Comparative Literature Beyond the Euro-American Frontiers

Outside the boundaries of the Euro-American Schools, comparative

literature has been debated at length. Consequently, more elaborated concept
and other alternatives have appeared. The founding father of the subject in
Russia, Veselovsky, has manifested in his academic studies an inclination
towards the American School in judging the affinities between different
literatures as a sign of resemblance in the general process of human psychology.
(75)
Agreeing with Veselovsky, the prominent comparatist Zhirmunsky has
placed emphasis in the comparison not only on the processes of 'influence' and
'borrowing,' but also on the similitudes and dissimilitudes between literary
phenomena and their analysis on historical grounds. Nonetheless, Konrad has
disagreed with him on the French School's principle of influence, seeing it as
just a way of keeping European literatures on top of all others. (76) Accordingly,
he has opted for "mutual relation and influence" and "literary relation" as
alternatives to "comparative literature," but they could not supplant it due to its
firm establishment in Russia and the world. Perkov has wondered about the
vague use of the term 'comparison': does it mean tracing the quality and quantity
of differences between literatures, so as to show which is bigger or better? (77)

In a series of seminars on comparative literature, organized by the World

Literature Institute in Moscow, some of the Russian comparatists have attacked
what they have described as the 'formalism of the West.' In a paper on western
perspectives on comparative literature, Neupokoeva has criticized the American
method of criticism as being unfair in treating the text's ideology by regarding
the text as an independent entity. She has also launched a no less severe
criticism on the American perspective's disregard for the linguistic boundary in
comparative studies, which is tantamount to ignoring geographical borders
between literatures and cultural specificity. (78)

Comparative literature studies in Eastern Europe in the last three decades

of the twentieth century have seen the subject evolve, in spite of differences of
opinion between one study and another. For example, the Roman academician
Dima has exhibited his inclination towards the French School in reconfirming
the boundary of language in comparative studies and in distinguishing between
"general" and "comparative" literature. (79) However, he has disavowed this
statement in suggesting that there is an area of comparison between literatures
of one language. (80) Finally, he has shown to take a stance between the French
and American school as he stresses the independence of "comparative literature"
(whose aims are figured in direct influences, borrowing and topological
affinities) and the interrelation between critical and historical social studies of
literary phenomena in comparative literature study.

But in Czechoslovakia the American perspective has found a huge

following. Most famous among Czech comparatists is Durshin, who has stated
that "comparative literature," "history of literature" and "theory of literature" are
interwoven in any objective literary comparison, though each one has its own
properties. Durshin has eschewed the heated polemics raised, needlessly, about
definitions of the term "comparative literature," the reason for which he ascribes
to the subject's confinement to the principle of influence. (81) In an avoidance of
this problem Durshin refers the reader to two dimensions of the comparative
literary study, namely: "literary relations" and "parallelism" between literatures
– dimensions which represent external relations, different from the internal
relations, represented in the reaction of a text to certain literary phenomena in
other texts. (82)

In the 1970s many critics attempted to rid the comparative literary study
of all its problematic aspects (historical, political or methodological). In his
essay "The Name and Nature of Comparative Literature" (published in
Discriminations in 1970), Rene Wellek saw it essentially important for the
comparatist to limit his study to the literary text or texts, disregarding external
factors. He maintained that the three components of "literary study - history,
theory and criticism - involve each other..." (83) The reference to history in this
respect is not related to the term in its broader sense but to a particular kind,
namely "cultural history." This gave rise to "new Historicism in North American
Criticism in the 1970s and 1980s." (84) The conferences of the International
Society of Comparative Literature in Belgrade in the 1970s led to the
chronicling of European literature on the basis that it comprised 'sub-national'
literatures sharing certain common historical and literary traditions - an
enterprise which they anticipated could be applied to other literatures (Asian,
African, American, Indian... etc.). But such a general categorization of world
literatures was regarded by the non-European scholars as arbitrary and
questionable. For instance, the theory claiming so-called 'European Literature' is
based on a common literary movement that originated within the geographical
boundaries of the continent of Europe, will not work, for the roots of this
literature are traced back to Homer's literary abilities in Asia. It deserves to be
mentioned that Homer is a famous ancient Greek poet who wrote The Iliad and
Odyssey, two epics which some of their episodes take place in Asia. But
European literature is very different from Asian or African literature models not
only on the basis of geographical boundaries, but also by virtue of possessing
similar historical conditions, cultural and spiritual traits. (85)

In the regions which were colonized by Europe (such as India and Africa)
the European "formalist approach" is entirely rejected and comparative literary
study highlights "the politicization of literature." Swapan Majumdar, an Indian
critic, is rigorously against the European historicity of world literatures for
several reasons. Indian literature, for example, is composed of ethologically
variable "sub-national literatures" that cannot be taken collectively, as is the
case with European literatures which are bound together by a common ethos. It
is on these grounds, Majumdar proposes, that "the comparison should take place
not across individual boundaries, but on a larger scale altogether," that is, it is
not right to compare Indian literature with an individual European literature
(French, Italian, or German) but with the conception of all European literatures
under the general heading "European" or "Western" literature. (86) The latter, in
this way, paves the way for a serious reconsideration of "the old models that
placed component literatures of the Western tradition in a position of
international superiority." (87)

