The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective

I.

There would be no raiso n d'être for the comparative method if it was not the classification of entities or traits which first have to be separate and distinct before their similarities can be used to establish taxonomies and developmental sequences.

—Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other

The universalist concept of all the literatures of the world being held together as a totality, one that transcends restrictive national and linguistic boundaries, remains an enormously appealing one to many people nearly two centuries after Goethe proclaimed the notion of Weltliteratur in the 1820s. As Edward Said writes, "For many modern scholars—including myself—Goethe's grandly utopian vision is considered to be the foundation of what was to become the field of comparative literature, whose underlying and perhaps unrealizable rationale was this vast synthesis of the world's literary production transcending borders and languages but not in any way effacing their individuality and historical concreteness."¹ Arising in the historical context of nascent nationalisms in Europe, the notion of world literature partook of the aspirations toward global peace, cosmopolitical right, and intercultural hospitality that were among the most important intellectual legacies of that period.² As Susan Bassnett writes: "With the advantages of retrospection, we can see that 'comparative' was set against 'national,' and that whilst the study of 'national' literatures risked accusations of partisanship, the study of 'comparative' literature carried with it a sense of transcendence of the narrowly nationalistic."³ Comparative literature as it is pursued in North America still retains many of these historically specific but arguably universally valid aspirations.⁴ However, despite the explicit use of the term "comparative," these aspirations are not always accompanied by a sustained critical engagement with comparison as a historically overdetermined problematic.⁵ More often than not, it is assumed that comparison occurs as a matter of course whenever we juxtapose two (or more) national languages and literatures, geographical regions, authors, or themes, and rarely do critics stop and ponder what the gesture of comparing consists in, amounts to, indeed realizes and reinforces.⁶ These days, the term "comparative" is often used in tandem or interchangeably with words such as "diverse," "global," "international," "transnational," "crosscultural," "planetary," and the like, in ways that once again conjure the signature aspiration of "more than one," of going beyond restrictive national boundaries that have been used to define "world literature,"yet the nebulousness of the term, as well, seems to persist in direct proportion to its popular usage.⁷ In a field that defines itself so consciously as plural and interdisciplinary to begin with, such nebulousness is, one suspects, unlikely to go away simply with renewed assertions of the openness of comparative literature's terrain or the permeability of its borders.

As part of a cluster of concepts that sees linguistic cosmopolitanism and the peaceful coexistence of national and cultural traditions as its telos, comparison in comparative literature is understandably grounded, as the etymology of the word suggests, in the notion of parity—in the possibility of peer-like equality and mutuality among those being compared. As Bassnett puts it, "Communication, comingling, sharing were key words in this view of comparative literature, which depoliticized writing and aspired towards universal concord."⁸ Hence, whereas a single national literary tradition needs to be investigated in accordance with its historical specifics, comparative literature often proceeds with investigating multiple literary traditions on the assumption that there ought to be a degree of commonality and equivalence—and thus comparability—among them; that they are, somehow, on a par with one another despite their obvious differences. Interestingly, the assumption of parity/sameness is premised on a requirement of linguistic disparity/difference: if not at least two or three languages are involved, the work is often described (as it is by some of my friends and colleagues in the profession) as "not comparatist."

What are the implications of this prerequisite multilingualism? Although, having always worked in differentiated linguistic traditions, I deeply appreciate the intellectual and personal benefits of knowing multiple languages, it appears problematic (to me at least) to equate...