Comparative literature

Under comparative literature refers to the General and comparative literature, in some cases, close only the Comparative Literature. The Comparative Literature is the study of the similarities and differences of the literatures of different cultures in a cross-border perspective. It makes use of this method of comparison. The general literature includes all the fields of literary theory, such as aesthetics, rhetoric and narratology.

Individual Research

Comparative Literary History

The border crossing is not politically to understand because national borders are in the rarest cases also cultural. Rather, the comparative literature is oriented intercultural, ie they considered literary phenomena ( materials, themes, genres, etc.) in international comparison: It compares individual seals, poet or currents in different cultures or national literatures throughout its course; she explores the influences of certain writers or literary movements to other literatures and examines the history of specific genres, fabric and design circles ( world literature ). In addition, the comparative literature deals with the comparison of the individual arts and studied in this way intermedia processes and transformations of language.

So you are not interested, for example, for the German novel of modernity, but which has similarities and differences of these in contrast to the French or English novels of the modern era.

Point of comparison ( the shared third ) would be the modern one - than a national phenomenon.

In the comparative literature two types of comparison are usually distinguished from each other:

  • The genetic comparison is based on direct or indirect contacts and influences. There is a genetic relation between two or more members compared, that is, to set the question of the causal relationship between two authors ( such as Goethe André Gide has influenced how processed Joyce in Ulysses Homer's Odyssey ). These are direct contacts. From an indirect contact can argue, for example, if an author is published by the reading of another author with a third author or influenced by him. It takes place in this case, instead of a mediation by a shifted between instance. One must distinguish between conscious and unconscious indirect contacts (one author takes clearly Schopenhauer position, although he has his writings only met by another author, not through their own reading ).

It is also possible to speak of contact or influence, if an author is not directly or indirectly affected by a single author, but of an entire literary movement. Thus, for example, Joyce, both directly influenced by Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, etc. as well as a child of its time, the thoughts and ideas of literary modernism, that is a particular historical epoch. Such indirect references can also be described with the textheoretischen category of intertextuality, which - in contrast to production and reception aesthetic approaches - only taken into account the work itself and understands the intertextual reference as a property of the text.

  • With another type of comparison you have to do it when you authors compares within the literary modernism. It 's no longer about, detect, such as Céline was influenced by a specific socio-cultural environment, but how different authors with this environment ( at the international level, with sociolinguistic differences) deal in their literary texts. So you compares authors who share a common environment without having had direct or indirect influence on each other. In this case one speaks of a contrastive and typological comparison. It is not based on contacts, but on analogies. In this type of comparison it is much more important to use similar literary phenomena related to each other. For example it is more appropriate to compare within individual genres (the novel of modernity ) or to choose similar literary content in cross-genre comparisons ( city problem in modernity ).

Interdisciplinary Research

In addition, the comparative exceeds disciplinary boundaries, comparing literature with other art forms ( painting, music, film, etc.; Arts comparison), literature assigns a media history and sociology, occurs in the humanities and the history of ideas on their specific type in "competition" to philosophical questions. The aim is to arrive at universally valid theory and robust conclusions. Just theorizing in literary and cultural studies perspective is a specific domain of comparative literature.

General History of Literature

The comparative research is highly dependent on the findings of the single philology in literary history. In contrast to this, it focuses on systematic issues in an international context. Especially Periodisierungs and age issues play a central role. Over the literary-historical research, there have been countless attempts to divide the heterogeneous structure of literary relations in time. On this theme, see epoch ( literature).

When in the history of literature a standard or convention is being replaced by another, it is called a paradigm shift. Especially at the international level through developments in a larger context usually not simultaneously. Accordingly, you also must be aware that, for example, a term such as romance, although referred to a pan-European phenomenon, but non-contemporaneous used in Germany, England and France, especially as the literatures of different countries influence each other, and this created a each specific form of romance ( as Goethe is in France partially counted the Romantics ). The all countries common Broad romance are viewing subject in comparative literature, socio- linguistic idiosyncrasies area of ​​responsibility of the individual philology. In the context of historical non-simultaneity of a literary period is referred to as phase shift.

