“Introduction: What is Comparative Literature? How it came into being? -Susan Bassnett

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - II

Paper no. – 10 E-E-205-A

Year – 2010-11

Topic: “Introduction: What is Comparative Literature? How it came into being? -Susan Bassnett

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

         

           “Comparative Literature”, this is extremely confused word, because different critics have their various views regarding this word. Many writers have defined this term by giving their own views. In simple words, we can say that comparative Literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that it is interdisciplinary. We can take one text to compare with another one. By doing that, we can get the idea which is the best text or unique text? We set particular parameters to know which text is unique. That is called comparative Literature. It is an area of exploration from where we can get a lot of information about the different literatures.

          Susan Bassnett says that most of the people do not start with comparative literature but they end up with it in some way or other. Generally, we, first start reading the text and then we arrive at comparison. I mean to say, we start comparing that text with another that has similarities and dissimilarities. Comparative Literature emerged in 19^th century. Comparative Literature is different from national literature, general literature and world literature. It was begun as “Literature Compare” in 1860 in Germany. And Comparative literature got recognition as a study in 1897. In 1848, Matthew Arnold had used this term “Comparative Literature “for the first time in English. He defines this term. He says...

“Everywhere there is connection. Everywhere there is illustration. No single event, no single literature is adequately comprehended except in relation to other events, to other literatures.”

          Generally, when we, come across a new text, by reading that text, we always try to relate or to compare with another one. That is human nature. We compare both texts’ ideas with each other. That’s why Arnold has written in the beginning of the definition of Comparative literature that “Everywhere there is connection.” The Comparatists always tries to find that similar connection between two texts, cultures, literatures etc.

          Goethe gave the term “World Literature (Weltliteratur) to Comparative literature because by comparing the, the comparatists compare one literature to another one. In a way, comparative literature removes the all borders and brings nearer to all literatures and spread harmony. What is common in different literature? That is the main function of the comparative literature.

          What is the object of study in comparative literature? How can comparison be the object of anything? If individual literatures have a canon what might a comparative canon be? How does the comparative select what to compare? Is comparative literature a discipline? Or is it simply a field of study? All these questions can be raised. Rene Wellek defined as “the crisis of comparative literature.”

          Benedetto Croce argued that comparative literature was a non- subject, contemptuously dismissing the suggestion that it might be seen as a separate discipline. He discussed the definition of Comparative literature as the exploration of “the vicissitudes, alterations, developments and reciprocal difference” of themes and literary ideas across literatures, and concluded that ‘there is no study more arise than research of this sort. This kind of work, Croce maintained, is to be classified, in the category of erudition purely and simply. Instead of something called comparative literature, he suggested that the proper object of study should be literary history:

“ the comparative history of literature is history understood in its true sense a s  complete explanation of the literary work, encompassed in all its relationships, disposed in the composite whole of universal literary history (where else could it ever be placed ?), seen in those connections and preparations that are its raison d’être.”

           Croce’s argument was that the term “Comparative Literature” was obfuscator, disguising the obvious, that is, the fact that the true object of study was literary history. Here, we can see Croce’s different views regarding comparative literature that he is against towards the concept of comparative literature. This shows various comparative literatures. All cultural differences disappear when readers take up great works; art is seen as an instrument of universal harmony and the comparatists is one who facilitates the spread of that harmony. Moreover, the corporatist must possess special skills; Wellek and Warren in their “Theory of Literature “ a book that was enormously significant in Comparative literature when it first appeared in 1949, suggest that:

“Comparative Literature... will make high demands on type linguistic proficiencies of our scholars. It asks for a widening of perspectives, a suppression of local and provincial sentiments, not easy to achieve.”

           In other words, if we say what qualities the comparatists should have, we can say that first, he should be polyglot. He should have a literary taste. He should also be good reader and critic. He should have the sense of present and past-along with historical background. He should have the knowledge of different cultures. He should have the special skills to grasp the idea about comparison. By doing the comparison, he should spread harmony.

          When Western comparatists had sought to deny: the specificity of national literatures, Swapan Majumdar puts it:

“It is because of this prediction for National Literature- much developed by the Anglo-American critics as a methodology- that comparative Literature has struck roots in the Third World nations and in India in particular.”

           India is a Third World country and also multi-lingual, multi-communal, multi-racial, multi-religion, multi-historical, multi-cultural and multi-literary phenomenon, so in India, comparative literature has large scope. I India, different states have their various languages and literatures so by comparison, comparatists can explore lots of literatures in India. This is all about the views of different critics regarding comparative literature.

Now, “Translation Studies” this prominent has raised the confusion that a translation study is a part of comparative literature or comparative literature is a part of translation studies. This thing still confuses the critics. Comparative literature has traditionally claimed translations as a sub-category, but this assumption is now being questioned. The works of scholars such as Toury, Lefeverre, Hermans, Lambert and many others have shown that translation is especially significant at moments of great cultural change. Evn Zohar argues that extensive translation activity takes place when a culture is in a period of transition: when it is expanding, when it needs renewal, when it is in a pre-revolutionary phase, then translation plays a vital part. In contrast, when a culture is solidly established, when it is in an imperialist stage, when it believes itself to be dominant then translation is less important. Here, we can see that translation in positive and Negative light in the words of Evan Zohar. As English became the little need to translate, hence the relative poverty of twentieth- century translation into English compared with the proliferation of translation in many other languages.

            Translation studies became necessary for linguistics to rethink its relationship with semiotics, so the time is approaching for comparative literature to rethink its relationship with Translation studies semiotics was at first regarded as a sub-category of linguistic, and only later did it become clear that the reverse was the case, and linguistics was in effect a brand of the wider discipline, semiotics. Comparative literature has always claimed translation as a sub-category, but as translation studies established itself firmly as a subject based in inter-cultural study and offering a methodology of some vigor, both in terms of theoretical and descriptive work, so, comparative literature appears less like a branch of something else. This is how the translation studies connect with the comparative literature.

          Now, let us see, how comparative literature came into being. If we talk about its origin, there is general agreement that comparative literature acquired its name from a serious of technique of literature, published in 1816 and entitled “Cours de litterature Comparee”. In an essay discussing the origins of the title was ‘unused and unexplained but he also show how the term seems to have crept into use through the 1820s and 1830s in France. He suggests that the German version of the term, vergleichende Literature geschichte, first appeared in a book by Moriz Carriere in 1854, as we saw abed that the earliest English usage is attributed to Matthew Arnold, who referred to “Comparative literatures” in the plural in a letter of 1848. Byron could see the close relationship between national identity and cultural inheritance. In general terms, it is possible to see the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a time of immense literary turmoil throughout Europe, as issues of nationality increasingly appeared linked to cultural developments. Nations engaged in a struggle for independence were also engaged in a struggle for cultural roots, for a national culture and for a past.

          Literary developments in the New World reflected a new order. In complete contrast is the attitude of a colonial power to the literature produced by people under its domination, and probably the most extreme example of this philistine vision is the (in) famous comment by Macaulay, who, in 1835, stated that:

“I have never found one among them (orientalists) who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native late of India and Arabia. I have certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations.”

          Before being as a study, comparative literature had to pass through many debates and controversy. But as we saw ahead comparative literature got recognition as a study in 1897.