Whither Comparative Literature?

Abstract

85 Once upon a time, the story goes, comparative literature focused on the study of sources and influence, bringing together works where there seemed a direct link of transmission that subtended and served to justify comparison. But then comparative literature liberated itself from the study of sources and influence and acceded to a broader regime of intertextual studies – broader but less well-defined. Comparative literature has been differentiated from other modes of literary study because it did not take it for granted, as did the departments of English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, that a national literature in its historical evolution was the natural and appropriate unit of literary study. Since comparative literature could not avoid, as the national literature departments could, the question of what sorts of units were most pertinent – genres? periods? themes? – comparative literature frequently became the site of literary theory, while national literature departments often resisted, or at least remained indifferent to the sorts of theory that did not emanate from their own cultural spheres. Comparative literature was thus distinguished by its interest in addressing theoretical issues, as well as knowledgably importing and exploring ‘foreign’ theoretical discourses. It was the place where those questions about the nature and methods of literary study begged in other literature departments were taken up, argued about, even made the focus of teaching and research. If neither of these features suffices any longer to distinguish comparative literature, it is because the views that once distinguished comparativists have become widespread. Even the study of American literature, once committed to exceptionalism and totalization (Americanists had to have a theory about the nature and distinctiveness of American literature), is now in the process of reconfiguring itself as ‘comparative American literatures,’ in the plural. In this sense, comparative literature has triumphed. But of course, institutionally, comparatists do not feel at all triumphant. How far their lack of joy