Imagology

It is the comparative study of literary works as far as images are concerned. 

Imagology is not to be confused with imagery.

Imagery is a literary device that converts the reading experience into a sensory experience. 

Imagology is something different in that it deals with the image as a cultural, social, and political construct.

The image has a very strong impact. It is a device that operates at the level of the unconscious. The images which are constructed and emitted are received without us knowing by the unconscious, without the mediation of our knowing minds. For such reasons, the image is a powerful tool. The field of advertisement makes use of it to efficiently meet marketing purposes.

Constructed images are ethnocentric and their contraction is intertwined with a process of Othering. Images are constructed for the purpose of defining the unknown Other. What is unknown is dangerous. To define it is to have control over it and to dominate it. The image is an efficient way to dominate the unknown Other because once built and established images stick and could not be easily removed. Literature and art are means of constructing images. An example is the image that orientalist artists and writers built about the Orient. They wanted to define the unknown Orient to have control over it. They built a faulty stereotypical image (the exotic, the erotic, the barbaric) which later have come to be accepted and interiorized by the Orient and turned into its reality. What used to be an image in the mind of the West about the East became the reality of that East. 

Eugene Delacroix's The Death of Sardanapalus 1827 is a perfect example of that orientalist image.

  

To revise that image, the East should employ the same strategy and adhere to the philosophy of "define yourself or you are defined". It is through literature and art that this image has been constructed and it is through literature and art that it should be revised.

Terminology:    

Stereotype: a stereotype is a received idea which is not necessarily true that we take from society without questioning it. Stereotypes always necessitate a boundary (of gender, racial, geographical, ethnic, national…). They also submit to the law of binarism which stipulates that one side of the boundary has superiority over the other side. 

For instance, one could find gender stereotypes in fairy tales or in primary school books that feminism tries to revise.    

Cliché: it is a phrase that is overused that it loses its evocative power and becomes devoid of its meaning. e.g.: Love is blind. 

Caricature: it is a representation of something or someone where certain aspects are over-exaggerated while other are over-simplified for the purpose of constructing a specific image about that something or someone. Not only a cartoon, caricature could also be a literary device. 

Notice how the following colonial caricatures by Salomon Assus built a certain image about Algerians (referred to and defined as "indigènes" by the colonizer). They are mostly represented as stupid, dump and backward people and the merchants facial expressions implies they are greedy tricksters or cheaters. Somehow it tells a lot about the origins of negative self-image algerians have of themselves. These images were interiorized by the colonized. Inferiority is interiorized. Unless Algerians redefine themselves by revising those images, the images will stay forever as well as the devastation they cause.

  

Thematology

It is the contrastive study of themes in different literary texts. As a subfield in comparative literature according to the French school, thematology is a comparative study of literary works as they relate to other literary works beyond their national borders as far as the themes are concerned. It is a more specific and limited investigation in the field of comparatism.

A literary text has two main components i.e. form and content.
The form is about the language and the structure. It is how the content is presented. A specific form may help putting a specific content into value. For instance, Alice Walker's The Color purple is a novel about an oppressed and silenced girl. Walker used the epistolary form (letter novel). Celie addresses letters to God. It is more likely for a silenced girl to write letters for their private and discrete nature instead of being a traditional narrator protagonist in a novel. Also because Celie is almost illiterate, her letters are written in the dialect of blacks in the south instead of standard English and the epistolary form    meets the purpose of that informal situation.

The content is what the literary text is about.
The content is either derived from reality. The text may be drawn or inspired from a given reality. It may reflect the reality of a specific time and a specific place as it may reflect a more universal reality that is related to human nature and existence. Also, it may be concrete in that it reflects concrete situations of human condition as it may be abstract in the form of philosophical reflections, meditations and commentaries about a specific or a universal reality.

Or it may be derived from the folklore, the oral tradition and the collective imagination of a specific group. Homer's The Odyssey and The Iliad bear a content that is largely inspired and drawn from Greek mythology.

