COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: GENRE OR TECHNIQUE?

In this paper we shall examine the nature, purpose and methodology of comparative literature when faced with the concept of genre in literature.

Indeed, the specificity of comparative literature – the writing of a new text made up with a critique and a synthesis of other texts – could be assimilated to a genre if one considers that the development of literary theory, from which comparative literature draws much of its methodology, can be defined as a genre in contemporary literature.

However, it seems  important, to begin with, to agree with the notion of the existence of genres as historical forms, belonging to the expectations of the author and the reader. We are not going to re-examine the first distinctions made by Aristotle between comedy and tragedy as  genre here is defined by the actions pertaining to each one, but we shall rather focus on what is called today « literary genres ».

                              Before being a problematic notion, inscribed in history and loaded with aesthetic objectives, literary genres have been first and are an editorial reality linked to our concrete existence like categories in a library, or a speciality in universities, or institutions like literary awards. These different categories represent an intuitive typology with genre and subgenre, like a thriller as a subgenre of the novel. Although this notion is much discussed nowadays, we do, as readers and authors spontaneously select our reading and writing according to these categories. Our choice among the literary production corresponds to what Hans Robert Jauss called an horizon of expectative[1] No matter the end result of our expectation (disappointment or not) we accept this distribution as a cultural heritage.

Indeed, literary genres are linked by both a cultural heritage and a « horizon of expectations » on the reader’s side: the classification of  the texts are then automatically done in the reader’s mind usually according to threee modes: poetry, theater, and narrative fiction or novel. These categories can be divided in « sub-categories » like species. For example for the genre ‘novel ‘ the sub-categories are: epistolary, picaresque, and epic (chivalry). But a genre does not exist alone, and can be defined only by opposition to other genres. Nonetheless, we must underline here that, going back to the beginning of genres as Plato and Aristotle defined them, literature has been understood until the 20th century and Gérard Genette as a world essentially of actions and their représentation, of events, excluding all non representative genres although Victor Hugo called for a mixture of genres in his preface to Cromwell in 1827[2]. Of course, this appeal was not the first one: the baroque tended to the same point. All this led to the position observed in the end of the 19th and all through the 20th centuries during which the concept of genre was transgressed up to the acceptation of the notion of “text”, of “total work” as Mallarmé called it. But this evolution of the notion of genre -an evolution cherished by surrealism- did not eliminate the traditional triptyque: poetry, novel, drama. Moreover, the 20th century evidenced, starting from the notion of “text”, the notion of “language” which led the author and philosopher to new oppositions -therefore subgenres- like fiction/ non fiction (Käte Hamburger), prose/poetry (Sartre), narrative/discourse (Benveniste), transitive/intransitive poetical forms (Jakobson). To these approaches we should add the “act of language” (John Langshaw Austin) or Jolles’ “simple forms”. One could argue that these categories do not pass over the traditional categories of genres but rather belong to an extra-literary domain like linguistics and philosophy. These “language oriented”’ approaches explain more than define the traditional genres. Although this consideration does not make these “language oriented approaches” necessarily a genre per se, they certainly legitimate, from our point of view, their inclusion in a kind of subgenre. If this is not the case, we should at least accept them as a proper scientific domain, although it would be impossible to claim that they do not also belong to literature if we extend the tradional definitions of literature. 

To conclude, at least emporarily, on the notion of genre, we must stress that no matter the evolution of the notion and/ or of its content, three remarks should be made: first, the tripartition attributed to Aristotle is remarkably resilient; second, the descriptive dimension attached to the literary genres is fading, due to the  development of the fiction, a free genre per excellence; third, the “text” is promoted, and is seen as a passing away of the genre, even if this concept is still marginal. Within this theoretical context, we shall then examine in this essay whether the field of comparative comparative literature can fit into the concept of genre as understood nowadays.

            Comparative literature deals, in its technique and objectives, with all the genres -traditional or not- referred to above. The act of comparing is, in a way, as old as literature, even as old as the use of writing. The same way a genre does not exist alone, as mentioned above, in literature to compare is to oppose one text to another in order to draw conclusions regarding these texts: are they similar in their form: Are they using the same language? Are they prose or poetry? Do they both have a plot? Characters? Are these characters identical like females and/or males, children, servants, and so on? Are they using the same level of the same language? If there is no plot, have they the same theme? And the list could go on… But does this act of comparing make comparative literature a genre? Many would say that it is only a technique to go deeper in the understanding of literature, whatever genre is used by this latter. One could even say that it is only a literary commentary, an “exercice de style” as would say Barthes or Quenault. But on the other side, any comparatist would say that there is more to that in the field because it goes beyond the understanding of the traditonal genres to include, in its intellectual approach and techniques, the discoveries concerning the complex and rich nature of a “text”. But let us see first what is “comparative literature”.