Thematologie

( Themes in History, Myth Research) The Thematologie deals with the content material of the seal and its specific literary transformations. Not only historical occurrences of certain themes and motifs, but also the themes and content of literature, myths, symbols are examined, and the like. As a material is referred to (in addition to the invented by the author ) the material that is firmly established in the course of literary history and taken up again and again (such as Don Juan, Oedipus, Faust, etc.). The fabric is attached to solid elements that make it distinctive and which he can not do without in order to be recognized as a particular substance. These fixed elements are the motives that are more abstract in general than what they constitute. So the Don Juan substance is bound to the motives of seduction and punishment, but which are themselves not bound to this special fabric. Rather, they can be combined with other motives ( etc. love, hate, jealousy, friendship, loneliness ) to form new substances. Motifs are mostly general characteristics or basic constants of life. For a given substance is recognized as such, it must have distinctive core motives that historically stable ( invariable or invariant ) remain, so the possibilities for individual design of a poet mainly consist of the aesthetic, the formal implementation of a material default. Depending on the ideological and aesthetic ideas of an epoch learn substances constantly updates, ie a substance regenerates over time, because changing the conditions for literary production. Current conditions ( social, psychological, aesthetic, historical, etc.) can also be the reason for the dominance of certain substances or motifs within a period ( for example, the vanitas motif in Baroque ) or for the loss of meaning of a substance.

In the 20th century, for example, the Don Juan fabric with its core motifs not updatable because a liberal society in which there is no religious monopoly of power over, seduction is not sanctioned. Only the considered treatment, for example, by a parody (see Max Frisch's Don Juan or The love of geometry ) is able to update the traditional material; However, it loses its real meaning, has survived historically. Substances are therefore not always upgradable, meaning that they stay historically bound. Also striking is the generic affinity of certain substances, which is why a generic change requires special attention. Thus, from the dramas figure of Don Juan in ETA Hoffmann a character in a story - also because the drama plays a rather minor role in German Romanticism. Closely related to the material history, the myth research entails, especially as applied in the myth of basic human situations have to be the most ancient of all seal material, that is in Pre-Literate time reasons. In contrast to the material is the subject of a literary work rather abstract in nature, for example, a central idea. Joseph Conrad describes in Heart of Darkness not only a journey into the African jungle, but also a journey into one's own personality, a questioning of the "civilized " people.

Reception

Many of the issues raised in the individual work areas of comparative aspects are on a different level of the reception problem. An author of a Don - Juan- piece in the 20th century refers to already existing workings of the story, such as Molière and Mozart.

The word influence is mainly related to the production aesthetic used ( the consideration of the conditions and elements of any artistic activity ) and refers to the effect of certain events on an author that processes that influence productive in our own factory. Thus, the reading of a certain book to influence him, or the complete works of another author, or significant history of ideas and historical events. In contemporary research such simple causality models are displaced in favor of multi-level approaches:

On this theme, see reception theory and intertextuality.

Genus questions

Already the word genre is not without problems in the literature, it says but the four major genres epic (now rather: fiction ), drama, poetry (not every poem is lyrical! ) And use texts ( non-fiction, didactic texts, instructions, etc.) and the subgenera to these genres (novel, short story, short story, tragedy, comedy, sonnet, ballad, etc.). The two main areas of research are the history of the species and the genus theory. The history of the species tracked diachronic and synchronous development of individual species (eg, the history of the novel ). She sets different priorities, such as the subdivision of the novel according to thematic aspects ( historical novel, Bildungsroman, awareness Roman, Roman City, etc.). A clear distinction between the formal criteria of a class is not always possible, which is why content issues can be quite connected with the shape of history. In contrast, the genus theory is more interested in ahistorical phenomena. You tried to show in force in all eras constants of a genus, is interested in so-called universals or invariants. Another way to look at the genus problem is the analysis of the genus reception: the question of whether certain species are taken in a particular period greater awareness than others, whether certain species dominate an era or are formative for them. The attitude of the author to the genus models and conventions with regard to his own work is the subject of this comparative work area.

On this theme, see Genus ( poetry / literature).

Literary theory

Closely related to the genus theory is the theory of literature, which can be considered as a generic term for all systematic attempts to achieve universal and typological statements. It is closely related to the philosophical discipline of aesthetics. The literary theory has set itself the task to understand the nature of literature and tries to look at all the factors that are constitutive for a literary work, such as the producer level ( author), the text layer and the recipient level ( readership ). Psychological, aesthetic, sociological, and other phenomena play a decisive role here.

On this theme, see literary theory.

Theory of literary translation

An important area of comparative literature is the theory and practice of literary translation. This is the difficulty that every language thus has an irreducible fraction of idiomatic and untranslatable, which reveals itself especially in the literary work. Every translation is placement of a literary content, but at the same time also a cultural shift. That is why it is often called in literary translations of productive, not of reproducing reception, because it is not just a simple transfer takes place in a different language, but a complicated cross-cultural process in which the translator beyond itself aesthetic skills must possess to the poetic qualities of the original to be reasonably fair. A translator is thus a mediator and even creative author.

