This document provides background information and definitions of comparative literature. It discusses the origins of comparative literature in the 19th century and how it was later institutionalized in universities. Comparative literature is defined as the study of literature across borders, languages, genres, and disciplines. The document outlines different schools of comparative literature such as the French, American, and Russian schools and their approaches. It also covers the scope, functions, and purposes of comparative literature, which include understanding other cultures and literary influences from a broader context.

1. Faculty of Humanities
Department of English Language and Literature
Post Graduate Program
English Literature Ph.D. Program
Bahir Dar University
Presentation for the course Approach to Comparative
Literature(Lite- 704)
Title: Concepts/ Definations and Function of
Comparative Literature
By: Dawit Dibekulu Alem
June, 2022
Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

2. Outlines
• Comparative literature:
Background
Definition
Scopes
Function
Reasons to compare

3. Backgrounds of Comparative Literature
• This term was coined at the beginning of the 19th C and
continues still today.
• According to Harvard comparatist Jan M. Ziolkowski, the
term comparative literature first appeared as a French
expression, littérature comparée, in 1816.
• It was latter adopted , by the famous Victorian poet and
literary critic Matthew Arnold, 1857.
• He used the term to refer to comparing literary works across
languages and across cultures.
• He says...
– “Everywhere there is connection. Everywhere there is
illustration. No single event, no single literature is adequately
comprehended except in relation to other events, to other
literatures.”

4. ...cont’d
• By the 1890s, the comparative study of literature had been
institutionalized in a variety of European and American
universities.
• The word ‘comparative’ originates from the Latin
“comparare” derivation of par = equal, with prefix com-, it
is a systematic comparison.
• It is defined in Oxford English Dictionary as:
 ‘ involving comparison between two or more
subjects or branches of sciences’.
• In the broadest sense : comparison is the literary process
which enables us to perceive similarities and differences.
• CL is defined as Literature Written after WWII through the
current day. Source: Henry Remak (1961)

5. ...cont’d
• Comparativ
e Literature
was
emerged
1849
• Cl was
progress up
to WWII
In 20th C
• It was
temporall
y halted
wwII
• Anew wave of Cl
was emerged
• This was calling
for the idea of
WL
After WWII

6. Comparisons
National
Literature
(within the
walls)
Comparati
ve
Literature
(across the
walls)
World
Literature
(above the
walls)
Source :Selvamuthukumari (n.d) and Remak (1961)
What are the three types of comparison?

7. National Literature
• Is a politico-historic terms.
• Produced by the people of a state , in the language
of the people.
• Is one that exhibit themes and morals of ruling
ideology of that nation.
• Is an essential element in the formation of national
character.
• It is one way of grouping literature.
• Literature categorized by country, language, or
cultural group.

8. Comparative Literature Vs.
• It comprise elements of space,
time, quality and intensity.
• It is not bound to the same
extent by criteria of quality
and/or intensity.
• Is the study of the
interrelationship of the
literature of two or more
national cultures usually of
differing language;
• relationship of only two
countries, or two authors of
different nationality, or one
author and another country
(Elements of Space)
• It refers to literary works that are
translated into multiple languages.
• world literature, an element of space,
but frequently, though not necessarily,
a more restricted one.
• It " implies recognition throughout the
world, ordinarily the western world.
• Literature accumulated from across
the boarder overlooking the
linguistics and literary boarders at
the same time.
• As a rule, the acquisition of world
renown takes time.
• It deals therefore predominantly
with time and world-honored
literary productions of enduring
quality
World Literature
Remark (1961)

9. Comparative Literature Vs.
• the American concept of
comparative literature
embraces inquiries into the
relationship between
literature and other orbits;
• "French" definition of
comparative literature
(where the material to be
studied is entirely literary,
as it is in world literature)
specifies a method;
source : Remark (1961)
• world
literature does
not
World Literature

