(FICHAMENTO) "What is comparative Literature Today" (BASSETT, 1993)

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FICHAMENTO
Autor: Renan William Silva de Deus
	Reference:
BASSETT, Susan. Introduction: What is Comparative Literature Today? In: - Comparative Literature: a critical introduction. Oxford, UK Cambridge, Mass., USA Blackwell, 1993.
On the introductory chapter of Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, Susan Bassnett tries to discuss what is comparative literature today. The author brings in the first paragraph the simplest definition before going deeper into the theme, by saying that “comparative literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that is interdisciplinary and that it is concerned with patterns of connection in literatures across both time and space.” She also points out that the read may follow the idea of “similarities between texts or authors from different cultural contexts”, quoting Mathew Arnold, a British critic and poet, when he said that literature is connection. 
	The object of study in comparative literature is something questioned, as Bassnett comments that “critics at the end of the twentieth century, in the age of post-modernism, still wrestle with the same questions that were posed more than a century ago: What is the object of study in comparative literature? How can that comparison be the object of anything?”. The term “seems to arouse strong passions” since that to Benedetto Croce ‘comparative literature’ was a “non-subject” and ”obfuscatory, disguising the obvious, that is, the fact the true object of study was literary history.”
	The author explains how bitter was the discussion about comparative literature and also gives attention to the comparatist, a student in the field, when she indicates that in, Theory of Literature, a very important book written by Wellek and Warren, the authors claim that “the comparatist must possess special skills”, therefor he is seen “as someone with a vocation, as a kind of international ambassador working in the comparative literatures of united nations.” “For Wellek and Warren go on to state that ‘Literature is one; as art and humanity are one’” - which, for Bassett, “it is an idealistic vision”. 
The importance of the studies in the field of comparative literature in third world countries, such as India and Brazil, is not left aside by the author as she mentions that “yet even as that process was underway in the West, comparative literature began to gain ground in the rest of the world.” Taking Indian studies as an example, Ganesh Devy, and Indian professor, “suggests that comparative literature in India is directly linked to the rise of modern Indian nationalism, noting that comparative literature has been ‘used to assert the national cultural identity”.
The work of Indian comparatists “is characterized by a shift of perspective”, as Bassett mentions, and the “developments in comparative literature beyond Europe and North America do indeed cut through and across all kinds of assumptions about literature that have come increasingly to be seen as Eurocentric.” With that in mind, we know that the studies in comparative literature has been evolving, since “what we have today, then, is a very varied picture of comparative literary studies that changes according to where it is taking place.” 
After all the controversy about what is indeed comparative literature and its history, it is also necessary to discuss “what, after all, is English [Literature] today”. This question, made by author, puts at stake English as an ideology, as said by Terry Eagleton – “the emergence of English as an academic subject in the nineteenth century had quite clear political implications.”
 To discuss English Literature and ideology, the author mentions “Indian students [that] have the problem therefore of dealing with Shakespeare not only as a great figure in European literature, but also as a representative of colonial values: two Shakespeares, in effect, and in conflict with one another.” As a way out on this discussion, “the growth of national consciousness and the awareness of the need to move beyond the colonial legacy has led significantly to the development of comparative literature in many parts of the world”. Nationalism, then, is important to the studies in comparative literature in countries other than Europeans, as the “question of national culture and national identity was under discussion throughout Europe and the expanding United States of America”. 
“Another rapidly expanding development in literary studies, and one which has profound implications for the future of comparative literature, is ‘translation studies’,” says Bassett. She claims that these studies are “especially significant at moments of great cultural change” and that “the time is approaching for comparative literature to rethink its relationship with [them].”