Comparative Literature 武大门户首页比较文学武大门户首页.ppt

Comparative Literature The Historical Perspective In the course of the 19th century, comparative literature became both an academic discipline and a critical system, recognized as such, probably for the first time, by one of the founders of modern criticism: Sainte-Beuve (圣佩韦/圣伯夫 1804-1869). In his first article on Jean-Jacques Ampère (1800-1864), written in 1840 and published in Portraits comtemporains, Sainte-Beuve uses the expression “histoire littéraire comparée”; in his second article of 1868, printed in Nouveaux lundis (《月曜论文新编》) , he refers to “littérature comparée.” As to the expression “littéraire comparée,” which gave birth to “comparative literature,” it existed a half century before Sainte-Beuve employed it. The date of the birth of “comparative literature” can hardly be accurately established. It may not have been used long before 1886 when Hutcheson M. Posnett chose it as the title of a book (Comparative Literature, published in London by K. Paul - Trench as part of their “International Scientific Series”). background After 1800, converging tendencies may be noted not only in the various humanistic fields, such as philosophy and history, but in most areas of human knowledge, including law and religion. In France the word comparé was most fashionable at that time and much used in the world of letters and of science as well. The founder of comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier (1765-1832 乔治·居维叶 ) published his famous Le?ons d’anatomie comparée (《比较解剖学教程》）. Madame de Stael’s (德·斯塔尔夫人) De la littérature—a simultaneous view of most European literatures—appeared in the same year, though she did not use the word comparé explicitly. Charles de Villers (1765-1815) put the word in the title of a work that obtained some celebrity: Erotique comparée, ou essai sur las maniere essentiellement differente dont les poetes francais et allemands traitent l’amour (1807). Villers’ Comparative Erotics is one of the most comprehensive studies on troubadours and minnesi