10. Comparative Literature Vs.
• It may compare anything that is
comparable no matter how old or
how recent the work (s) may be.
• It deal with literary figures of the
past who have achieved world-wide
fame.
• Comparative Literature is about
the differences,
• Is a discipline deals with the
technicalities used in order to
study the literature which includes
different texts across the boarder.
• All about comparing two or more
cultural/ national background.
Remark (1961)
• It is about the
commonalities between all
national literatures.
• It is concerned with that
which is universal and
common to all literatures.
• It deals with literature
consecrated as great by the
test of time (element of
time) .
• Refers to the total of the
world’s national literature
and the circulation of
works in the wider world.
World Literature

11. Definitions of Comparative Literature
• Henry Remak (1961) define comparative Literature:
• It is the study of :
literature beyond the confines of one particular country,
and
the relationships between literature on the one hand and
other areas of knowledge and belief, such as
the arts (e.g., painting, sculpture, architecture,
music), philosophy, history, the social sciences (e.g.,
politics, economics, sociology),
the sciences, religion, etc., on the other.
• In brief, it is the comparison of one literature with
another or others, and the comparison of literature with
other spheres of human expression.

12. …cont’d
• Suzan Basnett defines CL not as a discipline but as a method of
approaching literature and the arts.
• As such, the methodological essence of CL allows it to mesh or touch
borders with other methods,
as in the combination of literary and critical theory, or
 in the mutual exchange and benefit between Comparative
Literature and Translation Studies/ Cultural Studies.
• CL- the study of texts from different cultural contexts and origins to
identify their points of convergence and divergence.
• CL is thought to be a separate branch of study very dissimilar to
literary studies as in literary studies one focuses on critical study
of a text or texts whereas in comparative literature the endeavor is
to compare and analyze texts belonging to different cultures and
ages.

13. …cont’d
• CL is a field of literary scholarship focused on comparing
aspect of various literary phenomena.
Eg. Texts form different culture and historical period
Text by different writes
Text from different genres or different genre from the
same genre or two version of the same text e.g.
Translation, retelling or adaptation (Nikolajeva, 2008)
• Defined most broadly, comparative literature is the study of
"literature without borders" (Nguez, Saussy, &
Villanueva, 2014).
• Roland Greene (1957) define CL is the laboratory or
workshop of literary studies, and through them, of the
humanities.

14. …cont’d
• Sandra Bermann – “CL- juxtaposes literary texts from
different languages and cultures. It connects, say, a poem
with dance, a film with the novel, photography with the
essay”
• Paul Van Tiegem defines the objective of Comparative
Literature as essentially the study of diverse literature in
their relations with one another.
• J.M. Carre calls it ‘A Branch of literary history’ and a study
of spiritual international relations.
He also brings the fact that the writers of diverse literature
influence others and their works.
• Anna Saitta Revignas - “A modern science which centers
on research into the problems connected with the influences
exercised reciprocally by various literature” .

15. …cont’d
• CL is an inter-textual and interdisciplinary branch of
study as it focuses on different facets such as:
translation studies,
sociology, critical theory,
cultural studies,
religious studies as well as history.
• It analyses the similarities and dissimilarities and
parallels between two literatures.
• The subject matter of comparative literature is
to bring forward a comparative study of the different
cultures across the world through the means of
literature.
Source: Bassnett (1993), Saussy (2006), and Dulal Halder (2020)

16. Wellek and Warren Concepts of Comparative Literature:
• They have used the term Comparative Literature in
three different sense:
The first sense, to them it may mean the study of
oral literature, especially of folktales themes and
their migration of how and when they have
entered ‘higher’, ‘artistic’, ‘literature’.
Oral literature is an integral part of culture
should be read along with written literature.
The interaction between oral literature and
written literature of a particular culture or
country can be studied profitably by
comparison.

17. …cont’d
The second sense ,Comparative Literature is “the
study of relationships between two or more
literatures”.
The general notion is that a literature is usually
known by the language in which it is written.
But in the postcolonial period-several
literatures are written in the same language
The third sense in which Wellek and Warren uses
the term Comparative Literature is by identifying
it with World Literature.