            Although the association of the two terms can seem easy to understand – a comparison within the field of literature- there is actually no agreement as to what it is, except a good thing  as Herbert Weisinger writes in the preface of Étiemble’s book “The Crisis in Comparative Literature”[3]. The following points might clear up some of the implications suggested by the terminology:

Comparative literature is a freedom and refusal of linguistic and / or cultural limits. These are the two fundamental principles of the comparatist’s activity: a free choice of the methodology to be used and the will to be open to other literatures from different linguistic, cultural, and scientific fields. When it is used in the singular -most often than not-  it implies that the whole literature must be taken into consideration: what is compared is always a literature with another one[4]. Thus the comparison ends logically with a reflection about what is literature, starting from the multiple to better see the functioning laws of a unique ensemble.[5] In its study, comparative literature examines

the relationships within the constant exchange that determines at the end the constitution of a vast system of ramifications and interactions. This system, as any other, has its autonomy and its own functioning laws[6]. Therefore, one can say that any question of comparative literature opens up on a comparative poetic[7] of forms, genres or themes. Therefore the writing act cannot be detached from a multiple experience of time, including the subject, the object, and the writing act per se, all points  belonging  to the essence of a genre. But if comparative literature is actually a genre, then it should have a history, as all genres have, one justification of their development.

Actually the history of comparative literature is quite old: we can retrace it back to  Berossos, a Babylonian-Hellenistic specialist, and Philon of Byblos, a Phenician-Hellenistic specialist, both versed in the two literatures about which they wrote. Indeed, they compared texts, as mythographers did, from various areas and thus created their own tribal mythic heroes out of earlier tales like  Sargon/ Moses, Moses/ Karna, Karna/ Oedipus, a concatenation that Otto Rank[8] established for us. Horace, on his part, bade Roman writers to constantly leaf through Greek manuscripts, urging those who liked Vergil to compare him to Homer, for instance. But it is Macrobius and Aulus Gellius who are considered to be the first true comparatists, evaluating Roman poets with their Greek counterparts[9]. From the two preceding points we can conclude that “comparativism” was thrown upon the scholars and poets of Europe by the Greco-Roman doctrine of imitation (including plagiarism), imposing comparisons and influence studies. From them, many Europeans pioneered in confronting authors, works, or literatures like Herder, Goethe, Lessing, Mme de Staël, the Schlegels, Henry Hallam, and Sismondi. In the first half of the 19th century, the Sorbonne Professor Abel-François Villemain employed the term “comparative literature” in his writings, and led the pack by offering course work in the discipline. Still in the 19th century, after Sainte-Beuve’s article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, many authors followed. Among them we can refer to Max Koch, Longfellow, and Georg Brandes.In Italy, Mazzini wrote in his Scritti (1865-67) that no literature could grow by itself or could escape the influence of other literature. And finally, in 1950 the publication of the Bibliography of Comparative literature by Fernand Baldensperger and Werner Friederich inaugurated the modern age of comparative literature bibliography[10]. But one can suggest that all this “existing comparisons” do not necessarily make the field a genre because we need to have clear objectives and form(s), which is rather problematic when we consider the different definitions -which are more descriptions than definitions as we shall see now.

From Guyard, Marie-François’ Comparative literature is the history of international relations[11]   Alridge, A. Owen goes farther when he writes: …comparative literature …provides a method of broadening one’s perspective in the approach to single works of literature – a way of looking beyond the narrow boundaries of national frontiers in order to discern trends and movements in various national cultures and to see the relations between literature and other spheres of human activity…comparative literature can be considered the study of any literary phenomenon…in conjunction with another intellectual discipline or even several[12].

Henry Remak completes Alridge with the following: Comparative literature is the study of literature beyond the confines of one particular country and the study of the relationships between literature on one hand and other areas of knowledge and belief, such as the (fine) arts, philosophy, history, the social sciences, religion, etc. on the other…it is the comparison of one literature with another or others, and the comparison of literature with other spheres of human expression[13].

From these slightly different definitions we can infer that the meaning of the expression “comparative literature” is also complex or, rather, rich.

