'reflections On Comparative Literature In The Twenty-first Century': A Study

Biswas 1 Stella Chitralekha Biswas Enrollment no.: 16301103 Dept. of Comparative Literature Central University of Gujarat ‘Reflections on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-First Century’: A Study In her essay ‘Reflections on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-First Century’, Susan Basnett expresses her concerns regarding the fate of Comparative Literature which has been a problematic subject to her throughout her entire academic career. Despite having been established as a distinctive, multi-branched discipline in several educational institutions, literary associations and academic organizations across countries, Comparative Literature has not succeeded in resolving the various conflicts surrounding its essential existence as an autonomous field of study. In alignment with Spivak’s views, Basnett conjures up some future possibilities that Comparative Literature requires to embrace within its parameters in order to step beyond the shadow of a decline. Spivak proposes that Comparative Literature needs to move beyond the boundaries of its Eurocentric origins and go on to accommodate ‘emergent cultures ’in a ‘planetary’ rather than globalized context. Basnett goes on to discuss the various aspects of cannibalism in literature, univocality as opposed to plurivocality and polyphony, colonialism and postcolonial thinking, etc.— all having separate political imports for different scholars and agencies. She puts forth the question as to what relevance Comparative Literature holds today for the Western scholars whose intellect and creative consciousness have been shaped by classic European knowledge passed down across ages. The conflicting relationship between the concepts of world literature and emerging national literatures as well as the significance ascribed

Biswas 2 to the notion of difference have led to the dilemma as to how to approach the task of comparing. The recent boom in postcolonial scholarship and translation studies has further aggravated the complexities by questioning the status-quo of canonical texts, leading to the greater politicization of Comparative Literature. Basnett rectifies an earlier statement made by her in which she had championed the cause of translations at the cost of Comparative Literature. Now she is of the opinion that neither of the two should be seen as a discipline but rather as separate as well as mutually beneficial methods of approaching literature. She detects the crisis of Comparative Literature as lying in the excessive prescriptivism that restricts its boundaries, coupled with distinctive culturally-specific methodologies that do not hold significance universally. She tries to depict how globalization and the discourse of global flows should not at all be rejected but rather seen as a productive tool to comparatists due to plurivocality, juxtaposition and the inclusion of a broad range of diverse disciplines. Giving the example of Ezra Pound and his celebrated Cathay poems, Basnett admonishes that Comparative Literature becomes meaningful when the role of the reader is foregrounded and comparison occurs within the reading process itself along with a consideration of the historical context of the texts in question, rather than being governed by a previouslygiven set of rules. She also upholds the immense significance of translations in the present scenario and for the recovery of Comparative Literature from its crisis. She refuses to brand Comparative Literature as either a discipline or a field of study or a subject because of its innate uncertainty, recalling Benedetto Croce’s view of a comparative history of literature, not only at the moment of actual textual production but also during its reception across time. She concludes with the view that in order for Comparative Literature to survive, scholars need to shift from pointless debates about terminology and definition to the productive study of texts and

Biswas 3 considering the history of their writing as well as reading across space, time and cultures. Translation studies are highly crucial in this regard due to the inevitable interconnection between literatures and literary transfers across the globe.