18. Major Aspects of Comparative Literature:
 Influence study examines how one literature is influenced
by the other.
 Analogy studies the parallels between writers and works.
 Thematology is the study of themes or motifs.
 Reception study aims at measuring the response to a
writer’s and works.
 Translation is an important tool for a translator.
 Genre studies analyse the various literary forms involved
in comparative study.
 Movements and Trends
 Literature and other arts.

19. Schools in Comparative Literature
School of CL.
French
School of CL
American
School of CL
Russian
School of CL

20. American school of CL
 They prefers a very broad approach and are very liberal.
 It is aesthetic discipline concerned with the study of Analogies or parallels in
Literature.
 Intertextuality
 It's main aim was to depoliticize CL by going beyond the political borders of
literary texts.
 It is mainly based on universalism and interdisciplinarity.
 It is the Americans who widened the scope of CL to include the psychological
and the sociological approaches.
 According to them anything can be compared with anything else.
 In America CL was encouraged as an academic discipline in universities and
institutions of higher learning.
 A healthy tolerance in the field of appreciation was developed, and the scope of
comparative literature was widened.
 H.H.Remak, Harry Levin, Verner Freidrich, Francois Jost, Arthur
Kumar Source: Remak (1961) Enani (2005),

21. French school of comparative Lit..
 The French are certainly interested in such topics as the
comparative arts, but they do not think of them as being
within the jurisdiction of CL.
 There are historical reasons for this attitude.
 the study of influences and mentalities dominates.
 They prefer narrow positivist attitude.
 Created CL as branch of History and a study of
international relation.
 They primarily concerned with the study of influence of
reception to an author and authors abroad.
 It introduced the influence study mainly in order to
proclaim to the world that they were the first literary
influence in Europe.
Source: Dasgupta, (2012) Remak (1961) , Enani (2005),

22. …cont’d
 French scholars:
were among the first to start comparative study of
European literature with the study of the east.
insisted upon certain strict procedures before a
comparative study is taken off.
 The French school was very careful in comparing works of
art between two authors and two nations.
 They depend upon the work’s concrete proof and
immediate reference.
 French Comparatist: Jean Marie Carre, Rene
Etiemble, Paul Van Tieghem, Balden-Sperger are some
of the famous French comparatists
Source: Dasgupta, (2012) Remak (1961) , Enani (2005),

23. Russian School of comparative Lit..
• It rooted in the philosophy of communism.
• It belongs to the state which has the ultimate control over
the artist.
• The creative artist witness the social happening and present
a realistic account of what they experience.
• They believe that literature is a social property though is
created by an individual artist.
• It developed in 1960s is a combination of influence study
and parallel study.
• This school insisted that comparison of literature should
closely related with social and historic backgrounds.
Remak (1961) , admireliterature.blogspot.com
https://www.kngac.ac.in/elearning-
portal/ec/admin/contents/3_18KP3E10_2020101608390670.pdf

24. …cont’d
• It belongs to the state which has the ultimate control over
the artist.
• The comparatists probe into such realistic considerations
and assess the kind and variety of social realism which
forms the root spirit of Russian Comparatists.
• The Soviet approach :
neglects the aesthetic aspect of literature,
 ignores the spontaneity of the human mind and
 it refuses to give credit to the individual artist.
 Some of the chief exponents of Russian school can be
mentioned as Victor Shlovisky, Roman Jakobson, Yury
Tynyonov and Zhirmunsky.
Source: Remak (1961), admireliterature.blogspot.com
https://www.kngac.ac.in/elearning-portal/ec/admin/contents/3_ 18KP3E10_

25. Scope of Comparative Literature
• Cultural Migration
• The interaction between individual writers
• Transaction – basic tool
• Interaction between literature and other arts like music, painting,
sculpture and architecture.
• In CL, there are two different dimensions to be classified. They
are linguistics and cultural.
• Study literature across:
national borders,
time periods,
 languages, genres,
boundaries between literature and the other arts (music,
painting, dance, film, etc.),
disciplines (literature and psychology, philosophy).
Source: Halder (2020)