Terminology: 

Theme vs Subject matter: The subject matter is larger and wider in scope in comparison to the theme. The theme is more specific. For instance, "love" is the subject matter in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. The theme is more precise. It is love in the age of materialism.  

Motif vs Theme: The theme is the central idea or message where as the motif constitutes the unit from which the theme is built. The motif could be an image, a sound, an action, an object, a character, a literary device, a word, a phrase… with a symbolic significance that helps constructing and consolidating the central idea or the theme. It contributes towards the development of the theme. A motif is a recurrent idea or symbol or image that develops and explains the theme.
The theme of "the corruption of the American dream" in The Great Gatsby is built up and consolidated by the succession of certain motifs like the green light at the end of Daisy's Dock. Green the color of the American shores as first perceived by the Dutch sailors who came to America to fulfill their dreams is also the color of dollars (materialism). Another motif is the movement east instead of west. Most characters moved east to fulfill their dreams as young people. It is the opposite direction of the American dream. This explains why the narrator Nick Caraway decided to return to the midwest at the end of the novel. the dichotomy east/west is a recurrent motif in the novel that serves the purpose of consolidating the theme of "the corruption of the American dream"

Symbol vs Motif: There is a difference between a symbol and a motif in that the symbol is an image, idea, sound, or words that represent something else and help understanding a given idea or a thing where as a motif is an image, idea, sound, or word that help understand the central idea in the literary work. Another difference is that the motif is recurrent where as the symbol may appear once or twice in a literary work.

Leitmotif vs Motif: the literal translation of leitmotif (a german word) is leading or guiding motif. However the real meaning of the concept is different. A leitmotif is more easily noticeable in opera and cinema where a specific melody is associated to character or a given situation or a given setting. Examples from literature: In Shakespeare's Macbeth, thunder and lightning are associated with the supernatural world of the witches. In Ngugi's A Grain of Wheat, water imagery is always associated with Mugo. In The Great Gatsby, white is always associated with Daisy or again the word "voice".

History of Ideas

It refers to one of the orientations of comparative literature as having first been implemented by Paul Van Tighem since 1931. This field of study gained ground and recognition through the creation of a Journal of the History of Ideas.

This field is at the crossroads of philosophy and history. It is interested in "ideas" in the broadest and the more general sense of the term rather than in its doctrinal sense. Idea designates knowledge, abstract reflexion or intellectual representation. History of ideas thus studies the evolution of human thinking or human mentality through time and space. Humans during Antiquity had a different mindset than humans during the Middle Ages or humans during the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, or the Modernist era. As a matter of instance, behind every change in the history of Europe, there is a current of thought. Intellectual currents represent the motor of society. 

What makes a given society move ahead and head for a specific change is always a specific current of thought. For example, Church indoctrination during the middle ages has been replaced by Humanism during the Renaissance. Humanism as a current of thought favors human thinking over established doctrines and it has lead the way for the era of flourishing and revival that the Renaissance is. 

Often times, this change occurring in society is lead by avant-gardist intellectuals and thinkers. Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Switzerland are perfect examples. Through their intellectual efforts they changed and reformed the map of europe by reforming and liberating the minds from the thoughts dictated by the catholic church (the Vatican as an authority). 

Also, the changes happening in Europe and America during the 18th century owe it all to Enlightenment thinkers. In France, they were called "les philosophes": Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu among others. Their intellectual force influenced intellectuals outside France. As is the case in USA mainly Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The American revolution, the American Declaration of independence and the Bill of Rights are products of the enlightenment as a current of thought that advocates reason, logic, and scientific thinking instead of tradition. 

History of ideas studies the circulation of thoughts and ideas through time and space. Comparative Literature is interested in that field of study mainly because those intellectual currents are carried by literature and arts. Literature and arts constitute a sort of arteries through which ideas circulate to influence and make changes in societies. Literature and Art also reflect the mentality and the mindset of humans in the time and place where it is produced. During the Age of enlightenment, realism was the literary and artistic tendency. Realism as a literary current helped spreading reason as a mode of thought and by that enabled that current of thought to be transmitted from the minority intellectual elite (avant-guard) and influence the majority (common people). 

