Thinking Literature across Borders

 
Comparative literature, which developed in late nineteenth-century France, emerged to cross the geographic, linguistic, and political boundaries of European national literatures. The discipline's rise coincided with the growth of national identities across Western Europe. During this period, widespread nationalist ideologies fueled a fierce competition for cultural supremacy among European nations, including France. There, the emerging field of comparative literature developed as an extension of traditional literary history, greatly dominated by the era's positivistic philosophy. Influence studies were the dominant rhetoric of the French school of comparative literature, emphasizing multilingualism and historical documents. The research methodology was rigorously demanding. In essence, the French school was interested in what European literature had learned from others and had, thus, enriched their respective cultural heritage. However, this benign goal deviated from its original path and became Eurocentric. In the second half of the 20^th century, opposition arose on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. René Wellek criticized the French school for its historical approach and offered a new theory that emphasized literariness. To him, literature was a totality which included all national literatures, embracing the whole of humanity.