26. …cont’d
• The task of comparative literature, according to Arthur Marsh, Professor of
Comparative Literature is
• They also closely observe the impact of different schools of thought
on literature.
• The scope of CL has always been an effective way of deepening and
broadening one’s knowledge and horizons about the similarities and
dissimilarities.
• CL- further studies themes, modes, conventions and the use of
folktales, myths in two different literatures or even more.
Source: Halder (2020)
To
“ examine … the phenomena of literature as a whole,
 compare, group , classify them,
enquire into the causes of them,
determine the results of them this is the true task of
comparative literature.”

27. What is to be compared?
Them
e
Settin
g
Form
Style
Techn
ique
Genre
Time
spirit
things can
be
compared
Two
writer
Accrose
the
languge
Written
with
videos
Two
works
Comp
are

28. Functions of CL
Why study Contemporary Literature?
It reflect societies social as well as political point of
view.
Help them to illuminate the strength or weakness of
society.
Help the readers to develop their rational thinking.
It gives readers the knowledge of History and different
cultures and it makes them liberate towards everything
such as Love, War, Justice etc.
Writers, look for what is trending in their time for their
literary work.
It will help us explore all literary values of the other
literatures as well as ours.

29. …cont’d
 It enrich criticism and comparison
 It should be under context
 It enables one to understand culture “from the inside”, with
the study of international relations of different nations and
different cultures.
 A deeper understanding of literary texts in a broader
historical, social and literary context.
 An examination of influences and imitations.
 It is a unique tool for readers or academics or researchers
who feel curious, enjoy reading and analyzing literary
works about other languages and cultures of the other
nations, or interested in global studies and international
relations.

30. …cont’d
• The word ‘contemporary’ is very crucial in modern day world.
This implies the belongingness of the equal time.
When people say, they are contemporary this signifies they
belong to the same time frame.
• Reading CL:
one will be able to smell the present day history which is
going through the period of pains of its making.
is really amazing life experience because as a reader one
comes to know what his/ her contemporary people are
viewing the world.
• Great men say: Contemporary literature is the history of the
present.

31. Why compare ?
• David Ferris Raise the questions “Why Compare?
• Comparative Literature poses such questions as,
What is the place of literature in society?
 How does literature as a form change over time, and in
relation to other forms of making art?
 How does literature shape and respond to values, social
movements, or political contexts?
• A reflection on comparison that is capable of
interrupting its own unfolding in a mode other than
the coercion of crisis would be a start so that our
present can make a claim on why and avoid the
endless repetitions of what and how.

32. Why Compare?- David Ferris
• Two types of comparison
historical ‘as it is’; possibility ‘ought to’;
second is blinded by the limits of first > thus, freedom in
CL has its own limitation, lack of definition is limit not
unbound horizon.
• Why make comparisons?
This question is significant because it identifies a task
that influences the humanities as a whole.
 In this regard, CL raises the question of the humanities'
overall importance.
 Methods define a discipline, whereas items investigated
define a field of study.

33. …cont’d
• The foregrounding of comparison in CL reveals:
the methodological foundations of the humanities fields,
implicating those fields within the logic of indiscipline
to which CL has recurrently reverted whenever it evades
the question of its own boundary.
• The humanities are a comparative endeavor
because whatever is produced in the name of:
 art, culture, literature, history, or thought has been
historically grounded in an answer to the question of what
it means to be human,
a question that immediately sets up a conflict about who has
the right to claim such a title.

34. …cont’d
• The fact that CL recognizes this approach as a
quality characterizing its field of study shows:
how much it is forced to choose between reflecting on
or embodying this fundamental mission in the
humanities.
• It is this task that CL can offer for reflection in a
moment that invites the question, "why compare?”
• CL and the humanities run the risk of making the
mistake of simply changing politics for economics
lest the next boat to the future should leave without
them.