Categories of ideas: Ideas can be categorized mainly as follows:

Philosophical Ideas: like Existentialism, Absurdism...

Moral or Ethical Ideas: Moral values... 

Religious or Theological Ideas: Religious values... 

Scientific Ideas: like Freudianism, Darwinism...

Political Ideas: like Capitalism, Communism, Socialism...

Study case:

When we observe the era in which we live, which is characterized by technological and scientific advancement, it is clear that the avant-gardist aspirations in all the fields mostly all head toward a reconciliation with the environment. Economy aspires for sustainable development. Tourism aspires for  green tourism or what is called ecotourism. Car industry aspires for environment friendly cars using green energies. Agricultural production advocates the label "BIO" or "Organic". The same with clothing industry and fashion, there is a coming back to natural raw materials.

If the avant-guard favors ecology it is due to the drastic consequences of massive industry on the environment. The flagrant threat on the environment (and by extension on humans' survival) by industry has led to the elite's concern about ecology.

Literature as a vessel that carries avant-guardist ideas contributes in spreading the ecological concern. Many literary texts and artistic works has dealt with the environment long before current concern about the environment. 

Examples:

• Algerian Chaabi Music mirrors the Algerian culture's interest in and respect for birds. Probably because Algerians' longing for freedom during colonial times made birds stand as a revered symbol for freedom.

• Many post-colonial texts depict the coming of the colonizer by imposing his ways and order as a disturbance to the harmony that the colonized has with his natural environment. Colonialism causes disorder and chaos by affecting the environment. This change in the relationship with the environment affects the colonized cultural ways. 

• The extinction of certain living organisms also lead to the extinction of culture. Certain animals or plants carry a cultural value and their disappearance cause the death of culture. In the same way, change in the environment (geography or climate) alter and distort culture.

Ecocritism:

According to Jelica Tošić in her article Ecocriticism - Interdisciplinary Study of Literature and Environment:
The word ecocriticism is a semineologism.2 Eco is short of ecology, which is con- cerned with the relationships between living organisms in their natural environment as well as their relationships with that environment. By analogy, ecocriticism is concerned with the relationships between literature and environment or how man's relationships with his physical environment are reflected in literature. These are obviously interdisciplinary studies, unusual as a combination of a natural science and a humanistic discipline. The domain of ecocriticism is very broad because it is not limited to any literary genre. […] It is appropriate here to stress that it was only in the 1990s that ecocriticism emerged as a separate discipline although it is a fact that the relationship between man and his physical environment had always been interesting to literary critics.3 This interest, both at the basic scientific level and in the metaphorical form in literature, can be explained in two ways: 1. man always exists within some natural environment or, according to Buell, there cannot be is without where,4 and 2. the last decade of the twentieth century was the time when it became obvious that the greatest problem of the twenty-first century would be the survival of the Earth. The first explanation is concerned with man's essential quest for personal identity or with his need and failure to find his roots. That is the reason why he is a life-long wanderer, on the one hand, and why he is always identified with the fa- miliar physical and cultural environment, on the other.5 The latter explanation results from the fact that man feels vitally threatened in the ecologically degraded world. Over- exploitation of natural resources and man's disregard of the air, water and soil that sustain him have given rise to the question of the survival of both man and the planet (Earth). The end of the twentieth century showed clearly that everyone had to do something to help the Earth survive. Ecocriticism is one of the ways in which humanists fight for the world in which they live. The reflection of that difficult struggle in the area of culture and spirit speaks for the urgency of action or the urgent need to do something in this respect. P44

Ecology is the science that studies the relationships between living organisms (biotic component) and their physical environment (abiotic component). In other words, ecology is concerned with the living organisms in their natural environment. Although it is not explicitly stated here, ecology is anthropocentric whereas deep ecology originating from the endeavor to promote life as such is biocentric and stresses the fact that man is only one part in a huge and complex life net in nature in which everything has a certain value. That is why man has to realize that he is not allowed and entitled to reduce the richness and variety of the living world except for the satisfaction of his basic needs. P45

