1.3 Key concepts and terminology in comparative literature

Comparative literature explores how texts interact across cultures and time. Key concepts like intertextuality, influence, and reception help us understand these connections. They reveal how writers borrow, adapt, and respond to each other's work.

The field also examines the literary canon and applies critical approaches like postcolonial and feminist theory. These tools let us analyze power dynamics in literature and challenge traditional interpretations. By comparing texts, we gain new insights into human experiences and artistic expression.

Key Terms in Comparative Literature

Intertextuality, Influence, and Reception

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• Intertextuality refers to the ways texts relate to and interact with one another through allusion, quotation, shared themes, structures, or conventions
• Influence describes the impact one text or author has on another in terms of style, content, or ideas
  • Can be conscious or unconscious, acknowledged or unacknowledged
• Reception refers to how readers and critics respond to and interpret texts, shaped by cultural, historical, and personal contexts
  • Reception theory emphasizes the active role of the reader in creating meaning
• While influence and reception focus on relationships between texts and authors or readers, intertextuality encompasses a broader range of textual interactions and interconnections

Differentiating Between Key Terms

• Intertextuality is a broader concept that includes influence and reception but also encompasses other types of textual relationships (shared themes, conventions)
• Influence is more focused on the direct impact of one text or author on another
• Reception emphasizes the role of the reader and the cultural, historical, and personal contexts that shape interpretation
• Examples of intertextuality include allusions to Greek mythology in James Joyce's Ulysses or the use of fairy tale motifs in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
• An example of influence is the impact of William Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness style on Latin American writers like Gabriel García Márquez
• An example of reception is the changing interpretations of Shakespeare's plays over time, from romantic readings in the 19th century to postcolonial and feminist analyses in the 20th and 21st centuries

Literary Canon and Comparative Studies

Defining the Literary Canon

• The literary canon is a body of works considered the most important, influential, and representative of a particular culture, period, or genre
  • Often taught in schools, referenced by scholars, and seen as essential to a well-rounded literary education
• The process of canon formation is influenced by cultural values, power structures, and institutional gatekeepers (publishers, critics, academics)
  • Historically dominated by works from Western, male, and upper-class perspectives
• Examples of canonical works include Shakespeare's plays, Jane Austen's novels, and T.S. Eliot's poetry

Canonicity and Comparative Literature

• Comparative literature engages with questions of canonicity, exploring how and why certain works are included or excluded from the canon
  • Examines how the canon differs across cultures and time periods
• Studying canonical works comparatively reveals both the universality and particularity of human experiences and artistic expression
  • Also interrogates the power dynamics that shape literary value and prestige
• Examples of comparative canonical studies include comparing the epic traditions of ancient Greece (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey) and ancient India (the Mahabharata and Ramayana) or analyzing the influence of the European novel on the development of African and Asian fiction in the 20th century

Critical Approaches in Comparative Literature

Postcolonial and Feminist Theory

• Postcolonial theory examines the cultural, political, and economic impact of colonialism and imperialism on both the colonized and the colonizer
  • In comparative literature, focuses on issues of power, identity, and representation in texts from former colonies and works that engage with colonial legacies
• Feminist theory analyzes how gender shapes literary production, representation, and reception
  • Explores how women writers from different cultures and periods navigate patriarchal constraints, challenge gender stereotypes, and imagine alternative possibilities for female agency and expression
• Examples of postcolonial comparative studies include analyzing the works of Caribbean writers like Derek Walcott and Aimé Césaire in relation to the legacy of European colonialism or comparing the representation of colonialism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
• Examples of feminist comparative studies include examining the portrayal of women in the works of 19th-century British and American writers like Charlotte Brontë and Emily Dickinson or comparing the feminist themes in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir

Other Critical Approaches

• Marxist theory examines the relationship between literature and socioeconomic structures
• Ecocriticism focuses on environmental themes and the representation of nature
• Queer theory interrogates the construction and transgression of sexual and gender norms
• Applying these approaches to comparative analysis involves close reading, attention to historical and cultural contexts, and engagement with relevant theoretical frameworks and debates
  • Illuminates how literature reflects, challenges, and shapes social, political, and cultural realities across time and space
• Examples of Marxist comparative studies include analyzing the representation of class struggle in the works of Charles Dickens and Émile Zola or examining the impact of capitalist modernity on the novels of James Joyce and Franz Kafka
• Examples of ecocritical comparative studies include comparing the ecological themes in the poetry of William Wordsworth and Matsuo Bashō or analyzing the representation of nature in the works of Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold

Literary Theory in Comparative Analysis

The Role of Literary Theory

• Literary theory provides tools, concepts, and frameworks for analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating literary texts
  • Theories like structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstruction offer ways of understanding how meaning is produced and destabilized in literature
• In comparative analysis, literary theory helps identify and interrogate assumptions, values, and power structures underlying the production and reception of texts across cultures and periods
  • Illuminates how texts engage with and transform literary traditions and conventions
• Comparative literature often draws on interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives (psychoanalysis, anthropology, philosophy) to enrich and complicate textual analysis
  • Reflects the field's commitment to crossing boundaries and exploring intersections between literature and other forms of cultural expression

Limitations and Reflections

• Comparative literature also recognizes the limitations and biases of theoretical frameworks
  • Emphasizes the need for critical self-reflection and dialogue across different theoretical perspectives
• The goal is not to apply theory mechanically, but to use it as a tool for opening up new questions and possibilities for comparative inquiry
• Examples of literary theory in comparative analysis include using Freudian psychoanalysis to interpret the theme of the double in Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson" and Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Double or applying Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque to the works of François Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes
• Another example is using Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction to analyze the play of language and meaning in the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Celan