University of Oregon

Of Walls and Windows: What German Studies and Comparative Literature Can Offer Each
Other
Author(s): Gail Finney
Source: Comparative Literature, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 259-266
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of Oregon
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GAIL FINNEY

Of Walls and Windows: What

German Studies and Comparative
Literature Can Offer Each Other
Although this essay will focus on German studies, the case of
German is in many ways representative of the situations of other
European languages or commonly taught languages, as contrasted
with so-called "critical" languages such as Sanskrit, Urdu, or
Basque. Moreover, if current enrollment trends continue, as documented for instance by Bettina Huber and Richard Brod in the
Winter 1997 issue of the ADFL Bulletin (55), German, along with
Russian, Italian, Latin, and even French, may soon become "critical" languages, i.e. taught only rarely. Some of the following remarks will touch on ways we might prevent, and are already working to prevent, this development from occurring.
The image of walls in the title of this essay is meant to allude to
the occasional insularity, even chauvinism, of German as a literary
discipline. There have been times when the study of German literary history (Germanistik) has built walls around itself, walls impenetrable or at best impermeable, for example, during the
Wilhelmine era (the period from 1871, when the first German nation was founded with Bismarck as chancellor and Wilhelm I as
emperor, to the beginning of World War I) and beyond. The chauvinistic character of much of German literary history in this period
is perhaps not surprising in view of the belated unification of Germany: there had never been a consolidated German state prior to
1871. This fact has typically been used to explain multiple facets of
German history, not least the rise of fascism, as follows: because
German nationalism had been frustrated for so long, after unification was finally achieved in 1871, there followed a process of overcompensation, or making up for lost time, that eventually resulted
in National Socialism. This theory is supported by the analogous
example of Italy, which also witnessed the rise of fascism in the
twentieth century following the belated attainment of nationhood
in the nineteenth century.
Aesthetically speaking, we find a corresponding desire in
Wilhelmine Germany to build up and maintain a nationally-oriented discipline of German literary history. Already in 1887, when
the Zeitschrift fiur vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte (Journal of Com-

parative Literary History) was founded, its editor Max Koch stipu-

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE / 260

lated that German literature should be the point of departure for

and the central focus of comparative studies in the journal
(Konstantinovic 58). Similarly, the literary scholar Julius Petersen
suggests in his 1928 article "Nationale oder vergleichende
Literaturgeschichte?" ("National or Comparative Literary History?") that the purpose of the comparative perspective is to identify the national character of German literary history (48).
As one might expect, such value judgments are even more pronounced during the Third Reich, where we find the literary
scholar Kurt Wais writing in 1934 (the year after Hitler's assumption of power) that comparative literature should serve as an aid in
discovering the spirit of the Volk,which is for him the "true source
of genuine literature" (original cited by Konstantinovic 58). Cosmopolitan thinking takes a back seat to the celebration of all
things Germanic; as Ulrich Weisstein sums up the situation of fascist Germany in his still useful study, Comparative Literature and Lit-

erary Theory, "How could Comparative Literature flourish in a

country in which the plays of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Eugene
O'Neill were banned from the stage, and where the novels of the
great French and Russian writers were no longer accessible?"

(200).
The case of Nazi Germany is of course an extreme one; this kind
of national chauvinism has not been the rule in the history of German literary studies. Not only during the period since World War
II but also during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
the discipline of literary studies in Germany was more receptive to
other national literatures and to what we today call comparative
literature than it was during the period from 1870 to 1945 and
than are numerous other national traditions today. Windows were
opened, as it were, through which influences from the outside
could enter. An autobiographical detail is perhaps relevant here:
as a Ph.D. in comparative literature with German emphasis, my
experience on the job market, both in the late 1970s and in the
late 1980s, demonstrated that in general German departments
look more favorably on job candidates with doctorates in comparative literature than do many other national literary departments, notably English and French.
This receptiveness has historical roots. In the early nineteenth
century, for example, both August Wilhelm and Friedrich
Schlegel made quite a splash in Vienna with their lectures on
world literature, which were enthusiastically received and became
famous (Weisstein 185). In 1808 August lectured on "Dramatic Art
and Literature," treating a range of national traditions of European theater from the ancient Greeks to the eighteenth century,
and in 1812 Friedrich delivered a series of lectures on the "History
of Literature, Ancient and Modern," which manifested similar