Translation types

In the discussion we distinguish two main types of translation: the production-oriented and translation -oriented reception.

  • In the production-oriented translation of the focus is on the source language and the author, that is, the translator aims at a close proximity to the original, by taking on linguistic features and imitated, so emphasizes the expression level ( literal translation ). Since the Romantic period this kind of translation has steadily gained in importance. For the reader a production-oriented translation first often means irritation and incomprehension, as in the translated text shows through the linguistically and culturally alien.
  • At the reception oriented translation of the target language and the reader is at the center. Here is the content level is emphasized and the linguistic peculiarities of the original are adapted to the target language. In this context one also speaks of free translation, paraphrase ( very common in poetry) or paraphrase.

In addition, translations according to their degree of faithfulness can be differentiated:

  • The parodic translation does not mean creation, but the transmission of a text in the culture of his time.
  • A prose translation, the concept goes back to Goethe, is a literal translation, but translation problems by reformulating explanations or bypasses.
  • An identifying translation is a literal translation.

The ideal or congenial translation closest would a text that would reflect a balance between expression level and content level.

History

Among the most important theorists of literary translation of the church father Jerome, and later Goethe, Schleiermacher, Walter Benjamin, and Ortega y Gasset be, among other things, in ancient times, counted. In Goethe the demand goes back to make the translation " identical to the original " by the translator, the originality of his "nation" and gives the "nation" of the original text followed. If this fails, Goethe recommends a parodic translation, which makes the text more accessible to the masses. In this way it is ensured that retained as much as possible from the original text.

According to Schleiermacher, the real goal should be that a complete Genesis of the two languages ​​arises. The reader should get a sense of the spirit of the language and the author of the work. But Schleiermacher also believes that translation is a hopeless, utopian endeavor. Language can actually express our thinking in his eyes but. On the other hand he holds a paraphrase ( prose translation ) or a replica (a free form and content translation ) for only a stopgap.

Intercultural hermeneutics

The intercultural hermeneutics (formerly imagology ) examines the " image of the other country," which presupposes not only knowledge of foreign cultures, languages ​​and mentalities, but also an intense preoccupation with the values ​​and beliefs of their own culture demands. This leads to several questions: What is covered in the consideration of a foreign culture especially on and what not? The extent to which other culture is equivalent to its own world view, and how far it deviates from them? Emphasis is therefore the familiar or the unfamiliar? I notice at all cultural characteristics (eg, social rules ), if there are not comparable in their own culture?

The aim of intercultural hermeneutics is not only the better foreign understanding, but also a self-analysis by external analysis. It is interesting how such stereotypes arise. Just literary texts have helped other cultures almost bring the domestic audience and to design an image that often do not correspond to reality. In the text analysis, several aspects are of particular importance: the other culture as raw ingredient ( as a theme or subject); as textual component ( intertextuality, such as quotations in foreign languages); as a linguistic component ( for example, in literary translation ).

Intermediality

The comparison or competition between the arts ( certamen of Arts ) has been since ancient times an important aesthetic issue, which is an update in the idealism of Kant and Hegel. Accordingly, the comparative Intermediality research examines (formerly Arts comparison) the relationship of literature to painting, music, theater, film, etc., in particular, forms of mutual penetration of the Arts ( visual poetry, art as a subject of literature, acquisition of artistic techniques, such as collage and assembly) and artistic mixed forms in which different disciplines interact (opera, art song, film), are of interest. The examination of thematic similarities may prove fruitful (eg mythology in text and image ), or the individual psychological phenomenon of dual talent (ETA Hoffmann as a poet and composer, William Blake as a poet and painter).

Institute for Comparative Studies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

In Germany, most institutions of Comparative other institutes are connected, such as those for German, Romance or classical philology. The following independent Institute for General and Comparative Literature:

  • Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
  • Peter Szondi Institute at the Free University of Berlin
  • Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
  • Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich
  • Section for General Literature at the University of Wuppertal
  • Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna
  • Research Centre for General and Comparative Literature at the Karl- Franzens- University of Graz
  • Department of General and Comparative Literature at the University of Zurich
  • Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the University of Freiburg

Prominent comparatists

Literary genre Ulysses (novel) Arthur Schopenhauer Dante Alighieri Goethe's Faust Novella Montage Péter Szondi
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