Earl Miner: from comparative literature to comparative world literature

Abstract

This essay is divided into two parts. The first one intends to make a summary of Earl Miner’s cross-cultural comparative poetics. The author asserts that Earl Miner, as a distinguished scholar in comparative literature studies, has made innovative contribution in three aspects: his proactive global vision, his pioneering research methods, and his insightful academic thoughts. The second part, starting from Miner’s pioneering work and his theory in comparative literature, focuses on the comparative studies in China. The author argues that comparative literature studies in China has generally ignored its uniqueness in discipline status and academic community, mainly on “the positioning of discipline” and the Chinese comparatists. Under the circumstances of Chinese comparative literature studies, moving toward a conscientious construction of world poetics, the author is committed to the idea of “comparative world literature” with the great help of translation. Such “a study of foreign literatures in translation” will enable scholars to conduct researches on literary relations, cultural studies and/or interdisciplinary studies.