Comparative literature and world literature

Abstract

Comparative literature is one of the academic disciplines belonging to the humanities, which has a history of over 100 years. It is also a sub-discipline under the subject category of literary studies in general although it does cover almost all the aspects of literary studies, such as literary history, literary theory, and literary criticism. Comparative literature is characterized by the study of two or more literatures crossing the boundary of languages, nations, religious beliefs, disciplines, and cultural traditions by both dealing with the factual influence of one literature on another and others and comparing and analysing two or more literary phenomena which do not necessarily have any factual relations but which could be observed in a comparative and parallel way. In the contemporary era, comparative literature, influenced by the process of globalization, merges more or less with cultural studies. Its earliest phase is that of world literature, which in the age of globalization has become one of the most cutting-edge theoretical topics. Having close relations with translation studies, comparative literature also interacts with translation studies since it deals with two or more than two languages.