Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ULRICH WEISSTEIN
"Chacun n'a plus quqt retrancher [...] ce que lui paragt d~plac~
ou supcrllu pour aboutir h son propre portrait".
Pichoi~Rousseau 2
Faust, der Trag6die erster Teil, 1.96 ("Vorspiel auf dem Theater").
2 ClaudePichoisandAndr~-M. Rousseau,Lalittdraturecomparde(Paris:Colin,
1967), p. 174.
3 Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1968, and the English-language version; Compara-
tive Literature and Literary Theory: Survey and Introduction (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1973). The word "theory" in the title was suggested by the
publisher and is not to be taken programmatically or in the sense currently attached
to it.
4 "Influences and Parallels: The Place and Function of Analogy Studies in Com-
parative Literature" in: Teilnahme und Spiegelung: Festschdfi fOr Horst Rfidiger
zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Beda Allemann and Erwin Koppen (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1975), pp. 593-609.
5 Vergleichende Literaturwissenschafl: Erster Bericht, 1968-1977 (Bern: Pe-
ter Lang, 1981). The present essay may be regarded as an implicit apology for my
refusal to produce any sequels to this Forschungsbericht.
term does not figure in any of the reference works I have consulted but may well
signify a return to Modernism or the avant-garde.
22 In their introduction to The Comparative Perspective on Literature: Ap-
proaches to Theory and Practice (Ithaca:Cornell Univ. Press, 1988), Clayton Koelb
and Susan Noakes signal "Jonathan Culler's contention[...] that the whole of what
the French call the human [shouldbe: the humane]sciences is more or less rapidly
transformed into something called theory, which encompasses not only literary
criticism but also philosophy, history, art history, musicology, architecture, psy=
chology, and social and political theory as well." (6)
1oo ,LR~Ca W~SST~:N
countless academic units, be they departments, Programs, Com-
mittees or research institutes, not to mention the countless under-
graduate and graduate degrees granted, appointments made, na-
tional and international organizations founded, and books and jour-
nals launched.
In short, it is hard to imagine an Academe deprived of this promi-
nent signum. And is one altogether to ignore that there have been
Chairs o f Comparative Literature since 1897 (Lyon), whereas no
one has ever heard of Professors of Literary Theory, much less o f
professors of Russian Formalism, French Strncturalism or German
Rezeptionsiisthetik? There are, to be sure, Schools of Criticism,
such as the famous Kenyon School of English, founded in 1948 but
subsequently transferred to Indiana University, where it was
rechristened The School of Letters. 23 Yet, from an administrative
point of view these entities were never fully integrated into the
University curriculum but were, and are, primarily run as summer
sessions.
Still speaking of names: more feasible but still cumbersome
and unsatisfactory is the divisionary tactic c o m m o n in several coun-
tries, notably Germany, where, for a long time,)isthetik was a highly
respected Fach attached to Philosophy, of using the double desig-
nation "general and comparative". 241 say "unsatisfactory" because
the word "allgemein" as used in the name of the German Compara-
tive Literature Association is appropriate only if one takes it to
mean "pertaining to literary theory" rather than what Van Tieghem
and his followers took it to mean in their Introductions. (It will be
remembered that the Moses of comparatism insisted on its bifurca-
tion into littdrature comparde as the branch concerned with "bi-
23 The New Criticism derives its name from John Crowe Ransom's book by that
title, which was published in 1941. The School ceased to exist as a self-contained
academic unit in 1992. (See the announcementof its disbanding in the Yearbookof
Comparative and GeneralLiterature 21 (1972), p. 102.
24 One might wish to speculate about the positioning of"allgemein" (= general)
and "vergleichend" (= comparative) in the names of the German Comparative Lit-
eraturr Association and of the Indiana University Yearbook...
RISE A N D FALL O F COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 101
cludes with the not so modest proposal: "If we have to keep the
term 'comparative literature', it will simply mean the study of lit-
erature, independently of linguistic distinctions"; for in his view
"literature is one, as art and humanity [sic] are one; and in this
conception lies the future of literary studies" (p. 5). Wellek's call
for the unity of literature and, by extension, that of literary studies
as well did not go unheeded. It gave impetus, for example, to Harry
Levin's presidential address on a theme suggested to him by the
oneiric greeting "we are here to compare the literature" that served
as its anecdotal propellant. 29 In so far as Wellek uses the term Com-
parative Literature not only in its primary sense N that which is
inherent in the French designation littdrature comparde, where the
singular, literature, has been substituted for the intended plural 3~
- - and as the label for an academic subject (Vergleichende Litera-
turwissenschaft) but also, idiosyncratically as a synonym for World
Literature, understood to be the global output of significant bel-
letristic writings, he muddled the issue by levelling the difference
between method and matter.
Wellek's unification of literary science reflects a Utopian wish
by taking polylingualism for granted. For, while Kunstwissenschaft
and Musikwissenschaft are universally viewed as being monolithic
and therefore suitably accommodated in single departments admin-
istering the study of world art and world music respectively,
Literaturwissenschaft is of a different ilk, as it must come to grips
with the diverse Nationalliteraturen that are entrusted to the spe-
cialized philologies? ~ The growing awareness of this split in the
Romantic age of awakening nationalism explains the desire to close
the gaps with the help of a new branch of literary science expressly
created for that purpose. This, at least, is the explanation provided
by Hans Robert Jauss, no friend of Comparative Literature, who
regards it as a Provisorium or, as he blandly puts it, as "ein Fach,
das erfunden werden musste, um das alte bequeme Paradigma der
Nationalhistorie zu sichern, und das die Einzelliteraturen als
Wesenheiten sieht, die unter autochthonen Entwicklungsgesetzen
stehen"? 2 This is a trenchant critique which, rightly or wrongly,
implies that Comparative Literature is dispensible and will sooner
or later vanish from the earth.
