Unit 2: Comparative Literature

  Hello readers!

I am Nidhi Jethava and I am a student of MK Bhavnagar University department of English. As a part of our syllabus, we have one paper on 'Comparative Literature Studies and Translation Studies.' So in this paper, I am going to summarize the second unit's article.

Susan Bassnett, “What is Comparative Literature Today?” Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. 1993.

1) Abstract 

There have been various definitions of comparative literature, which greatly varies from one scholar to another, but they all agree that it is one of the most modern literary sciences. Throughout the past two decades, new critical theories, such as gender-based criticism, translation studies, deconstruction and Orientalism, have changed approaches to literature and accordingly have had a profound impact on the work of the comparatists. Sooner or later, anyone who claims to be working in comparative literature has to try and answer the inevitable question : What is it ? The simplest answer is that comparative literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that it is interdisciplinary and that it is concerned with patterns of connection in literature across both time and space.( Bassnett, p.1) "Everywhere there is connection, everywhere there is illustration," as Matthew Arnold puts it. According to Susan Bassnett, everybody who is interested in books is on the path to comparative literature.  We come upon Boccaccio while reading Chaucer. Shakespeare's primary materials may be traced back to Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian. We can see how Baudelaire's affinity for Edgar Allan Poe influenced his own writing. Consider how many English authors learnt from the great Russian writers of the nineteenth century. We may compare James Joyce's borrowing and lending to Italo Svevo. Clarice Lispector reminds us of Jean Rhys, who in turn reminds us of Djuna Barnes and Anais Nin.

2) Key Arguments

● Comparative Literature revolves around the study of literature outside the borders of one particular culture, the study of relations between literature on the one hand and other areas of human expression such as philosophy on the other hand. Critics have also related it to history as it examines the convergence (junction) of different literatures and its historical aspects of influence, considering that Comparative Literature is the essence of the history of literature, beyond the scope of one culture or language

 ● Another arguments is there west students of 1960 claimed that comparative literature could be put in single boundaries for comparative literature study, but she says that there is no particular method used for claiming.

 ● Critics at the end of the twentieth century,in the age of postmodernism,still wrestle with the same questions that were posed more than a century ago :

1. What is the object of the study in comparative literature? 

1. How can comparison be the objective of anything? 

1. If individual literatures have canon, what might a comparative canon be? 

1. How can be comparatist select what to compare ? 

1. Is comparative literature a discipline? Or is it simply a field of study ?

3) Main Analysis

● A comparative analysis involves an interdisciplinary study of texts across cultures, as it is concerned in connecting different works of literature across both time and space. Hence, it requires moving beyond the boundaries of a single subject area to find out how texts, authors or cultural contexts are related. Matthew Arnold propounds that no single literature is adequately comprehended except in connection to other literatures. “Everywhere there is connection, everywhere there is illustration.No single event,no single literature is adequately comprehend except in relation to other events,to other literature.” (Arnold,1857).

● Comparative Literature is an inevitable stage in reading. To conduct a comparative analysis you should have already read for different prominent writers, for instance: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Poe, Joyce, etc. Reading extensively means that you will be able to move across any frontiers as noted by Goethe through which you will be able to perceive culture differences. “Comparative Literature …will make high demands on the linguistic proficiencies of our scholars.It asks for a widening of perspectives, a suppression of local and provincial sentiments,not easy to achieve.”(Wellek and Warren,1949)

● Wellek and Warren go on to state that, “Literature is one; as art and humanity are one.”It is an idealistic vision that recurs in the aftermath of major international crises. 

● The focus is no longer comparing texts and tracking patterns of influence, besides, new theories emerged like: Structuralism, deconstructionism, semiology, psychoanalysis, etc. 

● The Eurocentric CL studies, which focused only on the ideal of universalism, the third world schools have turned to focus on the specificity of national literatures and directly influenced the rise of nationalism and the interest in cultural identity. The West started to be scrutinized from without from a radical alternative perspective. African, Indian and Caribbean comparatists have refused the denial of their cultural and literary history.