Indian, African, Asian as well as Latin American critics refuse to accept

European "critical tools" in their countries, as "it is illogical and dangerous to
obtrude European conceptions upon non-European visions of the world." (88)
European critics looked down on, for example, the Indian and African literatures
because of their being products of lower nations, colonized by Europe. In this
power was an absolute touchstone for evaluating literatures. Apropos of Euro-
centrism, Sri Aurobindo ironically supposes that if the Indians colonized
Europe, they would then gauge the European literary works (starting with the
Iliad and The Divine Comedy through the plays of Shakespeare and the Spanish
works up to the modern French poetry and fiction) as "a mass of bad ethics and
violent horrors... a succession of bald and tawdry rhetorical exercises... a tainted
and immoral thing." (89) It is hardly surprising, after all this, to observe the Indian
comparatists focusing their attention on reexamining Indian literary fortunes
across time and history and testing them against the European models, with the
primary intention of regaining the solid bases of native culture and literary
tradition, which found their various ways into Europe. Comparative literature
study in India (as in Asia, Africa and Latin America) is directed "to start with
the home culture and to look outwards, rather than to start with the European
model of literary excellence and to look inwards." (90) This trend prepared for the
emergence of the Indian Comparative Literature Association in 1981, whose
primary goal was to prove the grandeur of the Indian literary and cultural
heritage in all times and histories. With equal interest and fervor, African
scholars have taken up arms against the so-called literary and cultural influence
of Europe on Africa, as stressed in many a comparative literary study. Chidi
Amuta sees the latter as "one of the ruses in the trick bag of those critics who
see European culture as having had a civilizing impact on 'primitive' African
writing." (91) Amuta also agrees with Chinua Achebe's 1975 term 'universalism,'
which European critics have tried to disseminate in different parts of the world
within the last few years, "as a synonym for the narrow, self-serving
parochialism of Europe." (92)

The process of re-examining European literary models in India or Africa

during the post-colonial period has created the need for translating these models.
But translation comes face-to-face with the problem of "interculturality" (which
Enani defines as the translator's opting for "a word, a construction, an idiom
which must refer the reader to his or her own literary tradition, and whose
significance cannot be grasped except through his or her own culture"), (93)
particularly when translation is not accurate or honest. It is most likely then that
the translated text becomes open to various readings or interpretations, which
cannot lead to any accurate judgment on the original text.

In a kind of reaction, perhaps, against spending too much time and effort
on arguing about obsolete methods of comparative literature, Western
comparatists have started to concern themselves primarily with studying and
developing 'literary theory' in the 1990s. Consequently, a post-European model
of comparative literature has come into being in other parts of the world. This
model is described as "dynamic," in that it "can effectively be compared to the
earliest appearance of the subject in revolutionary Europe in the early nineteenth
century." (94) Paying no attention to "the historicity of the American School and
of the formalist approach," the new model is set on reconsidering literary
fortunes and histories (like translation) with a view to reconfirming "national
literary and cultural identity." (95)
 This discussion would not be complete without a mention of how the
dissolution of the ex-Soviet Union has affected the evolution of comparative
literature. In Britain, for example, the pendulum seems to be swinging between
the French and American school. All the comparative studies which have been
made in the Modern Languages departments evinced their propensity for the
French tradition, while the ones made in English departments have favored the
American approach. However, British comparatists have provided the object
with a "genuine" method called "placing," which Siegbert Prawer simply defines
as the placing "side by side" of many a literary text, artist or tradition, so as to
compare them for reaching a full understanding of various cultures. A rich field
for comparative literature is our increasing reliance upon the English
translations, especially of texts written in classical languages (Latin or Greek) or
in unfamiliar ones. (96) As translated texts are possibly made 'intercultural,
'comparative literature becomes indirectly involved with an old and unresolved
key problem, which is the politicization of literature.

In conclusion, the long journey pursued so far in exploring the murky

areas of comparative literature demonstrates the evolution of the subject's
methodology or theory, which seems to take a straightforward direction (from
'influence' through 'parallelism' to 'juxtaposition' principles). But this journey
ends where it begins. That is, the linear movement of comparative literature
turns out to be cyclic: recent approaches to the subject have failed, despite many
serious attempts, to free it from the political and national shackles with which
the earliest approaches began. Thus we come back to the field of corroborating
the national identity in literature, particularly in the postcolonial world, moving
thereby far away from the desired 'universalism,' or that 'universalism' sought by
those who were, from the start, at variance with the concept and methodology of
'influence.'