UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA. STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE Founded by Wernex P. FrrepeRici Editorial Committee EvoEve H. Fax, Editor Edwin L, Brown, Alfred G. Engstrom, George Gibian 0. B. Hardison, Aldo D. Scaglione, Joseph P. Strelka, Bruce W. Wardropper, Siegfried Wenzel Address Orders to ‘The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514 From Countries other than U.S. and Canada: Feffer & Simons, Inc 31 Union Square, New York, 10003 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: THE EARLY YEARS AN ANTHOLOGY OF ESSAYS Hans-Joacut Scuut, Purbutp H. RHEIN UNIVERSITA’ MA 7. UNGUE LEF. SHyANIA Rt iW. N 8 30 ‘The University of North Carolina Press 1978210 ‘GEORGE E, WOODRERRY Obvious, some ofthis enthusiasm carved over into the “Bat ‘ora’ of the Journal of Comparative Literature. “Americe’s fist Comparative Literature journal (1903) had a mas imprestve beginning. Along with J.B. Fetcher end the Bestknoun among his former students, JE. Spingan. Wood berry attracted a number of internationally known contributors Spingorn hinselp, whove History of Literary Grticam in the Renainance (1899) eitablished hi reputntin at home, and abroad, contibuied “Unpublished Letts of a Engioh He mmanst” ond a review eity on “Corncile and Sponith Drama” Benedetto Croce uscited his name with the new journal with an atile entitled “L'Umoriso,” and he had his Estetica re viewed. by George Santayana. The great Halian. compart Pietro Toldo wrote an ety on “Molere en Tile” anda book review for the Jounal, Finally, Femand Baldensperger opened the third numer with aitudy of "Le Moine de Lewis dana a itecrature”frangaise’"™ The Journal elo cortied scion of "Summerier of Pevidicl Literature” from Germany, Brance, Englond, Belgium, Holland and the Unied Stats, hich re ported on the current comparative reicarch in sich hindred Pero a Koc Zeca, Euporon, Rese des deux mmondes, Mercure de France, Contemporary and Edinburgh Re views, PMLA and others. ead : Due to franca difteutice, the Jousnal of Comparative Lter- ture ceed publication with ie fourth number, Had it continued tnd adhered to the exemplery standards which ts frst end only tolume st it would undoubtedly have played a hey vole in the tean yes that followed for Comporative Literature inthe Tnited States. GEORGE E, WoooBERRY au ‘The parts of the world draw together, and with them the parts of knowledge, slowly knitting into that one intellectual state which, above the sphere of politics and with no more institutional ‘machinery than tribunals of jurists and congresses of gentlemen, will be at last the true bond of all the world. The modern scholar shares more than other citizens in the benefits of this enlarge- ‘ment and intercommunication, this age equally of expansion and. concentration on the vast scale, this infinitely extended and int ‘mate commingling of the nations with one aaother and with the past; his ordinary mental experience includes more of race memory and of raceimagination than belonged to his predeces sors, and his outlook before and after is on greater horizons; he lives in a larger world—is, in fact, born no longer to the freedom of a city merely, however, noble, but co that new citizenship in the rising state which—the obscurer or brighter dream of all great scholars from Plato to Goethe—is without frontiers or race ‘or force, but there reason is supreme. “The comparative method, from which the study takes its name, is nothing new, nor is there anything novel in its application co literature, It is one of the common processes of all investigation, and has been used from the first in literary study. Literary his- tory could not be written, the traditions of literature could not bbe traced, without it; and, as has been frequently observed, Greek and Latin authors employed it, The comparative method. is the mother of all classicism. Ic is used within the limits of a single literature, as for example the English, whose coherence from Caedmon to Milton, from Cynewulf to Longfellow, from Malory to Tennyson, depends upon it. No ration, however, lives to itself alone; and just as political history, though written at first from within with scant reference to neighboring states, gradually came (0 include more knowledge of world-history, the212 GEORGE E, WOODRERRY place of the conflict and blending and re-birth of human ideas and race-passions and the upbuilding of the international ‘tate in a homogeneous civilization, so literary history has slowly en- larged its view, increased its accumulations, and become in each nation a chapter of the history of thought, of the development of the human spirit, in all nations. A professor of any national literature is incompletely equipped unless he knows also much of other literatures, though the fact is less recognized than in the ‘case of political history; instruction in literature generally is still parochial, as if our parish were all the world, Change, neverthe. less, is taking place; and thus it has come about that greater ac. quaintance has everywhere arisen with foreign literature, and with it as a natural consequence has come a new and powerful application of the method that is signalized by the rise of the study which has come to imply generally, though needlessly, the application of the method to two or more literatures, ‘The objects of its attention are easily enumerated. First, the ancestry of