Abstract
This paper brings up the history of comparative literature from its beginning to the postcolonial era, discussing the challenges and controversies that have shaped the history of the discipline and practice. Drawing mainly upon Edward Said’s thought, but also other prominent theorists, the paper sketches the evolution of the concept of comparative literature on the one hand, and on the other hand, it shows through some recent examples of transnational and transcultural questions, how difficult it is in the contemporary context of Globalization to preserve the nation as a space and concept of reference for the writing of the history of literature, due to the very fact of the transformation of the nation and its contours in recent decades. It is also about showing that despite the circulation of worlds and the challenge of the nation’s rigid borders by the process of migration among others, the nation is not yet disqualified as a framework and substructure for literary production. It further discusses the relationship between literature and nation in the contemporary context as well as the issues of transnationality and world literariness, using two examples from France and Nigeria.
Highlights
Comparative literature emerged in a context where it was a question of transcending national borders and getting the literary world interested in the in-common, i.e. something that would constitute the intersection of different national entities
Drawing mainly upon Edward Said’s thought, and other prominent theorists, the paper sketches the evolution of the concept of comparative literature on the one hand, and on the other hand, it shows through some recent examples of transnational and transcultural questions, how difficult it is in the contemporary context of Globalization to preserve the nation as a space and concept of reference for the writing of the history of literature, due to the very fact of the transformation of the nation and its contours in recent decades
The decompartmentalization of worlds, the transgression of national spatial borders as well as the transnational circulation of ideas and people has caused over the decades a restructuring of the concept of comparative literature, bringing on the scene new actors and deconstructing the original Eurocentrism of such a practice
Summary
Comparative literature emerged in a context where it was a question of transcending national borders and getting the literary world interested in the in-common, i.e. something that would constitute the intersection of different national entities. The idea of rereading the cultural and literary archive from the present point of view sounds in Salman Rushdie's words as follows: We could appreciate writers for what they are, whether in English or not; we could discuss literature in terms of its real groupings, which may well be national, which may well be linguistic, but which may be international, and based on imaginative affinities; and as far as English Literature itself is concerned, I think that if all English Literatures could be studied together, a shape would emerge which would truly reflect the new shape of the language in the world, and we could see that English Literature has never been in better shape, because the world language possesses a world literature, which is proliferating in every conceivable direction.[...] it’s time to admit that the centre cannot hold.
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