Indeed, the expression “comparative literature”, to start with it, has been flexible in its application. In Latin the word ‘comparativus’ was used by Cicero, Quintilian, Gellus and others as “pertaining to or depending on comparison,” or denoting degree or the ablative case. Nowadays, the operation of comparing, leveling, equalizing, or contrasting by juxtaposing literatures is accomplished through the avenues of genres, movements, and themes particularly, but not exclusively. Finally, because the discipline of comparative literature is a study, a history, a research, and all this unified by a methodology, any meaning assigned to “general literature” applies to comparative literature. Today, comparative literature compares, collates, likens, or even reconciles authors and literatures. The field has then a technique: collating, likening, reconciling. The language used is prose, the common objective is to draw out of these studies a new knowledge considering the meaning of the texts compared in their forms, the culture they express, the personality and projects of the authors, and the reactions of the targetted readers. One can say therefore that comparative literature is a specific kind of text, a genre the more so because a genre is a rather flexible notion nowadays as some works do resist such reduction. Let us see now some of the tools used consciously or unconsciously by the comparatist to analyze different texts.

The use of these « tools » is the consequence and/ or  the selected methodology applied by the scholar. Actually, if the basic methodology is a comparison, the way to compare two or more texts depend on the objectives of the comparatists on the one hand, and on the types of texts which are to be compared, on the other. Indeed, the comparatist’s objectives are linked with his/ her interests: if he/she is inclined to psychoanalysis he/ she will examine mostly -and at times only- the marks or traces of this field in the texts; if the researcher is inclined to linguistics, he/ she will use the evidence of this field in the texts,and so on. Of course, this does not mean that the analysis of the target text is narrowly limited to this tool: indeed, the comparatist must at least hint to- or name the other elements of the text studied in order to support his/ her argumentation. These other elements can be in the text itself, or outside it like the author’s biography, the culture of the time, but not only. For instance, in the paper titled Hieronymus Bosch and Thomas More: the same question?[14] the author refers to the short biography of Bosch underlining his social, cultural, and spiritual environment in order to explain his painting Garden of Earthly Delights, while some of More’s personal traits in the same area -his spiritual life and his life as asecular man-  are also stressed. This methodology was selected as the best one at the time because the objective was to understand More’s and Bosch’s approach to life and death within the context of Faith and Eternal Life. In the case of More, what we examined were some of his own texts like Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, some of his poems, and his last writing before being beheaded. The analytical approach was then rather psychological, grounded on facts: data from the periods, the painting, some texts.

Another approach is used when the comparatist deals with apparently less concrete grounds to support his/ her analysis. For example, in her book Michel Foucault/Alain Robbe-Grillet/ Victor Vasarely: Théorie littéraire et pédagogie de l’interdisciplinarité[15] the author first examines Foucault’s poetics of the role of epistemology in the development of language, then extracts a grid from it in order to apply it to the understanding and explanation of Robbe-Grillet’s texts and Vasarely’s paintings. Again, in this case as in the previous example, psychology is the key red-thread because of the autor’s own interest in the field, but also because Foucault’s poetics is firmly grounded on philosphy and psychoanalysis. We could add more examples of the technique used by comparatists, but these two instances prove very well the pattern of the comparatist’s text: setting a strong  analytical ground that could be called grid of analysis, and applying that to the texts at hand. The explanation, or analysis, of these texts must lead toward a conclusion which makes the originality and importance, for our knowledge, of the comparison done through gathering facts. The comparison’s  power lies in suggesting another analysis or possible points of views.

However, comparative literature has its schools, and the adherents to one in particular may use a methodology, especially in their choice of objects to compare, different from adherents to the other school. We consider, nowadays, that there are two schools, although the comparatists in each school can easily go from one to the other one without fearing anathema. These two schools are the French school (the oldest one) and the American school.

The French school accepted spaces of investigations of very different types, but the studies were overall based on national literatures – on their preeminence – and on the connections between them. A major emphasis was placed on phenomena of influence, transmission, communication, transit, or the link between activities and works belonging to different national spheres.

Among these, the study of influences is most typical. The usual point of departure for this type of study is a great writer, or perhaps a thinker or a philosopher whose ideas have become widespread and well known: for example, Nietzsche and the Generation of ’98 in Spain… Sometimes the search for influences is combined with the history of ideas, as in Hazard’s famous Crise de la conscience européenne (1934)[16] or the chapter « Idées et sentiments » in Van Tieghem’s manual.

In general, these comparatists limited themselves to expanding one of the two terms of the equation  and nothing more but  the most reasonable study is one whose boundaries coincide with the actual boundaries of the subject. In this school, one must stress the frequent interest of translations, despite errors -mostly those of Dostoevsky, Rilke, Valéry, or Faulkner. Another interest in the French school is the study of intermédiaires, and periodicals.

On the other hand, the American school developed during the 20th century, especially after WWII, and shows a broader approach to the studies allowed to comparative literature.

