This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The syllabus of the Department of English, MKBU includes paper no.- 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies which includes around 9 articles. We (students) are assigned a task of classroom presentation of assigned articles in a pair. In this blog we are supposed to write abstract, key points / arguments and concluding remarks on all two articles of Unit 2 of paper Comparative Literatures and Translation Studies. It also includes the recording of class presentations presented by respective students. Blogger and her partner have made a presentation on the third article, presentation and a video of a particular article is embedded (as per the task).
ARTICLE 1
Introduction: What is Comparative Literature today?
Susan Basnett
This article is an Introduction chapter of Susan Basnett’s book ‘Comparative Literature- A critical Introduction, 1993’. The article begins with the simple answer to What is Comparative studies? The study of texts across cultures, that it is interdisciplinary and that it is concerned with the patterns of connection in literature across both time and space.
The journey of comparative studies begins with the desire to move beyond the boundaries of a single subject area or may be impelled to follow up what appear to be similarities between texts and authors from different cultures.
Mathew Arnold in Inaugural Lecture at Oxford in 1857 said-
Everywhere there is connection, everywhere there is illustration. No single event, no single lecture is adequately comprehended except in relation to other events, to other lectures.
One can assume that comparative literature is nothing more than common sense, a stage of reading by the availability of translations. But if we slightly change our perspective we find a history of debate that goes right back to the usage of the term at the beginning of the nineteenth century and still continues today.
- What is the object of the study in comparative literature?
- How can comparison be the objective of anything?
- If individual literatures have canon, what might a comparative canon be?
- How can a comparatist select what to compare ?
- Is comparative literature a discipline? Or is it simply a field of study ?
Since the 1950s, we frequently hear about what Rene Wellek defined as ‘the crisis of comparative literature’. (And the crisis of comparative literature in the West pushes Susan Basnett to write this article. Comparative Literature began with the rise of National consciousness/ nationalism now it seems to be dying in the West but is increasing in the East, post- colonial countries.)
In 1903, Benedetto Croce argued that the term Comparative Literature was obfuscatory, disguising the obvious and the true object of study of Literary history. He claimed that he could not distinguish between Literary history pure and simple and comparative Literary History.
But in the same ear of Croce’s attack Charles Mills Gayley proclaimed working premise of the working student of Comparative Literature was:
“Literature as a distinct and integral medium of thought, a common
institutional expression of humanity; differentiated, to be sure,
by the social conditions of the individual, by racial, historical,
cultural and linguistic influences, opportunities, and restrictions, but,
irrespective of age or guise, prompted by the common needs
and aspirations of man, sprung from common faculties,
psychological and physiological, and obeying common laws
of material and mode, of the individual and social humanity."
Francis Jost claimed that comparative literature is ‘an overall view of literature, of the world of letters, a humanistic ecology, a literary Weltanschauung, a vision of the cultural universe, inclusive and comprehensive'. Comparative Literature is as some kind of world religion, Instrument of universal harmony.
Wellek and Werren in their ‘Theory of Literature’ (1949) suggested
Comparative Literature... will make high demands on the linguistic proficiencies of our scholars. It asks for a widening of perspectives, a suppression of local and provincial sentiments, not easy to achieve.
For Wellek and Warren go on to state that 'Literature is one; as art and humanity are one'. A decade after Theory of Literature appeared, Wellek was already talking about the crisis in comparative literature.
The great waves of critical thought that swept through one after the other shifted attention away from the activity of comparing texts and tracking patterns of influence between writers towards the role of the reader. And as each new wave broke over the preceding one, notions of single, harmonious readings were shattered forever.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, high-flying graduate students in the West turned to comparative literature as a radical subject, because at that time it appeared to be transgressive. By the late 1970s a new generation of high-flying graduate students in the West had turned to Literary Theory, Women's Studies, Semiotics, Film and Media Studies and Cultural Studies as the radical subject choices, abandoning Comparative Literature. Yet even as that process was underway in the West, comparative literature began to gain ground in the rest of the world, Post- colonial countries. However, not on any ideal of universalism but on the very aspect of literary study that many western comparatists had sought to deny: the specificity of national literatures.
