Comparative literature is a branch of literature and art that makes a comparative study of the interaction between two or more national literatures and the relationship between literature and other art categories and other ideologies. What is a comparative literature paper? Come and have a look with me.
Comparative literature is a new discipline. Before I came into contact with it formally, in my mind, I always thought it was just a comparison between China literature and foreign literature, and then I discovered the similarities or differences they expressed. However, after a further understanding of this, it is discovered that this is a discipline with its own "principles" and "attitudes", and there are not a few scholars who are tirelessly trying to uncover its "mystery".
From freshman year to now, we have studied the history of literature, literary theory and literary criticism respectively, and studied literature from different aspects and fields, while comparative literature provides us with different perspectives and ways to study literature more deeply. What is comparative literature? Since the birth of this subject, this problem has almost never been interrupted in international academic circles. Looking back on the research results of comparative literature in history, the theoretical development of comparative literature has gone through three stages.
The first is the "impact study" with the French school as the core.
The study of influence originated in France in the19th century, and it is the earliest discipline theory and research method of comparative literature. Its main representatives are Van Gogh, Carrey and Kaya. In the continuous development, the impact research has established an empirical research method consisting of three pillars: communication research, origin research and media research. These three methods study the history of national literature vertically from the perspectives of receivers, disseminators and intermediaries, and compare the history of international literature relations between different national literature systems horizontally, thus forming the network structure of human literature development. For example, in China's well-known "Monkey King", some scholars found that the story of Monkey King causing havoc in the Heavenly Palace may be influenced by the story of Rona, an ingenious ape, who built a cross-sea bridge in Ramayana. There are many such examples, which shows that the cosmopolitan nature of literature will inevitably bring about the mutual influence between the literatures of various countries. However, this school gave up the analysis of "literariness" and tried to reveal its inherent regularity from the external research of literature and art, which was criticized by many scholars.
Second, "parallel research" with the American school as the core.
Remarque and Wellek, the main representatives of parallel research, advocate a comparative study of writers, works and literary phenomena in different countries, explore their similarities and differences, sum up the aesthetic value of literary works and the regularity of literary development, and reveal the universality and literariness of human culture by interdisciplinary research methods. Parallel research takes typology, thematic research and stylistics as research methods. For example, in the image research of thematic research, the word "dog" in China culture is mostly derogatory, such as "dogs look down on people", but in western culture, "dog" is a compliment to others and a heartfelt meaning. It can be seen that parallel research is conducive to broadening the research field of comparative literature. However, there are also some shortcomings, such as paying too much attention to "similarities in differences", the research scope is too large, and the boundaries of disciplines are blurred.
Third, the "theory of change" with China School as the core.
In 2005, the study of variation was first put forward by China scholars, and the main representatives were Li Dasan, Cao Shunqing and others. They advocate that based on variability, we should study the variation state of literary phenomenon exchange between different countries and make a reasonable answer to the inherent regularity of literary variation. This kind of research is mainly divided into five levels of variation: language level, national image, literary text, culture and cross-civilization research, among which the specific typical representatives are translation studies, iconology, literary reception studies, cultural filtering, civilized dialogue and discourse variation. Predecessors either "seek common ground (homology) and forget differences" or "seek common ground (similarity) and reject differences". On this basis, variation research pursues variation in the process of literary circulation, which shows that this theory is a revolutionary change in comparative literature. Of course, there are still many problems to be sorted out in the study of variation, and more scholars are needed to study and discover it, so that more people can agree with this view.
According to Cao Shunqing's introduction to comparative literature, comparative literature is a leap-forward comparative study of literature between different countries, civilizations and disciplines. This paper mainly studies the homology, similarity, heterogeneity and variability of literature in various leaps and bounds, with empirical influence research, parallel research and literary variation research as the basic methodology. Its purpose is to sum up literary laws and aesthetic characteristics from a global perspective, strengthen mutual understanding and integration of world literature, and promote the development of world literature. "From this certain meaning of Mr. Cao, it is not difficult to see that comparative literature is not a simple comparison between literature, but a' leap-forward' discipline that compares literature with other disciplines, thus drawing some literary laws and literary aesthetic characteristics.
As we all know, every discipline has its own characteristics different from other disciplines, such as the unity of humanity and instrumentality. And comparative literature is a relatively open discipline, so many scholars think that this is the disciplinary feature of comparative literature, but it cannot be distinguished from other disciplines, because this so-called comparison and openness is a method that can be used by many disciplines. According to the research of Mr. Cao Shunqing and his colleagues, they think that the disciplinary characteristics of comparative literature can be summarized by leaps and bounds. This is because "from the development practice of this discipline, leapfrogging has different emphases in different historical stages, but overall, leapfrogging a single literary system is the core of comparative literature." On the basis of summarizing the previous research results, they further pointed out that this "leap" is mainly manifested in three levels: cross-border research, interdisciplinary research and cross-civilization research. The "cross-civilization study" here is different from the "cultural study" because the concept of culture is too big, such as Qilu culture and Chu culture in China. If domestic cultures are compared with each other, it cannot be regarded as comparative literature; In addition, there will be different cultures in the same civilization circle, such as French culture and German culture. On this basis, they redefined the research field of comparative literature as "leap-forward research as the basic feature, and empirical influence research, parallel research and variation research as the three major research fields." It can be seen that under the efforts of Mr. Cao and others and the correct summary of the gains and losses of predecessors, the inherent uniqueness and discipline system of comparative literature have been continuously improved and improved, and its unknown "secret" has been gradually uncovered, building a relatively complete and more scientific discipline research paradigm.
No matter what people define comparative literature, there is no doubt that comparative literature is indeed a subject worthy of our study. It not only provides a new direction and way for us to know more about literature, such as the vertical inheritance and development of domestic literature, the research methods of cultural infiltration and influence between countries, but also allows students to learn from others and have their own views on domestic literature, and also allows us to broaden our horizons and think about literary issues as a whole in the process of research. In addition, literary exchanges between countries will naturally promote the prosperity and development of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
;