Table 1. Ecological Terms as a Source of Ecocriticism and Language Study

Ecology	Ecocriticism and language study
ecology	deep ecology
physical environment	environmental imagination reimagination
biodiversity	global environmental culture environmental unconscious
endangered species	ecocultural habitat
pollution	toxic discourse literary hazards language pollution

For further understanding of these concepts concepts check the article:

ECOCRITICISM – INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT by Jelica Tošić 

     

    

Intertexuality

To understand what intertextuality is, one has to understand what a text is.

Because it has language as its raw material, the text is thus a linguistic product.

Language is a system of signs. This system is primarily conventional and agreed upon by a group. Because language is a social phenomenon, using language implies accepting and reproducing conventional codes as well as adopting established linguistic standards and norms. Language, because of its social nature, cannot be invented out of the blue and cannot exist in a vacuum. Language cannot be isolated from its social context. Language cannot be individual. When we use language we are not imitating or being influenced by anybody in particular. We are simply using a code which is a common property (it does not belong to any particular individual). There is no copyright infringement when using language.   

Has language been independent, individual and isolated, it would fail its communicative function. 

The act of communication as described by Jakobson demonstrate that for the message to be understood and for communication to take place, the code has to be common and shared between both the sender and the receiver. If the code is individual, it would be impossible for the receiver to crack it. The code should be part of the established standards - part of the norms. 

                      Context

                           ^

                           ^

Sender  >>>  Message  >>>  Receiver

                           ^

                           ^

                     Channel

                           ^

                           ^

                       Code

Even new codes, they always build up on already established codes (or else it would be impossible for them to be established in themselves as codes). This means that meaning is never independent.

Text and language can be used interchangeably. What stands for language stands for the text. 

A literary text is the construct of literary systems, codes, and traditions established by previous literary texts. For instance, there is no copyright infringement in using the expression "Once upon a time" at the beginning of a fairy tale or of the act of story telling because the expression has come to be a code as well as a cultural, a literary and a social property. Its use carries literary, cultural and social meanings for the reader. Every text is part of a literary tradition. Even texts reacting against a given literary tradition are compelled to use the existing literary codes to react against that tradition. For instance, James Joyce in his A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man reacts against traditions. However, he starts his novel with "Once upon a time". It is used as a sort of hint to that against which the text reacts.   

In that respect there is no such thing as 'source text' or 'original text'. Every text is an intertext because every text builds up on previous texts. Every text constructs its meaning only in relation to previous texts. No text carries its proper  independent meaning. No text is hermetically closed and self-sufficient. No text exists in a vacuum. No text is isolated. No text is original and unique in itself. 

The text's hermeneutics and its potential meanings can only be discovered by tracing the relations existing between that text and other texts that has gone before it. Meaning exists between a text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates. For such a reason, the meaning of a text can never be exhausted and stabilized. Ceaselessly new textual relations are discovered / created / possible:

According to Roland Barthes literary meaning can never be stabilized by the reader, since the literary work’s intertextual nature always leads reader on to new textual relations. As Barthes reminds us, the very word ‘text’ is, if we remember its original meanings, «a tissue, a woven fabric»: «We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning [...] but a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture...» 

Definition from the Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory:

A term coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966 to denote the interdependence of literary texts, the interdependence of any one literary text with all those that have gone before it. Her contention was that a literary text is not an isolated phenomenon but is made up of a mosaic of quotations, and that any text is the 'absorption and transformation of another'. she challenges traditional notions of literary influence, saying that intertextuality denotes a transposition of one or several sign systems into another or others. But this is not connected with the study of sources. 'Transposition' is a Freudian term, and Kristeva is pointing not merely to the way texts echo each other but to the way that discourses or sign systems are transposed into one another - so that meanings in one kind of discourse are overlaid with meanings from another kind of discourse. It is a kind of 'new articulation'. P424

Roland Barthes and the Death of the Author:

There are two axes to intertextuality:

As far as the author is concerned: The author, before being an author, is a reader. He, consciously or unconsciously brings his readings into his writing act. The writer reproduces, rewrites and renews old texts. There is no source text and thus no authorship. 

