National v. comparative history of literature: presuppositions for a critical re-examination of comparative croatian studies and croatian comparative studies

Dukić, Davor. (2003). National v. comparative history of literature: presuppositions for a critical re-examination of comparative croatian studies and croatian comparative studies. Umjetnost riječi : časopis za znanost o književnosti, 47(1-2). pp. 3-26. ISSN 0503-1853

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Abstract

The national and comparative history of literature share the methodology, but approach their subject of study from the different points of view: the first focuses on the national, the second on the trans-national aspect of literary history. The study of bilateral literary relationships and influences (genetic relationships) as well as the study of translations (though they are usually considered to be the domain of the comparative studies) will have a tendency to express the national point of view, especially if the research is concerned with the influence of ’foreign’ literature on a ’national’ one. On the other hand, the study of the reception of a national literature in a foreign culture presupposes a higher degree of cultural interaction and rules out a narrow national and philological approach. The questions of general (European/ world) literature belong to the domain of comparative studies, though they can also be appropriated by a national history of literature in an attempt to legitimise its tradition. Though typological comparisons belong to the domain of comparative literature, they also enable the insight into a specific nature of a national literature. Comparative literature has widened its field of study so as to include other arts (intermediality), turning to cultural studies in order to overcome its crisis. In the case of practical research, such a tendency will usually restrict itself to a specific national literature. On the other hand, comparative literature will turn to European studies as its future. All cited tendencies in national and comparative history of literature have been discussed in relation to the development and the contemporary situation in Croatian studies and Croatian comparative studies. Though all these tendencies leave possibilities for continuous research, the most promising ones are typological and topological (imago-logical) studies of literature.

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