Comparative Literature: Some Definitions

• H. H. Remak : Comparative literature is the study of literature beyond the confines of one particular country, and the study of the relationships between literature on the one hand and the other areas of knowledge and belief such as the arts, philosophy, history, the social sciences, the sciences, religion etc., on the other hand. (*Emphasis on interdisciplinarity).

• Rene Wellek : Comparative literature is concerned with literary scholarship as a unified discipline, unhampered by linguistic restrictions.(*Emphasis on intralinguistic comparisons).

• Marius Guyard: Comparative literature is the study of international literary relations.

• Susan Bassnett : Comparative Literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that is interdisciplinary and it is concerned with patterns of connection in literature across both time and space.

• Paul Van Tieghem: The object of comparative literature is essentially the study of diverse literatures in their relations with one another./ Comparative literature is a discipline which bears on facts common to several literatures, considered as such, be it in their mutual interdependence or by analogy./ Comparative literature is about the binary relations between two elements.

• Claudio Guillen : Comparative literature is usually understood to consist of a certain tendency or branch of literary investigation that involves the systematic study of supranational assemblages.

• J.M.Carre: Comparative literature is a branch of literary history; it is the study of spiritual international relations, of factual contacts that took place between Byron and Pushkin, Goethe and Carlyle, Walter Scott and Vigny; between the works, the inspirations and even the lives of writers belonging to several literatures.

• Baldensperger : Comparative literature is the preparation for a New Humanism. (He argued that thematology is not enough for comparative literature).