Swapan Majumdar says-
‘It is because of this predilection for National Literature - much
deplored by the Anglo-American critics as a
methodology - that Comparative Literature has struck
roots in the Third World nations and in India in particular.’
Ganesh Devy also suggests that comparative literature in India is directly linked to the rise of modern Indian Nationalism.
Homi Bhabha sums up the new emphasis in an essay discussing the ambivalence of post- colonial culture, suggesting that:
‘Instead of cross-referencing there is an effective,
productive cross- cutting across sites of
social significance, that erases the dialectical, disciplinary
sense of 'Cultural' reference and relevance’.
Wole Soyinka and a whole range of African critics have exposed the pervasive influence of Hegel, who argued that African culture was 'weak' in contrast to what he claimed were higher, more developed cultures, and who effectively denied African history.
Today we have a very varied picture of comparative literary studies that changes according to where it is taking place.
Terry Eagleton's explanation of the rise of English ties in with the aspirations of many of the early comparatists for a subject that would transcend cultural boundaries and unite the human race through the civilizing power of great literature. As the question of what to include and exclude from an English syllabus is a very vexed one, Comparative Literature has been called into question by the emergence of alternative schools of thought.
The vexed question of Shakespeare in India, a canonical writer hailed in the nineteenth century as the epitome of English greatness. Indian students have the problem therefore of dealing with Shakespeare not only as a great figure in European literature, but also as a representative of colonial values: two Shakespeare's, in effect, and in conflict with one another. One way of tackling this problem is to treat Shakespeare comparatively, to study the advent of Shakespeare in Indian cultural life and to compare his work with that of Indian writers.
The growth of national consciousness and awareness of the need to move beyond the colonial legacy has led significantly to the development of comparative literature in many parts of the world, even as the subject enters a period of crisis and decay in the West.
Ganesh Devy's argument that comparative literature in India coincides with the rise of modern Indian nationalism is important, because it serves to remind us of the origins of the term 'Comparative Literature' in Europe, a term that first appeared in an age of national struggles, when new boundaries were being erected and the whole question of national culture and national identity was under discussion throughout Europe and the expanding United States of America.
Another rapidly expanding development in literary studies, and one which has profound implications for the future of comparative literature, is 'translation studies. Comparative literature has traditionally claimed translation as a sub-category, but this assumption is now being questioned. The work of scholars such as Toury, Lefevere, Hermans, Lambert and many others has shown that translation is especially significant at moments of great cultural change.
Evan- Zohar argues that extensive translation activity takes place when a culture is in a period of transition: when it is expanding, when it needs renewal, when it is in a pre-revolutionary phase, then translation plays a vital part. In contrast, when a culture is solidly established, when it is in an imperialist stage, when it believes itself to be dominant, then translation is less important.
As English became the language of international diplomacy in the twentieth century (and also the dominant world commercial language), there was little need to translate, hence the relative poverty of twentieth-century translations into English compared with the proliferation of translations in many other languages. When translation is neither required nor wanted, it tends to become a low status activity, poorly paid and disregarded
Comparative literature has always claimed translation as a sub-category, but as translation studies establishes itself firmly as a subject based in inter-cultural study and offering a methodology of some rigor, both in terms of theoretical and descriptive work, so comparative literature appears less like a discipline and more like a branch of something else. Seen in this way, the problem of the crisis could then be put into perspective, and the long, unresolved debate on whether comparative literature is or is not a discipline in its own right could finally and definitely be shelved.
Video recording of this article's presentation, presented by my classmates Janvi Nakum and Nidhi Dave
Presentation of the article by Janvi Nakum and Nidhi Dave
It is common to find it challenging to read original articles and summarize them. As a result, I have simplified this article through my understanding and with the help of ChatGPT. Simplifying articles is helpful in achieving a better and clearer understanding of the concept, which will make reading the original article easier. The main aim is to help students or readers understand the concept so that they can read the original article with ease. CLICK HERE FOR A LAYMANISED ARTICLE.
I hope this blog is useful.
[words- 1450]
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