J. Michael Holquist comes right out of the gate in Comparative Literature with the straight-from-the-shoulder admission that–ultimately–the field so named has no cohesive structure, home, or identity that can be called ”accepted” in any remotely general sense (p. 194). While the same could be said to an extent of nearly every major subfield under the umbrella title of English, Comp Lit takes this “non-reality” status to an exaggerated degree: the absence of identity becomes in effect the discipline’s very identity. Briefly, Holquist lays out something of a timeline for the development of Comp Lit, starting in the early 1800s as an offshoot of the now-defunct field of philology, Europe–in particular via 19th century “Romantic” underpinnings–led the way to establishing CL as a discipline in its own right, eventually splitting into “schools” such as the German, the French, and the American. Emphases on facets within CL, like “close (slow)” readings and higher theory, lead into contemporary circumstances which find CL linked to issues such as cultural studies, and more solid connections with the base languages of the fields specific local expressions. Comparative Literature, then, is–if anything–a study which is intrinsically subject to transition; thus it must “fight” for, beyond identity as such, its very survival.
Topos: Open/Closed. Anyone care to venture a guess? This one’s easy: Open with a capital “O,” since the discipline has so many connections to other fields–linguistics, various living (and classical) languages, literary studies, social sciences, etc.–and therefore, so tenuous an individual identity. It is openness that “defines” CL and has (so far) allowed for its survival. Nice to have a relatively straightforward analysis for a change.
P.S. The fact that Comp Lit is an open and resourceful field doesn’t make it all peaches and cream: it could be called “closed” if–in contradistinction to the approach take here–one is referring to the ease with which it can be entered into (multiple language fluencies, knowledge of\transitional capabilities into fields at times only obliquely related, etc).