Indeed, a quarter of a century after the launching of the Revue Littéraire Comparée, there was a yearning for a more daring and more genuine solidarity, a denunciation of the prevalence of the investigations of the influences in the principal national literatures. Instead, Amercan comparatists proposed a deeper humanism, a wider, more lucid perception of our own time. This is mostly because courses in comparative literature had been offered in the United States since the beginning of the century at Harvard and Columbia universities, but the really decisive element of this school was the arrival of several generations of Europeans whose work in some cases attained maturity in America, demonstrating its quality and promise, like the work of René Wellek and Renato Poggioli, Erich Auerback, Roman Jakobson, and Américo Castro. Moreover, favorable conditions for comparatists in the universities of the United States and Canada were created in large part by the intellectual disposition of North America critics such as Harry Levin. Then, to say it briefly, the main claim of the American school is that everything can -or may- be compared, although within logical and intelligent limits, the limits of the feasible, in order to lead toward an expansion of knowledge. The two examples of comparative literature given above from Suzanne’s research are more from the American School than from the French one, although, as we said earlier, the contemporary French school is far more open now than at its beginning, in the 19th century. But be a comparatist in the French or in the American school, the methodology used is quite similar: both have text(s) as objects, both must follow a red-thread in order to conduct a consistant and fruitful analysis, both must see the similarities and the differences between the texts examined, and both must draw a learned conclusion. To be aware of similarities is indeed quite important for a comparatist as it is the starting point of all the studies, and of which a keen analysis can lead the scholar to grasp and understand differences. Therefore, in comparative literature  the question arises of the « universality » or relative limitations of each genre or system of genres in space and time..

            To conclude, let us say that the examination of whether comparative in nature is within  the range of a genre is both delicate and decisive. Only historical time is capable of demonstrating that a model has indeed attained the status of a genre. For the comparatist, then, only the passage of years and centuries can manifest and display the structural riches and options of a specific genre. And if an  isolated and solitary poem within a literature can seem unusual, or even marginal, if not supported by other poems that demonstrate the existence of a common genre or subgenre, it is not a genre, the same with comparative literature. Therefore, to the question whether  comparative literature is a genre we can answer that  although somehow new within its contemporary form, comparative literature is a very old technique; the comparatist uses a pattern, even with personal variations; a comparative text shows a reiteration, a remodeling leading to an efficient analysis, and to the fulfillment of the expectations of the reader. All characterisitcs of a literary genre.


[1]     Jauss Hans Robert. Pour une esthétique de la réception. Paris: Gallimard, 1978.

[2]     Hugo, Victor. Cromwell. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion

[3]     Étiemble, René. The Crisis in comparative literature. Translated from French by Georges Joyaux and Herbert Weisinger. East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, 1966.

[4]     We shall see later on in our analysis that the term literature nowadays is taken in the broadest meaning of « reading » : one can « read » a painting, a movie, and so on. But even that has its limits.

[5]     An example of that could be a comparison between Dickens’ Hard Times with Hugo’s Les Miserables leading to the role of literature in the 19th century.

[6]     Therefore,  the scholar in comparative literature will look, to say it briefly, for a network of common points between two literary works, and for differences. The consideration of both is called a « system », which, as any good system, will generate fruitful consequences.

[7]     The term « poetic » can be  understood as « theory. ».

[8]     Rank, Otto. Beyond Psychology. New York: Dover publications, Inc., 1966.

[9]     See Chandler, Frank, in 1966 Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature.

[10]   Baldensperger, Fernand, and Werner P. Friedrich. A Bibliography of Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill : Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1950.

[11]   Guyard, Marie-François La Littérature Comparée. 3rd ed. Paris : PUF, 1969 (pp. 12-13 ; free translation)

[12]   Alridge, A. Owen. Comparative Literature : Matter and Method. Urbana : Univ. of Illinois Press, 1969, p. 1

[13]   Remak, Henry, Newton P. Stallknecht and Horst Frenz. Comparative Literature : Method and Perspective. Carbondale: Southern Illinois university Press, 1961. (P.1)

[14]   Suzanne, H. Unpublished paper read at the RSA Convention at Montreal -Canada- March 2011.

[15]   Suzanne, H. Michel Foucault/Alain Robbe-Grillet/ Victor Vasarely: Théorie littéraire et pédagogie de l’interdisciplinarité Pologne: Wyzsza Skola Pedagogiczna w Czestochowie, 2003.

[16]   Hazard, Paul.  La crise de la conscience européenne, 1680-1715. paris: Fayard, 1989.



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