Any text is a new tissue of past citations. Bits of code, formulae, rhythmic models, fragments of social languages, etc., pass into the text and are redistributed within it, for there is always language before and around the text. Intertextuality, the condition of any text whatsoever, cannot, of course, be reduced to a problem of sources or influences; the intertext is a general field of anonymous formulae whose origin can scarcely ever be located; of unconscious or automatic quotations, given without quotation marks. ("Theory of the Text" 39).

As far as the reader is concerned: The text is what the reader makes it. In his act of reading, the reader establishes links between the text he is reading and other texts he has read in the past to give meaning to that text. The more links are established, the more the text is opened on and related to other texts, the richer in meaning it will be. 

It is not in the hand of the author to control how the reader will perceive his text. What counts is the point of view of the reader. The text belongs to a literary tradition as defined by the reader's reading background. The meanings that the reader will come to are forcefully dictated by his literary culture or his reading network. 

World Literature

World Literature is the circulation of national literatures beyond their national borders. It is the field of study that comparative literature investigates.

This definition makes it clear that World Literature and Comparative Literature are very close in nature. 

In her article "The Uses and Abuses of World Literature", Kate McInturff first defined World Literature by distinguishing it from Comparative Literature: 

This article is part of a current debate about the definitions of and differences between Compara- tive Literature and World Literature. However, the two terms were often used interchangeably in the nineteenth century. Even today, critics in both Comparative Literature and World Literature almost invariably cite Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur as a common foundation for their fields. A distinction can be made between a sphere of common cultural influence—a literature of the world—and a comparison of distinctive cultural spheres—a comparison of literatures. P225

While Comparative Literature is about the differences, World Literature is about the commonalities between all national literatures. It is concerned with that which is universal and common to all literatures.

Second, McInturff identified the core debate or a core tension in World Literature:

The tension between national and cosmopolitan interests is a common thread in these discussions—one that has its roots in the early formation of the field(s) P225 

World Literature, in its aspiration for universality, is composed of national literatures. This implies that World Literature is composed of two contradictory components, the national and the cosmopolitan (the universal / the international), which causes an inner tension within discussions about World Literature.

Third, McInturff exposed the different definitions that different scholars has attributed to World Literature based on that inner tension between the national and the cosmopolitan. Some scholars maintained a balance in their use of World Literature. Some others did not maintain the balance between the two contradictory components of world literature which caused them to misuse and abuse World Literature. Other scholars tried to restore the balance by correcting the abuse made to World Literature. 

1 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

‘National literature does not mean much at present, it is time for the era of world literature and everybody must endeavor to accelerate this epoch’ P225

‘it is not a matter of nations being obliged to think in unison; rather, they should become aware of and understand each other, and, if love proves impossible, they should at least learn to tolerate one another’ P225

While Goethe emphasizes the productive possibilities of an international community of writers and readers, he does so with the understanding that national identifications are still powerful. It is, in part, as a result of violent conflicts between nations that World Literature becomes possible. P225

Idealistically speaking, Goethe's views demonstrate a balance between the national and the cosmopolitan. While Goethe is the main figure in World Literature, he is not the first to have reflected about World Literature. However, his name is strongly linked to the concept of World Literature because he is the one to have developed it more than any of his predecessors. Even today World Literature is attributed to Goethe. It is Goethe's Weltliteratur. 

