Bassnett S. Comparative Literature. a Critical Introduction

---~ Introduction: What is Comparative Literature Today?

Sooner or later, anyone who c1aims ro be working in comparative literature has to try and answer the inevitable question: What is it? The simplesr answer is thar comparative literature tnvolves the study of texrs across culrures, thar ir is interdisciplinary and rhat ir is concerned with patterns of connection in literatures across both tIme and space. Most people do nor sean wirh comparative !iterarure, chey end up with it in sorne way or other, rravelling towards it from diHerent poinrs of depanure. Sometimes che Journey begins wirh a desire ro move beyond the boundaries of a single subject area thar might appear to be coo constraining, at orher times a reader may be impelled to follow up what appear to be similarities between texts or aurhors from di{ferem cultural conrexts. And sorne readers may simply be foUowing che view propounded by Matthew Arnold in his Inaugural Lecture at Oxford in 1857 when he said: Everywhere ,here is connection, everywhere there is iIlustrarían. No single evenr, no single literature is adequately compre hended excepr in reladon to other evems, ro other lireratures. 1

Ir could almost be argued thar anyone who has an imerest in books embarks on rhe road rowards whac might be rermed COrnparative literature: reading Chaucer, we come across Boccaecio; we can trace Shakespeare's souree materials chrough Latin, Freneh, Spanish and Iralian; we can srudy the ways in which Romam:icism developed aeross Europe at a similar moment in time, follow the process rhrough whieh Baudelaire's fascinarion with Edgar AlIan Poe enriehed his own writing, consider now many Eng!ish noveiists

1earned from the great nineteenth.centuryRussianwriters (in rra'ns.d' 1arron, of cOut'se), compare how James ]oyce borrowed fromand 10aned ro 1ralo Svevo. When we read Clarice Lispector we are reminded of lean Rhys, who in turn recal1s 'Djuna Barnes and Ana1's Nin. There is no limir to the lisr of examples we cO.ll1d devise. Once ~. . we begin to read we moveacrossfrontie-rs,;mflkÚ{g',ª~~