Important Moments in the Beginnings of Comparative Literature

Comparative literature has come a long way from strictly following the process of

comparing two or more literary texts to being the academic field which tackles literature

across national, geographic and disciplinary boundaries. It still is developing and improving

with respect to the diversity and complexity of literature and the history of it recalls a major

transformation from time to time. Literary texts exploring various cultural expressions,

belonging to different countries and languages are celebrated and studies as part of

comparative literature through different interactions, interests and comparative approaches.

As part of it, numerous writers from different parts of the world are inspired and influenced

by each other’s works that results in complex process of research and other studies that

focuses the text for its linguistic, literary and cultural qualities and limitations.

Even as the discipline of comparative literature still undergoes changes and additions

that bring new light to its definition and meaning, its equally relevant to understand and

remember the evolution of it. Tracing back the origin and history of the term, comparative

literature first appeared as a French expression, littérature compare in 1816. Two French

editors published Course de Littérature compare which is a series of anthologies from

French, classical and English literatures. With the published lectures delivered by Abel-

Francois Villmain, the comparison method of texts gained popularity which allowed the

encircling of various nation’s literatures. There were some success of comparative works

such as Georges Cuvier’s Anatomee Comparee or Joseph Marie Degerando’s Historie

Comparee des Systemes de Philosophie and that was possible because of the general

inclination which views comparison as a feasible way of shaping knowledge. The german

term “vergliechende Literaturgeschichte” was first appeared in a book by Moriz Carrierre in

1854. The first time in English, the term was used in 1848 in an unpublished letterby Mathew

Arnold who translated Ampere’s use of Histoire Comparative. Rene Wellek, eminent
European scholar who instigated the developments of comparative literature defined it as

study of relationship between two or more literatures but it has been interpreted and

misinterpreted from the early 19th century to present. According to him, the beginnings of the

discipline could be traced way back in 1820s and 30s in France.

In the European enlightenment period, the main thinkers and writers were John

Locke, Isaac newton, Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu and the period witnessed

reformations in the society, critical attitude towards religion etc. equality, morality and

fraternity were adopted as the moral and political agenda of enlightenment. There was a quest

for knowledge and reason, rationality and empiricism were given much significance. There

was logic and rationality in the service of regulation, control and domination of human

beings. Power of reason rose against superstition, myth and religion.

The counter enlightenment movements were a socio-political agenda to prove that

enlightenment happened in Europe without any protest. Although the first known use of the

term in English occurred in 1949 and there were several earlier uses of it, including one by

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the term "Counter-Enlightenment" is usually

associated with Isaiah Berlin, who is often credited for re-inventing it. Discussion of this

concept began with Isaiah Berlin's 1973 Essay, The Counter-Enlightenment. He published

widely about the Enlightenment and its challengers and did much to popularize the concept of

a Counter-Enlightenment movement that he characterized as relativist, anti-rationalist,

vitalist, and organic, which he associated most closely with German Romanticism.

The phase one of the beginnings of comparative literature is mostly a Franco- German

interphase and it also indicates the beginning of national literature. It consists of the first

organized reflections on the possibilities and problems of comparative studies. There were no

academic disciplinary settings. An increasing international literary world along with

classicism and modernity took over this phase. Arabic, Sanskrit and Chinese texts came to

Europe. Nation and national song acquired importance through out the first phase.

Comparative literature got accepted as a stream of study.

The early evolution of the discipline was mostly possible because of the rise in

nationalism which led to the usage of comparatism as a result of solidification of the

nationhood. This idea spearheaded the process of debunking the countrywide boundaries by

giving relevance to literature as cross-national discourse. The earlier notions of comparative

literature were more motivated to reveal the human ability to embrace truth and beauty

through the medium of literature.

Dante was the first to introduce a form of comparative philology in an academic

work. His work De Vulgari Eloquentia is an important attempt at usage of vernacular in

serious works of literature and he even used various Italian dialects to encourage a new

creation of national language. The battle between nationalism and universality could be

traced in important literary movements such as enlightenment and romanticism. Voltaire did

an attempt by employing an empirical form of comparatism in works such as Lettres

Philosophiques. The relativist perception bestowed on world literature and culture which was

poured in the writings was shaped into a systematic form by romanticism. Writings such as

History of the Poetry of Greeks and Romans, The lectures on History and Literature, On the

Language and Wisdoms of Indians are as many landmarks in the development of literary

history and comparative literature.