books shown either directly by definitely ascertained contact on the evidence of citation, quotation or adaptation, or ‘else indirectly in cases of formative or reactionary influence where the result is not a repetition more or less veiled of the original, bbut a new product: this is the study of sources. Second, the com: ‘mon matter of literature, either in simple forms, as in che ballad, for in complex forms, as in the so-called matter of Britain, matter of France, matter of Troy, with a view to displaying parallel developments of the same substance in different ages and coun: tries: this is the study of themes. Third, the structural modes of ‘expression, either strictly, as in the lyric, or more loosely in the use of alliteration and rhyme, with a view to displaying similarly parallel developments on the formal side: this is the study of forms. Fourth, the conditions, social, political or aesthetic, in- fluencing the treatment of matter and form, with a view to the scientific explanation of resemblances and differences in both: this is the study of environments. Fifth, the cognate matter and form of the plastic arts, with a view to analogies of treatment and expression: this isthe study of artistic parallels. Under these five groups most of the work thy A large amount of information has thus been accumulated with (GEORGE E. WoODBERRY 21s respect to particular authors, themes and moments; and the ques tion begins to be heard—what shall be done with this mass of detail, to what does it lead, for what will it serve? If literature be regarded as the expression of the human spirit, the student of Comparative Literature who holds fast to the per- spective of real values cannot be content with unsystematized Knowledge with regard to the international diffusion of litera ture, either through selected original authors, however centrally placed, or through the broad impact of foreign influences on a nation at large; nor can he be content either with similar knowl edge with regard to pazallel developments of theme and form, ‘The phenomena must be more deeply probed, if they are to yield a different kind of truth, such as the spiritual nature of literature demands, Investigation must turn to the reason of things, and leave the disparate facts more on one side assam fcrior matter; and the reason of things is found in of which the world as known to us is a cre "2 Hlowering forth, and most brilliantly so in the sphere of litera- ture, of art, of all that is involved in our study. Sainte-Beuve, as fa writer, was a psychologist; he set forth the psychology of indi- vidual writers and presented them as they were in the soul. A national historian of literature might thus set forth race- psychology, a world-historian might arrive a: human psychology in its elemental form. Though in this intellectual age the prin- le of relativity reigns supreme, the search. for the absolute is still the burden of man’s fate; the philosophic, poetic, creative mind cannot do other than follow on the old quest, however placidly the empiric, historical, receptive mind reposes in the relative; and although it is only the rarer mind that can so em- ploy itself, the unaccomplished task for the student of Compara tive Literature lies in the direction of the psychology of the races that have produced literature, and in < strict sense of their metaphysics, Tt appeats to me—and I speak with great modesty—that the study of forms should result in a canon of criticism, which would mean a new and greater classicism, having in its own evolution refining and ennobling infuences upon the work of original ‘genius and also upon public taste as curned to the masters of the past; and that the study of themes should reveal temperamen- tally, as form does structurally, the nature of the soul, and it is in temperament, in moods, that romanticism, which is the life of all literature, has its dvelling;place. To disclose the necessary214 (GEORGE E. WOODRERRY forms, the vital moods of the beautiful soul isthe far goal of our effort,—to help in this, in the bringing of but that the isolated phenomena of national literatures in themselves may offer more fruitful matter, because of their purity and in pro- Portion to it; and to such the approaching exploitation of the old literatures of the Orient, which isthe next great event in the literary history of the world, will afford much comfort for the very reason that they are free from our past, and will enric ‘unsuspected ways our material for investigation Such, briefly stated, is the feld occupied and unoccupied of Comparative Literature as it appears on the publication of this Journal. We desire to establish here a free exchange for the thought of all scholars interested in these studies in any of their many phases. We institute no reform; we are pledged to no single method of scholarship or kind of teaching, We gladly welcome all, at home and abroad, who are willing to contribute to the common stock of knowledge. Time only can determine what di- rection the study will finally take. For ourselves, we are the least of the company gathered about us, which is’ the guild of scholars impanelled from all nations, co-operating in the spirit of that great intellectual state I began by speaking of; and may the good will, at leat, of all true scholars go with us as we pass to our tial BENEDETTO CROCE Comparative Literature ‘Translated from La Critica, 1 (1908), 77-80 215