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WALLSAND WINDOWS/ 261

breadth, both temporally and geographically, and even included

consideration of Indian literature and religion.
The best-known, most often cited example of the cosmopolitan,
comparative orientation of many German writers and thinkers in
the early nineteenth century is of course Goethe, who with his notion of Weltliteratur,or world literature, in essence invented comparative literature. This concept occupied Goethe frequently during the last ten years of his life (the 1820s), and, although he never
offered a short definition of the term, Fritz Strich has synthesized
a definition from Goethe's writings on the subject. World literature is the literature that links national literatures; it is a literary
bridge, a form of intellectual barter, a literary market with intellectual commodities (Goethe himself used the metaphor of trade
and commerce; Strich 5). The purpose of this "intellectual conversation" (Strich 5) is that writers living in different nations should
"notice and understand each other, and, if they do not wish to love
each other, at least learn how to tolerate one another" (qtd. in
Weisstein 18). One is reminded of the phrase often misquoted
from Madam de Stail's Corinne, "Tout comprendre, c'est tout
pardonner" ("To understand everything is to forgive everything").
(In fact the original reads, "Tout comprendre rend tres indulgent." ["To understand everything makes one very indulgent."])
Goethe's formulations reflect the fact that a significant motivation for the promotion of world literature was the Napoleonic
Wars. But the harmonizing function that Goethe ascribes to world
literature is still operative today. To put it bluntly, the more alien a
culture is, the easier it is to bomb it (or napalm it, as the case may
be). For Goethe the purpose of world literature is to foster the
growth of a common humanity, to advance human civilization
(Strich 12-13) by, as is often the case with comparative literature
today, bringing out not only the national characteristics but also
the unifying, "universal" features of different national literatures
(Strich 10). For Goethe, translation is an important instrument of
world literature, since it transcends national boundaries (this is a
more controversial issue for comparative studies today, as I will
indicate later). In Goethe's opinion, world literature also involves
physically crossing these boundaries, traveling to foreign countries, getting to know the inhabitants of other nations as well as
their literature. But it is important to note that for Goethe, world
literature meant only European literature, a fact that significantly
differentiates his enterprise from the discipline of comparative literature today.
The receptiveness of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German culture to world literature is no accident; it has much
to do with particularism-Germany's status as a conglomeration
of many small states rather than as a united nation. Goethe sum-

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE / 262

marizes the causal relationship in his 1795 essay "Literarischer

Sansculottismus" ("The Production of a National Classic"). In the
absence of an actual nation and a national center in which the best
minds could assemble to develop imitable models, without a national literary canon and a national style, in the face of what was
perceived as the poverty of German history and the resulting scarcity of national themes, Goethe and his contemporaries were
forced to be eclectic, to look to other nations and eras for their
subjects, for instance to classical Greek and Latin models. This reaction was responsible in large part for Weimar Classicism, or
Germany's belated renaissance, which was dominated by Goethe
and Schiller.
It is the two modes I have outlined-literary
parochialism or
even chauvinism on the one hand versus cosmopolitanism and a
receptiveness to the literature of non-German cultures on the
other hand-which my title image of walls versus windows is intended metaphorically to capture. For those who like alliterative
pairings, these attitudes could be epitomized in the pair Bismarck
versus Benjamin (the embodiment of Prussian nationalism and
militarism versus the critic Walter Benjamin, who often referred to
other cultures, above all French, in his writing), or even Hitler versus Heine (Heinrich Heine having spent much of his life in exile
in France and in a love-hate relationship with Germany). It is no
accident that both representatives of cosmopolitanism, Benjamin
and Heine, are Jewish, Jewishness being the fatal emblem of Otherness for many Germans throughout their history.
Parochialism and cosmopolitanism tend to exist side by side or
to alternate throughout much of German history. Since the Second World War, however, the latter attitude appears to be gaining
support, at least in the academy. Following the war chairs for comparative literature

(Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft) were estab-

lished at several German universities, notably Mainz, Bonn, and

Berlin. Scholars like Horst Riidiger, Walter H611erer, and
Eberhard Limmert established themselves as comparatists. Although these programs were highly occidental, even European, in
orientation, I mention them because they indirectly left their
mark on early comparative literature departments in the U.S.,
which were founded in part by emigres, many of them scholars
from Germany.
Against this background I would like to suggest how the street
connecting German and comparative literature can now be decidedly two-way, how German can give to comparative literature as
much as this brief history shows comparative literature has given
to German. But as my title indicates, I would like in doing this to
substitute the designation "German Studies" for German, to advocate, in other words, that the study of German literature be supple-

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WALLSAND WINDOWS/ 263

mented by the study of other facets of German thought, such as

history, philosophy, sociology, art history, film studies, and so
forth. In addition to offering intellectual expansion, this kind of
move toward interdisciplinarity, now in evidence in many American universities, can work to combat the problem of declining enrollments mentioned at the outset of this article.
As a paradigmatic illustration of what German Studies can offer
comparative literature, of ways in which German Studies material
can be placed at the center of comparative enterprises, I will mention only three words: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud. Marx can stand as
the tag word for an approach that considers the role of socioeconomic factors in literature and brings economic history into contact with literary studies and comparative literature. The importance of German philosophy for comparative literature might be
epitomized in Nietzsche's enormous influence on twentieth-century philosophy, literature, literary theory, and political thought.
To cite a concrete example of this kind of conjunction, I have
taught a comparative literature course on Nietzsche's impact on
twentieth-century literature and literary theory, which treats,
along with major writings of Nietzsche, texts from several national
literary traditions as well as a range of literary theorists. Similarly,
a graduate seminar taught in Harvard's Department of Comparative Literature by Michel Chaouli uses a detailed reading of Kant's
CritiqueofJudgmentto introduce students to concepts of aesthetics
and to the philosophical, critical, and political uses to which aesthetics can be put. Other readings in the seminar include works by
Arendt, de Man, Gadamer, Lyotard, Novalis, Schelling, Schiller,
Friedrich Schlegel, Derrida, Deleuze, and Bourdieu. The name
Freud of course invokes the multifaceted relationship of literature
and psychoanalysis.
I would now like to widen my angle of focus in order to bring up
a further issue that concerns not only German and not only comparative literature, but other national, non-English literary traditions as well. The courses to which I have just referred"Nietzsche and the Twentieth Century," "Introduction to Modern
Aesthetics"-can be viewed as examples of a current trend in the
American academy, a trend in which broadening is on the rise (to
mix horizontal and vertical metaphors). They are products of an
impulse that has led us to teach and write about not only one literary tradition, but several; not only one discipline-literature-but
many (reflected in the designation "interdisciplinary" or in the
"Studies" component of "German Studies," "French Studies,"
etc.); and not only a few writers but an entire culture or social
group. The ramifications of the last area of activity, cultural studies, for German Studies are explored in the volume German Cultural Studies: An Introduction. In the introduction to that volume

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COMPARATIVE
LITERATURE/ 264

Rob Burns writes the following:

In Britain cultural studies originated with the attempts by Richard Hoggart and,
above all, Raymond Williams to shift the critical focus from the one meaning of
the term to the other: from the traditional, narrow view of culture as coterminous
with the arts to the broad, anthropological and extended sociological use of the

word to indicate a "wholewayof life," the entire mental and material habitat of a
distinct people or other social group.
(1)

Burns then argues that the development of German Cultural

Studies was significantly influenced by the thinking of the Frankfurt School, particularly the notion of the culture industry-the
capitalist industrialization of culture and its strategies of manipulation and deception (Burns 2-8)-developed
in Adorno's and
Horkheimer's

seminal

work Dialectic

of Enlightenment

(1944).

