc, esp works of imaginationcharacterized by excellence of style and expression and by themes of generalor enduringinterest

7. Literature: • 2. the body of written work of a particular culture or people ⇒ Scandinavian literature • 3. written or printed matter of a particular type or on a particular subject⇒ scientific literature, ⇒ the literature of the violin

8. Literature • 4. printed material giving a particular type of information ⇒ sales literature • 5. the art or profession of a writer • 6. obsoletelearning

9. Difficulties in Defining “Literature” • Definitions are broad and vague; • Subjectivity in interpretation; • Etymologically, literature has to do with letters, the written as opposed to the spoken word, though not everything that is written down is literature. 

10. Relativism • Subjectivism • Agnosticism

11. Mathew Arnold • “Everywhere there is a connection, everywhere there is an illustration, no single event and no single literature is adequately comprehended except in relation to other events, to other literatures.”

12. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek • CL means the knowledge of more than one national language and literature, and/or it means the knowledge and application of other disciplines in and for the study of literature

13. CL has an ideology of inclusion of the Other, be that a marginal literature in its several meanings of marginality, a genre, various text types etc. • cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of literature

14. Comparative literature •  is a field of literary scholarship focused on comparing aspects of various literary phenomena, such as: •  texts from different cultures and historical periods,  • texts by different writers, •  texts from  different genres or  • different texts from the same genre, or  • two versions of the same text, e.g., in translation, retelling, or adaptation. (Nikolajeva)

15. "COMPARATIVE literature is the study of literature beyond the confines of one particular country, and the study of the relationships between literature on the one hand and other areas of knowledge and belief, such as the arts (e.g., painting, sculpture, architecture, music), philosophy, history, the social sciences (e.g., politics, economics, sociology), the sciences, religion, etc., on the other.

16. In brief, it is the comparison of one literature with another or others, and the comparison of literature with other spheres of human expression." (Remak; Stallknecht and Frenz 3)

17. General Principles of Comparative Literature: • not the ·what" but rather the "how“ • move between cultures, languages, literatures, and disciplines • in-depth grounding in several languages and literatures as well as other disciplines

18. General Principles of Comparative Literature: 4. study literature in relation to other forms of artistic expression (the visual arts, music, film, etc.) and in relation to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (history, sociology, psychology, etc .)

19. General Principles of Comparative Literature: 5. special focus on English 6. focus on literature within the context of culture 7. theoretical, methodological as well as ideological and political approach of inclusion

20. General Principles of Comparative Literature: 8. intra-disciplinarity multi-disciplinarity pluri-disciplinarity 9. globalization versus localization 10. vocational commitment of its practitioners

21. Task: to give scholars, teachers, students and last but not least readers a better, more comprehensive understanding of literature as a wholerather than of a departmental fragment or several isolated departmental fragments of literature.

22. It can do so • by relating several literatures to each other • by relating literature to other fields of human knowledge and activity, i.e. by extending the investigation of literature both geographically and generically.

23. The purpose of comparison •  a deeper understanding of literary texts in a broader historical, social and literary context; • an examination of  influences and intertexts. (Nikolajeva)

24. The goal • Identifying similarities and dissimilarities providing possible reasons for those. 

25. Some straightforward reasons for similarity can be • that the two texts are written by the same author;  • that they are written within the same genre;  • that they are written more or less at the same time and within the same culture. 

26. A further reason, frequently employed in comparative studies, is the assumption that a writer has been influenced by another, earlier writer. 

27. a pattern of literary evolution in which every writer has a model, The Great Literary Father, from whose influence  he must liberate himself.  Harold Bloom ”The Anxiety of Influence” (1973)