More to the point but still precarious on account of the meth-
odological crux which results form the failure to distinguish be-
tween works produced within one language literature and those
written in different tongues - - a distinction firmly rooted in Com-
parative Literature as originally conceived 33 - - is the shift of em-
phasis that results from the substitution of the label Comparative
Literary Studies for the customary designation of the field, such as
is documented in the title of S. S. Prawer's Introduction 34 as well
as, by standard procedure, in the bulk of Marxist manuals. 3s This
solution of the nomenclatural problem strikes me as being sensible
and appropriate in so far as the qualifying noun, Studies, reflects
an overriding concern with method, which the by now stereotypi-
cal "Comparative Literature" does not.
d 3
survey Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to
the Present (Ithaca: CornellUniv. Press, 1984) 258f.
4o See Wellek' s definifion of a (literary) pedod in Wellek and Warren, Theory of
Literature (New York: HarcourtBrace, 1949), p. 277.
4~ "Litt6raturecompar~e:le mot et la chose". RLC 1 (1921), pp. 5-29.
I06 ULRICH WE1SSTEIN
In so arguing, they put the cart before the horse; for how can
one recognize a comparatist without reference to a consensus defi-
nition of his field?
In a similar vein but, in the French tradition of Comparative
Literature, somewhat more apologetically, Pierre Brunel and Yves
Chevrel, co-editors of a Prdcis de Littdrature Comparde, defined
their selection criteria as follows:
literature away from the classical philologists who, for time imme-
morial, had been its trusted guardians, and encroached upon the
territory hitherto reserved for Medievalists, s3 while extending its
scholarly activities to the twentieth century as well. The correspond-
ing spatial, i.e., geographical, widening of scope resulted, first, in
the comparative treatment of Western literatures in relation to non-
Western ones - - and then, by logical extension, to the study of
non-Western literatures among each other? 4 On still other fronts,
the octopus which is Comparative Literature used its ever agile
tentacles to hug, but hopefully not smother, oral literature ss and
ultimately turned its loving attention to the most genuinely com-
parative of all intra-literary subjects, i.e., translation. 56
Moving beyond the borders of the already vast province of let-
ters, it also extended its feelers to the linkages between literature
and the other arts in the Musaion but, fortunately, held its breath
when it came to ciaiming jurisdiction over Esthetics and the wech-
selseitige Erhellung der Kiinste literally understood. It further ad-
vanced to the exploration of the ties between literature and the
(other) media (radio, film, TV) s7 and, at the end of its long day's
journey, altogether shedding whatever modesty was left, took a
crack at the sciences as well. Thus, in a highly controversial, deft-
[It] is related to other systemic approaches. These can be grouped into com-
munication theories (including semiotics)and the sociology of literature. His-
torically, the former includes the approaches of the Russian Formalists, the
Prague School and more recent polysystem theory. [...] The sociology of
literature group [...] includes thechamplitt~raireapproach,[...] sociocriticism
and the ~cole bibliologiqueand l'institution litt~raire approach. (37)
6o Edited by Irene R. Makaryk, the book was published in 1993 by the Univer-
sity of Toronto Press.
61 The three subdivisionsof this volumeare entitled "Approaches,Scholars (and)
Terms" respectively.
RISE A N D FALL O F COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 113
At the core of this volume is the attempt to delineate the different kinds of
approaches and schools since New Criticism, that is, the trends, tendencies
and critics who have commanded attention over the past fifty years. Yet many
of these approaches are grounded in earlier theoretical work. For this reason,
a number of precursors appear in this volume [...] and a number of schools,
such as the Neo-Aristotelians,the Russian formalists, the Prague School. (vii)
Confronted with all these Gordian knots, the poor scholar ex-
pected to let his w i s d o m shine might well succumb to suicidal de-
spondency unless, a veritable Alexander of C o m p a r a t i v e Litera-
ture, he could bring himself to cut them all, regardless o f the con-
sequences. W h i l e we are waiting for the arrival on the scene o f
such a brutal hero o f heroes we can either side with those col-
leagues who believe, with the administrators o f the Austrian State
Lotteries, that "everything goes" or with the dogmatists who w o u l d
like to legislate what we can or cannot do qua comparatists, and
even whether, and at what point, we should liquidate our m o r i b u n d
institution.
~2 This stricture applies to all the pertinent volumes in English which I have
consulted in preparing this essay. They include D. W. Fokkema and Elrud Kunne-
Ibsch, Theories of Literature in the Twentieth Century: Structuralism, Marxism,
Aesthetics of Reception, Semiotics (London: Hurst, 1977), Terry Eagleton, Literary
Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), as well as Jeremy Hawthorn's
Concise Glossary of Contemporary Theory (London: Arnold, 1994 and 21996), an-
other dictionary.
114 ULRICH WEISS'rEIN
kein reines Glasperlenspiel, das man aus der Freude an der Abstraktion, der
Deduktion und Spekulation treibt, sondern sie wird erst dort interessant, wo
sie anwendbar wird, wo sie in Methodologie iibergeht. (57)