Whether one agrees with Burns or not, it should be clear that

courses like "Nietzsche and the Twentieth Century" or "Introduction to Modern Aesthetics" belong neither to German Studies nor
to German Cultural Studies; they are comparative literature
courses centered on material from German Studies.
But on this new playing field, where literary texts are not the
sole object of study, how important is it that we read works in the
original language? This question has received much attention of
late. Given the problem of dropping enrollments I alluded to at
the beginning of this essay, I suspect that many in this profession
who work in at least one non-English literature have been caught
at one time or another between the Scylla of a program that seems
to offer an uncomfortably high number of courses in English
translation-how rigorous is such an education in a foreign literature, one asks?-and the Charybdis of underenrolled or cancelled
classes taught in the original foreign language. (I would guess that
people who have not found themselves in this position probably
work in Spanish as their principal area.) How do we keep our bilingual or polylingual heads when all those around us, especially
administrators, are losing theirs? Or do we really want to?
To confront, rather than answer, this question, I will touch on
two sites of debate regarding this issue, Hinrich Seeba's article
"Cultural versus Linguistic Competence," which appeared in a
special issue of The GermanQuarterlyon "Culture Studies" (another
designation for Cultural Studies), and the volume ComparativeLiterature in the Age of Multiculturalism, edited by Charles Bernheimer.

In the first of these, Seeba, a professor of German at the University

of California at Berkeley, quite rightly calls attention to the provincialism and fear of bilingualism typical of American culture; he
emphasizes the interdependence of language and thought, surveys the history of the idea-prominent in the German traditionthat language indeed determines thought, and points out the
paradoxical fact that "the more academic programs in the hu-

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WALLS AND WINDOWS / 265

manities

embrace

the cultural

turn of their disciplines

the

more they tend to move away from the particular language whose
instruction was their original raison d'etre" (404). Seeba argues
for the importance of maintaining German in German Cultural
Studies, for making sure that linguistic competence in German remains the conditio sine qua non for cultural competence and intercultural criticism (410).
I would like to second the points Seeba makes but also to observe that, just as life consists of compromise, so too does our profession. When we talk about cultural competence, it is I think expedient to differentiate among kinds of cultural documents. The
question of language in literary texts is clearly different from that
question in other forms of writing; this readership does not need
to be reminded that a literary text is an aesthetic construct in
which every word plays a role, in which form (in the original language) and substance are closely interrelated. The original wording of a Kleist story matters in a way that the language of a work by
Kant or Marx might not. Not that I am making light of anyone who
learned German in order to read Kant or Marx or Nietzsche or
Freud in the original-but my point should be clear. For an analogous distinction I will call to witness the 1993 "Bernheimer Report: Comparative Literature at the Turn of the Century," which,
even though it casts its net fairly widely in defining comparative
literature, differentiates comparative literature from cultural studies in part on the basis of language: most scholarship in cultural
studies has tended to be monolingual (45).
A parallel exists between this hybrid practice-the
attempt to
maintain the use of German in the study of literature though not
necessarily in the study of other cultural documents-and the situation of comparative literature: we teachers and advanced students of comparative literature read works in the languages we
know in the original, but this should not prevent us from reading
and using other literary texts in translation in our teaching and
scholarship. I share the attitude of Mary Louise Pratt, who in her
response to the Bernheimer Report encourages us not only to condone but to welcome the opportunities to discover, through reading in translation, the as yet unexplored cultures that the increasing globalization of scholarly networks opens up to us (61-62).
In conclusion, as should by now be evident, I do not think we
should fortify the walls that enclose and protect both linguistic
and disciplinary parochialism, but I would also oppose knocking
them down entirely.
University of California, Davis

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COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

/ 266

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