University of Oregon

Review
Author(s): Makoto Ueda
Review by: Makoto Ueda
Source: Comparative Literature, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer, 1993), pp. 287-288
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of Oregon
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771506
Accessed: 27-06-2016 02:29 UTC

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 BOOK REVIEWS

COMPARATIVE POETICS: AN INTERCULTURAL ESSAY ON THEORIES OF LITERATURE. By Earl

Miner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 259 p.

'Just as the feminist argument rests on the unshakable rock that justice be done to
that half of the race that bears us, so consideration of the other three-quarters or
four-fifths of the race must enter into any literary study denominating itself compara-
tive." With that declaration, Earl Miner in Comparative Poetics sets out to explore
both western and non-western literary traditions in search of poetics that would lay
claim to true universal validity. He is better qualified than most to undertake such an
ambitious exploration, for he has worked extensively in both English and east Asian
literatures all through his career. It is as if he were looking back on his own past
writings and trying to organize them into a coherent theory of literature. On the
other hand, the retrospective stance seems to have helped him to ascertain his liter-
ary taste with a greater conviction than ever before: the book, despite its theoretical
outlook, contains a number of highly personal statements that reflect his own likes
and dislikes.

The main body of the book, which follows an introductory chapter laying down
the ground rules, attempts to define the basic nature of three major literary genres.
For each genre the author sets up a couple of key concepts which he believes are
universal enough to be meaningfully applied to all literatures. In drama they are
"estrangement," a sense of distance from what we presume to be real, and "engage-
ment," a sense of involvement in what we know is not real. Lyric is seen as a genre
distinguished by "presence," an illusion of personally being at a specific temporal
point, and "intensification," a feeling of something universal and permanent being
condensed into that point. The essentials of the third genre, narrative, make a sharp
contrast with those of lyric, for they are "continuum," an extension of time that al-
lows a sequence of events to develop, and "fulfillment," a satisfying end that cuts off
that extension and makes it a meaningful whole. Drawing on his broad knowledge of
the world's literatures, Miner examines how those basic concepts and their corollar-
ies manifest themselves in a wide variety of works. Of course, anyone who attempts
this kind of comparative study must face problems of evaluation and judgment, of
setting up criteria that are at once unbiased and workable. The author is aware of the
problems and discusses them in the concluding chapter, entitled "Relativism."
Miner's ultimate goal, however, is not so much to elucidate the features of indi-
vidual genres as to seek out an intercultural theory of literature that can be founded
on them. He repeatedly brings up the question: How does a poetics derived from
intercultural comparisons differ from a poetics founded on western culture alone?
He tries to answer the question at various points in the book, mainly through com-
parisons between European and east Asian literatures. He observes, for instance,
that western theories of literature are by and large based on mimetic assumptions,
whereas their east Asian counterparts are dominated by factual presumptions.
Whereas critics in east Asia have always paid high respect to the poet in their reading
of a poem, westerners' tendency to distrust "the author" has led to the concept of
"intentional fallacy" and finally to Deconstructionism. The idea of the narrative

287

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

point of view may not be as widely applicable as western theorists may believe, for
narratives in east Asia make more use of the "point of attention," the focal point of
what is seen and narrated. According to Miner, these and other differences are ob-
servable between western and non-western theories of literature mainly because
Aristotle's poetics, the foundation of all European theories, was built on drama. By
contrast, major non-western theories of literature had their origins in lyric poetry.
One may argue that many of Miner's points have been made by other comparatists
before, albeit in different terms. Yet one would have to agree that they have seldom
been made in a context as general and comprehensive as his. Specific comparisons
he makes in support of his contentions are often original and revealing. For ex-
ample, in order to show how the point of attention can be manipulated for a
narrative purpose, Miner first discusses a brief scene in Jane Austen's Persuasion,
then analyzes long passages from The Diary of Izumi Shikibu and The Tale of Genji,
and finally compares them to a paragraph in HenryJames's What Maisie Knew. On
another occasion he juxtaposes a classical Chinese lyric, Tennyson's The Princess, a
poem by Emily Dickinson, and two tanka by Fujiwara Teika, thereby illustrating how
poems dissimilar in language and cultural background can share the common pur-
pose of lyric intensification. Miner's interpretive comments on these and many other
examples are laden with original insights made from a viewpoint that goes well be-
yond the borders of western culture.
For a book of poetics, Comparative Poetics is not as tightly structured or neatly sys-
tematic as one might expect. It is, rather, a book that makes its points by raising
important issues for debate. Because the amount of material covered is so vast, and
because the author is not timid in making large generalizations, readers are likely to
find a point of disagreement here and there. I was not totally convinced when I was
told, for instance, that there is noJapanese didactic literature of importance (p. 129)
or that in east Asia narrative affiliations with lyric and drama are not to be sought in
verse narrative (p. 178). Yet, problems of relativism aside, such intercultural gener-
alizations have the effect of leading us to ponder critical issues at a level free from
ethnocentricism. All comparatists, no matter what specific disagreements they may
have with Miner, will find it difficult to dismiss the sentence with which he concludes
the book: "The great gain from intercultural comparative study is that it avoids tak-
ing the local for the universal, the momentary for the constant and, above all, the
familiar for the inevitable."

MAKOTO UEDA

Stanford University

SIDNEY AND SPENSER: THE POET AS MAKER. By S. K. Heninger, Jr. University Park and
London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989. xiii, 646 p.

S. K. Heninger's Sidney and Spenseris an ambitious work. This lengthy exploration

of the literary and intellectual connections between the two major non-dramatic
writers of the sixteenth century addresses an important subject never before so fully
explored. Heninger also assigns their work a pivotal role in literary history, claiming
that it reflects a shift from allegorical formalism to fictional imitation of "the world
that lies open to our senses" (p. 64). This development is linked, in turn, to a larger,
more "radical shift in the prevailing ontology of our culture" (p. 62) away from an
ethereal Christian platonism and toward a materialistic and empirical aristo-
telianism. Professor Heninger takes on a vast and fascinating subject, and he is well

288

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