COMPARATISM AND THE CRISIS OF LITERARY STUDIES

• Authors: Anton Pokrivčák
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article is an analysis of René Wellek’s contribution to the theory of comparative literature. It draws on his characterization of the crisis of comparative literature presented at the 2nd Congress of ICLA in the USA, and continues with the interpretation of some of his other opinions concerning the situation in which literary studies in the USA found itself at the end of the 20th century. They are included especially in his articles “The Attack on Literature” and “Destroying Literary Studies.” René Wellek’s theoretical opinions are analysed especially in the context of emerging cultural studies and their ideologization of literature in general, formally expressed, for example, in the Bernheimer Report for the American Association of Comparative Literature. The author points out that the future of the comparative literature lies not in its use of ideological contexts but in its ability to draw attention to universal principles and values, perhaps thorough the conceptions of inter-literariness and world literature, and thus overcome the harmfulness of separatist tendencies fed by particularisms of various types.

Keywords

EN

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE; THEORY OF LITERATURE; LITERARY STUDIES; INTER-LITERARINESS; WORLD LITERATURE; NATIONAL LITERATURE

• Publisher: Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: World Literature Studies
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 5 (22)
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 77 – 88

Contributors

author

Anton Pokrivčák

• Filozofická fakulta UKF Nitra, Štefánikova 67, 949 74 Nitra, Slovak Republic