Building a Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives on the Beginnings of Comparative Literature in the United States (review)

REVIEWS LIONEL GOSSMAN and MIHAI L. SPARIOSU, eds. and introd. Building a Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives on the Beginnings of Comparative Literature in the United States. Albany: SU of New York P, 1994. xi + 234 pp. Comparative Literature in the United States is a young field, whose origins are still within the Uving memory of its founders. Nevertheless the recent death of Harry Levin as well as the declining health of René WeUek are reminders that it has also reached a watershed in its development . With the intent, therefore, of taking stock, looking at its origins, exploring the people and assumptions that helped to shape it, and assessing its current directions, Gossman and Spariosu commissioned and coUected sixteen autobiographical essays by many of the leading names in the profession. Aside from their own concluding essays, Gossman and Spariosu include contributions by René Wellek, Harry Levin, Victor Lange, Thomas M. Greene, Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, W. Wolfgang Holdheim, Anna Balakian, Albert J. Guérard, Thomas R. Hart, Lüian Fürst, Marjorie Perloff, Herbert Lindenberger, Gerald GiUespie, and Stanley Corngold, an eloquent reminder that any profession is essentially the people who comprise it. WeUek and Levin emerge from these recollections as the patron saints of Comparative Literature (with Paul de Man its chief sinner). Also important was the inspiration offered by such legendary figures as Eric Auerbach and Leo Spitzer. Imbued with a cosmopolitan vision that rejected national, historical, and disciplinary boundaries, and sustained by an abiding spirit of humanism (both cite the role of Irving Babbitt), WeUek and Levin helped create a discipUne that turned away from the narrowly positivistic and phüological orientation ofEuropean "Uttérature comparée" or "vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft." If the focus was largely European Uterature and especiaUy Romanticism, SymboUsm, and the high modernist canon, both remained sympathetic to a wide range of topics and approaches. The scholars (many represented in this volume) whose doctoral dissertations they chaired over the last fifty years represent a veritable who's who in American Uterary scholarship. The initial impetus for Comparative Literature in the United States derives from two connected sources: the arrival of a number of deeply learned and multilingual refugees fleeing the terrors of Hitler's Europe, and a corresponding flow of young Americans directed towards Europe as soldiers and saUors. The resulting confrontation of cultures challenged the conventional professional assumptions, laying the groundwork for a humanistic discipline that was willing to look at the languages and Uteratures of several cultures. Many contributors noted the resistance to such a discipline from traditional departments of EngUsh, Classics, and various national languages. StruggUng to overcome such parochiaUsm and territoriaUty, Comparative Literature was often an unwelcome stepchüd. Tracing her peregrinations through a number of institutions in England, Ireland, and the United States, Lüian Fürst Vol. 19 (1995): 152 THE COMPAKATIST recaUed how one Classics department rejected the idea of merging programs with the dismissal that "they didn't want to sit in a grass-hut with a cannibal!" It is perhaps with mixed emotion and no little irony that now that Comparative Literature has achieved success and enjoys a cachet of fashionable sophistication, many style themselves comparatists, whether they have the credentials or not. On one hand, as Marjorie Perloff notes, this underUnes the success of Comparative Literature and assures many diverse perspectives. On the other hand, Anna Balakian expresses concern that if the field is to preserve its integrity, its members must observe certain traditions and achieve certain standards. Too many comparatist-wannabes lack the languages or the broad preparation in several cultures with the result that much work becomes a repetition of the same handful of works (conveniently available in translation). "Authors like Flaubert, Richardson, Proust, Joyce, Sade, Brecht, and more recently Bataille seem to have been wrung dry, when yet another structuraUst exegesis or mythopoetic deconstruction comes along," Balakian laments. Too much Comparative Literature becomes an exercise in name dropping. Certainly the most controversial topic in Comparative Literature revolves around the role of theory. From its beginnings, the field has been concerned with theoretical matters. Many writers point to Wellek and Warren's seminal Theory of Literature. Wellek himself, however, is aware ofthe dangers of theory. Recalling...