There is no exact definition of comparative literature. Like any other concept in the humanities in general and in literature in particular, it is controversial and debatable and subject to change across time and space.
However, we can set some characteristics and specificities that constitute the spirit of comparative literature as it is known today:
• Comparative literature as is acknowledged and recognized by most renown universities in the world is a well established discipline.
• The object of study of this discipline is literary texts
• The way those literary texts are approached in comparative literature is what constitutes the core of comparative literature. Comparative literature does not isolate the literary text and it rather relates it to other literary and non literary elements outside the text and with which the text interacts. As a discipline, it studies the connections, the relationships, the contacts and the influences constituting the text's natural network (i.e. the network in which the text has been created).
• The comparatist do not invent those connections. They already do exist. The comparatist explores them and unveils them. The influences are not always clear or easily seen and the comparatist's task is to make them visible, to identify them and to go deeper in studying them.
• Comparative literature deals with all the elements with which the literary text interacts without any confinement. It studies the interactions of a literary text with other texts from other cultures, from other national literatures, from other times, from other spaces. In this respect, it is open and tends always to push the boundaries further and further. Through its inclusive nature, Comparative literature is intertextual, intercultural, international and it crosses the boundaries of time and space.
• Comparative literature is not only confined to the study of the connections existing between different literary texts. This inclusive discipline does not exclude the study of the influences existing between a literary text and other disciplines (philosophy, science, psychology, sociology, politics, anthropology...) In this respect, it is interdisciplinary.
• Comparative literature is not confined to the literary field. It also studies the influences existing between a literary text and the arts. The mutual illumination existing between literature and the arts is an important one in comparative literature's field of study.
• As a conclusion one could say that comparative literature is a vast field of investigation, however, it also requires depth.
Further readings:
The status of comparative literature as a discipline has been subject to change across time and space. As a disciplines it has faced many issues. It is important to consider the status of comparative literature today as well as the new issues that comparative literature is facing.
For such a purpose, it is indispensable to deal with Susan Basnnett's "Reflections on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-First Century." The article mainly deals with Gayatry Shakravorty Spivak's statement about the death of comparative literature and the issue of eurocentrism concomitant and inherent in comparative literature as a discipline.
The article is available online and can be downloaded in a pdf file from the website of Project Muse.
Click on the following link to see it:
Susan Basnnett
From: Comparative Critical Studies pp. 3-11 | 10.1353/ccs.2006.0002