● The 'Myth of the Other' emerged and the concept of 'Great Literature' has become questioned. Comparative Literature has developed globally as a result of the mounting national consciousness of the need to move beyond the colonial legacy. Shakespeare in India represented the representative of colonial values and thus it is not easy to treat his literature comparatively. 

● Comparative Literature, cross-cultural criticism, has lost ground in the West and it is no longer a binary study as many comparatists are approaching many challenges and it is being compared to translation studies, which are significantly important at times of great cultural changes. The long unresolved debate is on whether CL is or is not a discipline in its own right.

● According to Ganesh Devy, comparative literature in India is inextricably related to the birth of modern Indian nationalism. He observes that comparative literature has been utilised to assert national cultural identity. 

● There is no notion here that national literature and comparative literature are irreconcilable. The argument is significant because it helps to remind us of the roots of the word Comparative Literature in Europe, a phrase that originally originated during a period of national conflict, when new limits were being established.

 ● The issue of national culture and identity was then debated throughout Europe and the United States

4) Conclusion

● Translation Studies has progressed to the point that many people regard it as a distinct field in its own right. Work in linguistics, literary studies, history, anthropology, psychology, and sociology all contribute to Translation Studies. It makes the daring claim that translation is not a peripheral activity, but rather a key shaping agent for change in cultural history. Translation has historically been claimed as a sub-category in comparative literature, although this assumption is currently being challenged. 

● Scholars including such Toury, Lefevere, Hermans, Lambert, and others have demonstrated that translation is especially important at times of tremendous cultural upheaval. According to Evan-Zohar, substantial translation activity occurs when a civilization is in transition. However, when a culture feels it is dominating, translation becomes less necessary. Whereas comparative literature inside the West is moving backwards, translation studies is gaining strength.

Work Cited: 

● Asaad, Sondoss Al. “Summary Of Susan Bassnett's A Critical Introduction To Comparative Literature | Sondoss Al Asaad - Academia.edu.” Summary Of Susan Bassnett's A Critical Introduction To Comparative Literature | Sondoss Al Asaad - Academia.edu, Www.academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/40176264/Summary_of_Susan_Bassnetts_A_Critical_In troduction_to_Comparative_Literature.

 ● Bassnett, Susan. “Comparative Literature A Critical Introduction.” "Introduction : What Is Comparative Literature Today ?" , 1993. 

● Wellek, and Warren. Theory Of Literature , 1949 ( Content is taken from Jignesh Pamchasra and Riddhi Bhatt’s PPT)

 Todd Presner, ‘Comparative Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities: On Possible Futures for a Discipline’ in Ali Behdad and Thomas eds. A Companion to Comparative Literature’ 2011, 193- 207

1) Abstract

After five hundred years of print and the massive transformations in society and  culture that it unleashed, we are in the midst of another watershed moment in human  history that is on par with the invention of the printing press or perhaps the discovery  of the New World. This article focuses on the questions like  it is essential that humanists assert and insert themselves into  the twenty - first century cultural wars, which are largely being defined, fought, and  won by corporate interests.

2) Key Arguments

Why, for example, were humanists, foundations, and  universities conspicuously – even scandalously – silent when Google won its book  search lawsuit and, effectively, won the right to transfer copyright of orphaned books  to itself? Why were they silent when the likes of Sony and Disney essentially engineered the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, radically restricting intellectual property, copyright, and sharing? The Manifesto is a call to Humanists for a much deeper  engagement with digital culture production, publishing, access, and ownership. If  new technologies are dominated and controlled by corporate and entertainment inter ests, how will our cultural legacy be rendered in new media formats? By whom and  for whom?

• Comparative Literature since they raise questions that have formed  the methodological, disciplinary, and institutional foundation of a wide - range of  academic fi elds in the Humanities, including history and art history, literary and  cultural studies, and the humanistic social sciences, such as anthropology, archaeology,  and information studies

•  If  new technologies are dominated and controlled by corporate and entertainment inter ests, how will our cultural legacy be rendered in new media formats? By whom and  for whom? These are questions that Humanists must urgently ask and answer.

