Literature

LITERATURE, Comparative. 1. History and Development of Study.— Comparative literature is a term that only within the last 30 years has come into prominence, but is applied to so many different fields and lines of research that it would be difficult to find two scholars who would agree absolutely on the particular scope and purpose of this discipline. The English term,— obviously a misnomer,— seems of quite recent coinage, whereas the cor responding French, German and Italian terms have been in use for nearly a century (Littera ture comparee; Vergleichende Literaturge schichte). The first scholar who pro jected a study of human civilization on a philosophical and comparative basis was Francis Bacon: some remarkable adum brations of modern theories of evolution may be found scattered through his stauratio magna.' Other pathfinders in this field are the Italian Giovanni Vico, (1725) •, Dryden, John Dennis, Thomas Warton in England; Perrault, Saint Evremond, Montesquieu, Batteux in France; Baumgarten and Winckelmann in Germany. The greatest synthetic mind of his age was Her der whose ambition it was to understand all literary phenomena as manifestations of deeper cultural impulses and who first insisted upon a relative valuation of literary productions ac cording to the specific character and genius of each individual nation. Goethe's broad humani tarian views and genuinely cosmopolitan tastes remain an inspiring example for all times. It is one of history's little ironies that many of these critics, like Perrault, the Warton brothers and Herder, were primarily moved by the de sire to defend their aspirations toward a na tional literature against the tyranny of absolute standards or traditions and that, in speaking pro domo, they were indirectly obliged to speak pro universo. The Romantic movement gave a new impetus to the expansion of literary interests all over Europe. The rediscovery of the for gotten treasures of mediaeval poetry, or older ballad and saga literature, the opening up of the Oriental world and the study of Southern liter atures,— all these activities tended to enlarge the horizon, although they contributed very little to comparative analysis. It is sufficient

to mention the names of Coleridge and Scott, of the Schlegel and Grimm brothers, of Mme. de Stael and Ampere, and to remind of the fact that three leading French periodicals: Le Globe, In Revue des deux Mondes, and especially la Revue Europienne, were international in char acter and had correspondents in all European countries. From 1850 on, with the strengthen ing of the philological disciplines on one side and the rapid growth of biology and sociology on the other, new tendencies and methods were introduced in the treatment of literary prob lems. Philological analysis resulted in a large number of investigations in which literary cur rents, themes and forms were traced through different literatures or periods and studied in their reaction upon each other. Benfey's (Pantschatantra) (1859), in which literary rela tions between Orient and Occident are investi gated, was one of the first attempts in compar ative criticism, although Dunlap's of Prose Fiction) and Graesse's (Sagenkreise des Mittelalters> (1837) should not be omitted as earlier forerunners. Tha philosophical and synthetic tendency, on the other hand, drew inspiration from biology, ethnography and soci ology, in particular from the new gospel of evo lution and its prophets from Darwin to Weis mann and De Vries. The influence of environ ment, climate, race, social institutions upon lit erary life was studied and laws were formulated to explain the growth and decline of literary types and forms. The theories of Taine, Le tourneau, Posnett, Brunetiere, Manly and others are the result of these investigations. At the present time literary research shows rather a preponderance of technical and analytic studies, but a certain speculative element is noticeable in many of them and some biological analogies seem to have become established.