Second phase of comparative Literature began in the third quarter of the 19th century

which happened to be the first generation of academic study that included different programs

and journals in the name of comparative literature. It became a disciple when an academic

department was established but until then it was just a topic of interest and most discussions
were within the German and French enterprises. Various tensions between major and

minor(marginality) were discussed and the phase took advantage of the transnational context.

Hugo Metzl is the principal founder of the first journal of comparative literature

which was called Acta Comporotionis Literrarum Universarum. He is said to have

commanded a knowledge of English, Italian and French during his adult life. Polyglottismus

– perhaps the central feature of Metzl’s vision of comparative literature – was therefore a fact

of his biography. He assembled an editorial board from around the world and listed ten

official languages (Hungarian, German, French, English, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish,

Swedish, Dutch and Icelandic) for his journal. He believed that comparative literature should

provide equivalent attention to the world’s folk poetry as well and compared less spoken

languages to endangered species. Metzl did wide ranging efforts to promote a truly global

grasp of world literature both in theory and practice.

Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett was a pioneering scholar of comparative literature who

was deeply interested in the relation of literature to social life. The fruit of ten year’s labor

Comparative Literature was published in 1886, just after he sailed to New Zealand and this

move is considered as a move from the inner to the outer margins of British empire

expanding his global perspective. In his book, he devotes substantial space to not only to

western European literatures, Greek and roman but to many other literatures including

Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and east European literatures.

Posnett organized his globe spanning discussion by rigorous application of social science

methods of his day. Posnett derived this approach from the economist and political scientist

Herbert spencer, a social Darwinist who looked for evolutionary patterns in social life. He

argued comparative literature should be a scientific enterprise focused on broad literary and

social movements in opposition to being an appreciation of individual genius.

 Charles Mills Gayley was an influential figure for the establishment of comparative

literature in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. He was also a vigorous

proponent of the systematizing and scientific approach to comparative literature. In 1894, he

proposed the creation of a collaborative Society of Comparative Literature, each of whose

members should devote himself to the study of a given type or movement in a literature with

which he is specially, and at first hand, familiar, gradually building a massive database of

analysis from which future generations could discern the laws of genre and of literary

evolution. He is known for the positivist and systematic approach to comparative literature

and inclusion of oral literatures.

Philology is the study of the structure, history, common heritage and relationship of

language or languages. It has a Greek origin and it means love of words. Philology is more

commonly defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records, the

establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their

meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. The comparative

linguistics branch of philology studies the relationship between languages. Similarities

between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 16th century and led

to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. Pollock has

written about the history and current state of philology, both inside India and outside. In

Indian Philology and India's Philology he defines this current state as the practices of making

sense of texts. In Future Philology, he has called for practicing a "critical philology" which is

sensitive to different kinds of truths: the facts of a text's production and circulation, and the

various ways in which texts have been interpreted throughout history. In the introduction to

World Philology, he has also drawn attention to the diversity and longevity of philological

traditions in the world and argued for studying them comparatively.

 Philology was developed as a discipline during the European renaissance humanism.

Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy exposed the contradictions of classical notions of philology. In

his work Nietzsche argued how reason and rationality destroyed the classical Greek.

Weltliteratur was considered to be the beginning of a new paradigm with the decline of

philology. Goethe used the term Weltliteratur with two possible meanings. The first is related

to the world class literature which includes sectarian view privileging some acclaimed writers

from countries. The second one claims that every piece of literature is the property of this

world which is universalizing view.

Philology in post war Europe indicates a return to philology from world literature.

Eric Auerbach believed in the double-edged quality of the emerging world of postwar

modernity. Some scholars thought that it is necessary to go back to philology to trace the

roots of the nation and there is a kind of universality that destroys the multiplicity.

Tagore’s Vishwasahitya (world literature) advocated universality interaction between

literatures across and within cultures. They are against mainstreaming English. It highlights

the interaction between world literature.

Maxim Gorky, the Russian and soviet writer established the world literature

(Vserminaia Literatura) publishing house in 1918. He introduced the Russian people to “the

peculiarities of history, sociology and psychology of those nations and tribes with which the

USSR aspires to build new forms of social life”.