• The question that we need to confront in the fourth information age concerns  the specifi city of the digital medium vis - à - vis other media formats, the various kinds  of cultural knowledge produced, the ways of analyzing it, the various platforms that  support it, and, fi nally, the modes of authorship and reception that facilitate new  architectures of participation and new architectures of power. 

• Who is an author? What is a work? What constitutes a text, particularly  in an environment in which any text is readerly and writerly by potentially anyone?

• Comparative Media Studies  thus enables us to return to some of the most fundamental questions of our fi eld with  new urgency: Who is an author? What is a work? What constitutes a text, particularly  in an environment in which any text is readerly and writerly by potentially anyone? 

• Google has already digitized and indexed more than ten million books, allowing  scholars to perform ever - more complex searches, discover patterns, and potentially  export large datasets derived from the digital book repository into other applications  (such as Geographic Information Systems) in order to pursue quantitative questions  such as statistical correlations, publishing histories, and semantic analyses as well as  qualitative, hermeneutical questions. Spurred by the work of Lev Manovich and Noah  Wardrip - Fruin, the fi eld of “ cultural analytics ” has emerged over the past fi ve years  to bring the tools of high - end computational analysis and data visualization to dissect  large - scale cultural datasets. 8 Such datasets might include historical data that have been digitized, such as every shot in the fi lms of Vertov or Eisenstein, the covers and  content of every magazine published in the United States in the twentieth century,  or the collected works of Milton, not to mention contemporary, real - time data fl ows  such as tweets, SMS messaging, or search trends. Because meaning, argumentation,  and interpretative work are not limited to the “ insides ” of texts or necessarily even  require “ close ” readings, Comparative Data Studies allows us to use the computational  tools of cultural analytics to enhance literary scholarship precisely by creating models,  visualizations, maps, and semantic webs of data that are simply too large to read or  comprehend using unaided human faculties. My point here is not to pitch “ close ”  hermeneutical readings against “ distant ” data mappings, but rather to appreciate the  synergistic possibilities between a hyper - localized, deep analysis and a macrocosmic  view

3) Main Analysis

• Comparative Media Studies 

For Nelson, a hypertext is a:-

Body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could  not conveniently be presented or represented on paper [ … ] Such a system could grow  indefinitely, gradually including more and more of the world ’ s written knowledge.   (Nelson, 2004: pp. 134 – 145)

• Comparative Authorship and Platform Studies

James Boyle points out, there are many corporate entities eager to regulate the public domain and control the “ commons of the mind. ” 10 For Boyle, the real  danger is not unauthorized file sharing but “ failed sharing ” due to enclosures and  strictures placed upon the world of the creative commons (Boyle, 2008 : p. 182). Scholars such as McKenzie Wark and  Kathleen Fitzpatrick have even “ published ” early versions of their entire books on  Commentpress.

Comparative Data Studies:-

Lev Manovich and Noah  Wardrip - Fruin, the field of “ cultural analytics ” has emerged over the past five years  to bring the tools of high - end computational analysis and data visualization to dissect  large - scale cultural datasets. Jerome McGann argues with  regard to the first in his elegant analysis of “ radiant textuality, ” the differences  between the codex and the electronic versions of the Oxford English Dictionary.

4) Conclusion

This article mainly focuses on this twenty-first century in terms of digital humanities how we are doing comparative studies. After discussing various arguments, we come to know that to date, it has more than three million content pages, more than three hundred  million edits, over ten million registered users, and articles in forty - seven languages  (Wikipedia Statistics). This is a massive achievement for eight years of work. Wikipedia  represents a dynamic, flexible, and open - ended network for knowledge creation and  distribution that underscores process, collaboration, access, interactivity, and creativity, with an editing model and versioning system that documents every contingent  decision made by every contributing author. At this moment in its short life, Wikipedia  is already the most comprehensive, representative, and pervasive participatory platform for knowledge production ever created by humankind. In my opinion, that is  worth some pause and reflection, perhaps even by scholars in a future disciplinary  incarnation of Comparative Literature.

Work Cited: 

Presner, Todd. “Comparative Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities: On Possible Futures for a Discipline.” 2011, p. 16. 

Thank You