2 Frederich Schlegel: (balance)

Schlegel, like Goethe, acknowledges the power of popular investments in national literature. Schlegel’s formulation of literature in the interna- tional realm, in contrast to Goethe’s, emphasizes the status conferred to national literature through its contributions to World Literature. P225 

In Schlegel, World Literature does not lead to a dissolution of national boundaries as much as it leads to better relations at the border. P225

3 Johann Gottfreid Herder: (balance)

‘‘Goethe first described world literature as cross-cultural reception inside an evolving world history, a concept he (and others) found already developed by Johann Gottfreid Herder’’P226 

Herder emphasizes both the unity of humanity and the importance of national ‘‘climate’’ and character. P226

He argues for the fundamental importance of ‘‘climate’’ on the development of the distinctive cultures and languages that define communities as nations (284). Climate, for Herder, is not only literally the weather, but also the geographic terrain and the political and intellectual trends of the period.2 Thus, for Herder, the nation is the product of a chthonic relationship between a people and the climate they inhabit. The nation is also the product of the encounter of one community with others, over time. P226

The nation is both a group united by its relationship to its place, and also a product of heterogeneous influences—of ‘‘circumstances and occasions.’’ As Robert Young puts it, ‘‘Herder therefore speaks with a forked tongue: offering on the one hand rootedness, the organic unity of a people and their local, traditional culture, but also on the other hand the cultural education of the human race whereby the achievements of one culture are grafted on to another’’ P226-7

   

4 Matthew Arnold: (Abuse: world literature is limited to the contribution of western national literatures to the world. Western masterpieces earned the status of universality)

Arnold’s comments draw out a particular critical paradox. This paradox derives from a desire to affirm the value of the nation’s literary contributions in comparison with that of other nations, while maintaining that this affirmation is an objective one. P227

In Arnold, we find again the simultaneous emphasis on the unity of humanity and a recognition of distinctive differences be- tween cultures; contact with other cultures is productive precisely because those cultures are in some way unique. Arnold defines culture as the product of the dialectic of two racial strains: Hellenism and Hebraism. Arnold writes: ‘‘Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnant elements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a manner they make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary from those of a Semitic people. P227

National contributions to World Literature help to define that nation as civilized. The influence of one nation’s literature on others helps to define the nation’s capacity to civilize. P228

5 Edward Said: (Restoring the balance)

In Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, Said argues that European scholars generated a definition of European identity in relation to an image of an Oriental identity. However, in the arena of Comparative and World Literatures, the self and the other are more often both European. This is not to deny the power and scope of European readings of non-European cultures, but rather to claim that Europe itself was conceived of as a competitive-comparative realm. 

6 Richard Moulton: (Abuse)

In Moulton’s work, the national perspective of the critic is not elided. He writes in 1911, ‘‘I take a distinction between Universal Literature and World Literature. Universal Literature can only mean the sum total of all literatures. World Literature, as I use this term, is this Universal Literature seen in perspective from a given point of view, presumably the national standpoint of the observer’’ (Moulton 6). While clearly influenced by Matthew Arnold, Moulton makes a virtue rather than a vice of the national perspective point of the critic. What becomes clearer over the course of Moulton’s writing is that some national perspectives bring greater enlightenment than others. P232  

‘‘World Literature is the Autobiography of Civilisation’’ P232

7 Homi Bhabha: (Restoring the balance)

The study of world literature might be the study of the way in which cultures recognize themselves through their projections of ‘‘otherness.’’ Where the transmission of ‘‘national’’ traditions was once the major theme of a world literature perhaps we can now suggest that transnational histories of migrants, the colonized, or political refu- gees—these border and frontier conditions— may be the terrains of World Literature. The center of such a study would neither be the ‘‘sovereignty’’ of national cultures, nor the ‘‘universalism’’ of human culture, but a focus on those ‘‘freak displacements’’ . . . that have been caused within cultural lives of postcolonial societies. (‘‘The World and the Home’’ 146) P233


Bhabha’s World Literature is rather the defense of the migrant or, as he has written elsewhere, ‘‘culture’s in between,’’ against the nation’s self-declared centers. It is what Djelal Kadir has aptly termed a ‘‘hinternational’’ literature (245). P234

For Homi Bhabha, because the geopolitics of the world is different, so must be the tension or the debate in World Literature. It is not about the national vs. the universal any longer but rather about displaced cultures or cultures in between vs. self declared centers.