35. …..cont’d
• A question whose answer is not an invitation to endless
analogy nor is it the occasion for the bemused answer
that comparatists don't really compare anymore .
• So, why compare?
• The importance of this question is that it names a task that
informs the humanities as a whole.
• Here, the foregrounding of comparison in CL highlights
the methodological basis of the fields that comprise the
humanities.
• In short, this is a conflict about the right to define the
human subject according to a particular image.

36. ...cont’d
• And, even if works of art refuse this claim:
 as is the case with automatic writing or art based solely
on the dictates of chance or mechanical production.
it has been the task of their political, social, and
academic interpretation to re-institute that claim, namely,
the significance of the humanities resides in the
reflection of the human subject.
 And, the method for sustaining that reflection has not
ceased to be comparative.
• To recognize what remains at stake in this
question, an understanding of the function of the
task of comparison and what it addresses is first
necessary.

37. ….cont’d
• To compare these moments in our history is to see how the
logic of comparison betrays the intellectual project it
appears to sustain.
• It needs to examine its relation to those contexts so that the
past does not become, again and again, its betrayal.
• The natural sciences may ask about: what is our
world, The social sciences may measure : how we are
in that world , we, at least, can ask- and that is
why we compare.

38. ….cont’d
• The task of comparison is a task that originates in relation
to a world.
It is not a task that belongs to the world despite the
current tendency to see the comparative part of CL as if
the words "world" and "comparative" were so
interchangeable that no real difference can be discerned
as one is translated as the other because one is so
comparable to the other.

39. Plato and Aristotle in Comparison
• Plato's and Aristotle's account of comparison: the necessity
of its embodiment in a world.
• While Aristotle pursues the task of comparison by insisting
that the comparative value of what is without a world is in
fact the world,
• Plato underscores the extent to which this world (and
therefore comparison) requires the necessity of effectively
negating the experience of temporality if the comparative
task is to be established.
• The purpose of the narrative in the allegory of the cave is
to overcome the necessity of accounting for comparison in
the form of a narrative.

40. …cont’d
• Plato's account of comparison as necessitating the serial
character of allegorical presentation,
 that is, a presentation that enacts a movement in time in order to
recuperate time within a defined space.
• This is precisely the step Aristotle evades by his appeal to
the naturalness of the comparative task because it is innate
to humans.
• In distinction, Plato's allegory recognizes the necessity of
leading its victims to the world in order to enact
comparison as a mode of knowledge.
• Unlike Aristotle, Plato recognizes a temporal element in
the establishment of comparison as a mode of knowledge.

41. ….cont’d
• Comparison as knowledge takes time; it takes what Plato
calls "habituation " (Plato, 1969: 516a) - precisely what did
not occur in the cave.
• Aristotle claims a comparative relation between the image
and what exists in the world in order to establish the
ubiquity of the mimetic intention he wishes to proclaim on
behalf of literature:
"The reason why we enjoy seeing likenesses is that, as
we look, we learn and infer what each is, for instance,
this because of that.
• Comparison is here a form of knowledge that is rooted in
likenesses, in the fact that there is or could be someone or
something to which the image of a person or thing refers.

42. ….cont’d
• To do so, Aristotle introduces two levels of comparison:
one that is closed and one that is open.
• The first, the historical one, is closed because it is limited
to what already exists.
• The second remains open since it is defined in terms of
possibility: it is what could have already existed.
However, the possibility of this second comparison is
always rooted in the indisputable factual truth of the
first.
This means that what Aristotle describes as possibility
here is open to the extent that it adheres to the facticity
of the first.
How the second level of comparison becomes meaningful -
he distinguishes literature from history writing.

43. ….cont’d
• Aristotle makes this absolutely clear when he refers
to the use of real names in tragedy as opposed to
the use of names that define types in comedy:
In tragedy, on the other hand, they keep to real
names.
The reason is that the possible is persuasive.
If a thing has not happened, we do not yet
believe in its possibility, but what has happened
is obviously possible.
Had it been impossible, it would not have
happened. (Aristotle, 1927: 51 b, 11. 15-20)

44. ….cont’d
• Controlling a potentially wayward fictionality by bringing
it under the umbrella of a general truth comparable to
historical fact:
indicates the extent to which Aristotle's account of
comparison is itself circumscribed by Plato's rejection of
the artistic mimesis practiced by poets and dramatists,
a mimesis that is, in effect, a simulacrum of
comparison.
• We tend to read this relation backwards, as if Aristotle's
interpretation of fiction as historical possibility laid to rest .
• the challenge to comparison Plato perceived within artistic
imitation.

45. ..cont’d
• What then is really at stake in those
allegory which twice enacts comparison
by curtailing its temporality into:
what Plato calls habituation? And,
why is it that the world, in Aristotle as
well, is consistently called upon to embody
a comparison that the world is powerless to
affirm?

46. Crisis in CL
• In Spivak's discourse, the discipline's dilemma can be exemplified in
the following:
• First, the current study of CL in the West is the product of political
science, the development of CL is a way of political manipulation
and political service.
• Political influence leads to the second dilemma.
countries (such as the United States) and the regions (mainly
North America and Europe) with strong political and cultural
influence are self-centered, and they view other countries and
regions as "the other".
 Literature from those countries and regions will naturally be
regarded as the main literature,
while the literature of "the other" is regarded as the secondary literature;
and
the latter cannot be compared with the former, the latter hasn't been justly
included in the scope of the western scholars' comparative study.

47. ...cont’d
• Though “CL must always cross borders, and crossing
borders, as Derrida never ceases reminding us via Kant, is
a problematic affair" (16).
• Third, because CL in regional studies has constituted the
differences between self and other, this prejudice of alterity
hinders the construction of planetarity literature.
Planetarity literature is close to the conception of world
literature;
it includes "but not identical with the whole range of
human universals" , and the literature in different
countries or regions has its particularity.
At the same time, different kinds of literature can be
viewed as living beings with numerous similarities.

48. ...cont’d
• The growth of multiculturalism
• Literary phenomena started to be seen in the
context of imperialism and colonialism.
• Westerns culture was taken as elite culture/
too Eurocentric
• The designation of some work
canonical/marginalization of the work
• Crisis of methodology: the methods of
comparative
• Post modern Criticism

49. Why do we study comparative literature?
• A fundamental project of Comparative
Literature is to cultivate reading across
linguistic boundaries in order to highlight
everything that the exclusive focus on a
national literature tends to obscure. ...But
literature and readers have both always
ranged outside the boundaries of one
national language.

50. Contemporary Concerns
• Economic colonization
• Global warming
• Neo Imperialism
• Trans-border terrorism
• Poverty, filth & squalor
• Racial, ethnic & communal
problems
• Crime, corruption, avarice,
etc.
• Issues of the individual &
the society
• Struggle with
dehumanization
• Problem of being
• Search for self
• Love, freedom, morality,
justice
• Renewal of human spirit
• Secularity, Godlessness,
meaninglessness of life
• It reflects them based on
human diversity, character
& emotion
• The ‘other’ ‘isms’ –
Orientalism, Womanism,
etc.
• Subaltern perspective

51. Some of the References
• Bassnet.S.(1993). Comparative Literature: A Critical
Introduction
• Totosy de Zepetnek,S.. (1998). Comparative
Literature: Theory, Method, Application. Amsterdam,
Atlanta GA: Rodopi.
• Henry H.H Remak. Comparative Literature : Method
and perspective by Stallknecht and Frenz
(Eds.)“Comparative Literature ,Its Definition and
function” by
• David,F. (2006). Indiscipline. In Haun Saussy, ed.,
Comparative literature in an Age of Globalization. pp.
78-99. Baltimore: Johns CHopkins University Press.
• Saussy, H, ed. (2006). Comparative literature in an
Age of Globalization . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.

52. Thank You!!